The Police State and the Democratic Republic…
Our nation is usually referred to as a democracy or a democratic republic. It hides behind this facade refusing to acknowledge that it is at the same time also a police state, not for everyone mind you, but for Black people and Brown people (like myself), it has always been this way. When people of color gather peacefully to protest violations of our rights, racism, etc. they are tear gassed, shot, knocked to the ground, detained without cause, arrested on bogus charges, permanently injured, called a danger to the country, demonized by right-wing media, the list could go on forever.

However, when non-Hispanic white people descend on the Capitol, there is no police waiting in riot gear like there was at Black Lives Matter protests, the national guard was not already there waiting for them, as they often had been when BLM protesters arrived to protest peacefully. Trump supporters planned it on social media, it was encouraged by Trump and many other republican politicians long before it happened and yet there was no enhanced security, offers of help were turned down repeatedly in the days leading up to it and after it began it was allowed to continue for hours before the doors were held open for them to leave.

In contrast, Brown and Black people can’t even peacefully protest on public streets or in public parks without being overpoliced, without being attacked by police &/or white nationalists, without being called people who hate ‘our’ country, which implies that Black and Brown people are not considered part of ‘their’ country. I would argue that Brown and Black people have more of a right to be here than they do, this is because Native Americans were here first, the entire U.S. was stolen from them, when it comes to Latinos/Hispanics nearly all of us have at least some ancestors who were native to this hemisphere and when it comes to Black people, their ancestors were kidnapped, held against their will and forced to come here to be the slaves of white people who believed they had the right to own human beings who were not white. Another reason they enslaved people from Africa that is often overlooked is because the Native Americans the Europeans tried to enslave first were dying in extremely high numbers from European diseases they had absolutely no immunity too.

People who are non-Hispanic white live in a different America, they live in an America that does not treat it’s citizens as though they are an assault on democracy. In non-Hispanic white America, you can disrupt Congress, you can break into the offices of elected officials, you can threaten and chase a Black police officer (anyone else not surprised that they chose to do this to a Black officer?), you can destroy government property, you can most likely even steal from both the building itself and from the offices of elected officials, they can trespass in the halls of Congress, they can be recorded on numerous cameras, they do not have to cover their faces because they know few if any of them will be arrested, they can post to their social media accounts admitting guilt while inside the Capitol and take selfies with police officers. This can go on for hours and after that you can then have doors held open for you and have your hand held as you leave the building. In their America, they know they will suffer few if any consequences, they will not have their hands zip-tied behind their backs and the majority of them will either not be arrested at all or will have their charges dropped or reduced.
Brown and Black people demanding the rights we are entitled to as Americans threatens the status quo, it is a threat to the idea that Brown and Black people are somehow the cause of every white person’s problems. Republicans want white people to blame people of color, they do not want them to realize that it is their own republican party’s agenda, priorities, allegiance to corporations and their assault on environmental regulations that are the true cause of their problems. When white people cannot get jobs, the blatant lie that Brown people are stealing their jobs is pushed as the reason sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly. When crime rises, conservatives blame it on people of color, mostly Black men. When white people get sick and/or die, it is not their refusal to abide by social distancing guidelines, it is China’s fault or it’s asylum seekers fault, which they use as an excuse to unlawfully deport unaccompanied minors who are Brown. White people blame the fact health insurance is expensive on Brown & Black people who they believe get the same medical care they receive without paying for it, instead of taking a couple of minutes to research the actual reason, which is that republican politicians are given unbelievable amounts of money by pharmaceutical companies and healthcare companies to not limit what pharmaceutical companies and healthcare companies are allowed to charge Americans, even though all other wealthy nations set limits on how much they can charge. An America where white people stop blaming Brown and Black people for their problems is an America where republicans could become the target of white rage. They will do anything to avoid becoming their target regardless of how many Brown & Black people are killed, no matter how much we are discriminated against, we are their scapegoats. If white people are focused on us, they aren’t paying attention to the fact that the republican politicians they vote for do not work for them and that they actually work for the pharmaceutical companies, healthcare companies, oil companies, defense contractors, etc. at the expense of everyone’s quality of life regardless of whether we are Black, Brown or white.