What else are we going along with?

In the aftermath of yesterday’s attack on the capitol, everyone in this country, and around the world, is making sense of what happened.

Language comes to the fore. Were the attackers protestors or rioters? A mob? A deranged group of white nationalists? Conspiracy theorists?

It’s clear to me, and pretty much everyone on my Instagram feed, that this was terrorism, led by the President of the United States, and aided and abetted by law enforcement, who literally opened the gates for the mob to enter the capital.

Picture a group of people of any other color than white entering the capitol and being met with anything other than massive, deadly force. It’s probably pretty hard to imagine. Because that’s not how this country operates.

Remember the Black Lives Matter protests where peaceful marchers were attacked by the state with tear gas, flash grenades, and rubber bullets? By right-wing militants, who literally shot people in the crowd in front of police? The now-ubiquitous phalanx of heavily armored troopers that brutalized crowds peacefully protesting the murder of Alton Sterling and so many others in the past decade?

Now, let me be clear — I’m bringing up Black Lives Matter to make a point about differential treatment by law enforcement based on race. There is no kinship between protesting for the right to live and violent disruption of democratic government proceedings because your guy didn’t win.

As we know, many people used their power to open the gates for this attack to happen — or failed to use it to prevent it. Republicans have continually been supporting Trump, allowing him to inch closer and closer to the mayhem he ignited yesterday. They get to “stand for democracy” today, but don’t forget how they have continually been permissive of this soon-to-be-ex-president as he steadily dismantled protections and advantages for people other than rich white men, and allowed for any and all violent activity supporting him to continue.

If Mike Pence can stand before us and denounce the violence of yesterday, after abetting its growth until then, it stands to reason that many people are “distancing” themselves from the behavior of the mob. That distancing allows him, and us, to cast blame on the rioters, and position ourselves as “above that” and “better.” In other words, “Trump did this! Not me.”

But the forces — some invisible, others vivid— that allowed the attack to happen yesterday are the same forces that allow other, older, and ongoing violence to continue on a daily basis.

The mob — the terrorists — were protected by their whiteness. 14 out of a crowd of hundreds rioters (some of whom were armed) were arrested last night. In contrast, thousands of Black people marching for their right to live, and non-Black people standing with them, were arrested during the Black Lives Matter protests. This is how the machinery of the state functions.

These are the same forces that allow state violence to protect white people from criminal justice involvement (in the form of a wink and a slap on the wrist) and shuttle huge numbers of Black and brown people into cells for lesser — or nonexistent — infringements.

Let’s not stop there. These are the same forces that allow me — as a white man — to have easier access to a home loan, education, COVID-safe employment, and the benefit of the doubt. That opened doors to advanced placement classes, career opportunities, and the freedom to walk down the street without harassment.

It’s easy to look at this mob and say — wow, I am ashamed of them. That’s not America. That’s certainly not me.

What’s harder is to look at our own lives. Particularly for white folks. What doors are opened for us that are violently shut for others? What are we permitting? What gates to violence, in the name of protecting white people (including us and those we love), are we opening ourselves? What gates to violence do we allow ourselves not to see?

When we are clear that someone else did this, we get to feel good about ourselves. That does nothing to dismantle state violence. Pence said “Violence never wins.” Actually, this nation relies on violence to maintain a system that benefits who it benefits. And in fact, it doesn’t always look like a police barricade. Usually, violence looks like being comfortable with how things are.

Which family member have we not reached out to? Which policy have we allowed to continue? Where have we directed our attention and energy — to being “right” or to making things actually different? Where has comfort been more important to us than justice?

Today, we can celebrate that Black leaders organized a movement that flipped the state of Georgia, and the U.S. Senate, in a decades-old project that prevailed despite the presence of the forces that conspired to prevent its fruition. This wholly inspiring and jaw-dropping effort gives us a chance to demand strong, comprehensive policy action that can open the gates to basic rights and freedoms for all Americans.

But, my dear white friends and family, let us notice that Black people keep saving us from ourselves. After EVERYTHING.

The mob is us. What happened yesterday is America. There is nothing shocking, new, or surprising about it.

What are we going to do about it?