The assault on the U.S. Capitol is another example of racial inequality

“When whites try to strike, they run into a small number of agents who can do nothing and even take selfies with terrorists,” he said.

After the mob walked for hours through Congress without anyone bothering her, her action was condemned by members of both parties. The episode generated surprise and disbelief in many citizens, who believed that such incidents were unthinkable in a democracy as entrenched as that of the United States.

However, the response to the chaos is consistent with an old pattern, in which racists are consented to and white supremacist violent ideology is tolerated, and more weight is given to white claims than to those of African Americans, often poor people. and marginalized.

Since the establishment of democracy, the destructive and obstructive behavior of whites has been categorized as patriotism. It is a fundamental aspect of a national myth about which claims are justified and which are not.

Newly elected Rep. Cori Bush was one of the protesters who confronted police and the National Guard in 2014, after Michael Brown died at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri. And he says the race of the peat members was a factor that facilitated their Congress takeover.

If the mob had been of African Americans, “they would have made us porridge,” Bush said.

“And these are the same ones who call us terrorists,” he added. “Confederate flags, ‘don’t step on me,’ ‘blue lives matter,’ Trump flags … All of this symbolizes the same thing. It symbolizes racism and white supremacy.”

Police presence at the Capitol was negligible compared to the deployment of national guards and other police agencies last year to protect businesses from luxury goods, government buildings and routes used by protesters across the country.

Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, the country’s largest digital platform promoting racial justice, told the AP that these episodes “are a clear example of how racism works in this country and the different rules that exist according to your race. “

The capture of Congress was not the only incident on Wednesday. Trump’s alleged supporters have reportedly disrupted order in legislatures across the country, including those in Georgia, New Mexico and Ohio.

It is not the first time that the unequal response of the police to such actions generates unrest and criticism. In May last year, a large group of mostly white people armed with rifles stormed the Michigan Legislature building in Lansing to protest the restrictions imposed by the state governor on containing the coronavirus. There were few arrests and almost no White House convictions.

In June, Trump administration officials had federal troops disperse a peaceful demonstration of Black Lives Matter with tear gas and stun grenades so the president could take a photo at a church near the White House.

Protesters from BLM and its supporters in Portland, Oregon, highlighted the huge disparity between the response to last year’s racial injustice protests in that city and the way violence in Washington was encouraged.

On July 27, after the deployment of agents to end weeks of protests, Trump tweeted, “Anarchists, agitators, protesters who destroy or damage our Federal Court in Portland or any government building in any city or state, will be tried under our new Statues and Monuments Act. MINIMUM 10 YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it. “

Thousands of congressional insurgents, many of them encouraged by Trump’s comments Wednesday of his election defeat, heard a much more compassionate message from his leader.

“I know what they suffer, how much it hurts,” Trump said in a video he posted via Twitter, later withdrawn. “Now they have to go home. We want them. They are very special.”