We Know Why Police Went Easy on the Pro-Trump Terrorists
It’s simple: Police are a regime built to uphold white supremacy
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In an America that did not know President Trump, many of our federal government’s bureaucratic mundanities were hidden from view. I’d wager most of us didn’t know about the many forms of vote certification that undergird what this country likes to call a peaceful transfer of power. But the president’s insistence on his own reelection, however false, has raised a broad awareness to that process — and has birthed, for many of his supporters, a deep resentment of it.
Yesterday afternoon, domestic terrorists broke into the U.S. Capitol building by smashing through a first-floor window using a riot shield taken from a Capitol Police officer, a fitting way to start the day’s fellowship between police and rioters. Trump supporters, many of whom chanted things like “back the blue” at this summer’s Movement for Black Lives protests, saw a return on investment: Police escorted a white woman hand in hand down the steps of the Capitol building, took selfies with insurrectionists, and, when the day was over, held the door open for the terrorists as they exited the building.
In those moments, police confirmed what many of us already knew: They are part of a regime built upon and with the express purpose of upholding white supremacy. If you protested in the summer of 2020 or bore witness to activists and organizers doing their good work, you might have heard two questions demanded of officers: “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?” Yesterday, we re-received our answer.
During those summer months, police did not protect protesters; they attacked them. Police ran their cars through crowds of activists in Detroit, kettled and assaulted protesters in New York, and perhaps most famously, tear-gassed D.C. demonstrators outside the White House so the president could take a photo in front of the historic St. John’s Church. These are just a few examples—the ones we’ve seen on camera. Oftentimes over the…
