WHITE PRIVILEGE RIOT
White Privilege Riot
Like many other liberals, I have a few MAGA friends among my Facebook friends. I usually don't talk to them and over time, the number dwindles as they usually unfriend me. But today, I'm going to use my friend-for-now, Lynn in Oklahoma, as an example.
Lynn has always been kinda nice and I've only met her once in person over the past ten years or so since we've been friends. And with all due respect to Lynn, she's an idiot. Lynn believed Trump would win the election...and she still believes Trump is going to win the election. She believes that yesterday when Trump said a "new" administration would be taking over, that on January 20, it'll be a new Trump administration. Lynn says it's not over. Lynn is an idiot but perhaps attention should be paid to her as before the riots in Washington began, Lynn was online bragging about the upcoming attack in Washington.
Lynn spent days posting on Facebook about how "patriots" were going to force Congress to give Trump the election and prevent Biden from ever taking power. Surely, Lynn has been hanging out on other sites besides Facebook but she's not special, as Trump described his mob. Everybody knew there was a large mob headed to Washington to "protest" on January 6.
You did not not have hang out in the hate forums to know this. You don't even need a social media account to know it was going to happen. Donald Trump, the president (sic) was tweeting about it which the news covered. Everybody knew an angry mob of conspiracy-minded, democracy-hating goons were headed to the nation's capital. Everyone knew except for the people in charge of defending the nation's capital.
You may think that you don't call out the military for a protest. Protests are a Constitutionally-protected right. But, last June, the military was all over Washington, D.C. for the Black Lives Matter protests. Even on election night, helicopters were following BLM marchers through the city. And these marchers weren't breaking anything.
Last June, the DC National Guard was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to prevent protesters from going in. It's an open-air memorial and there's nothing there to break. Wednesday, the MAGA Mob, incited by Donald Trump for days, had already broken into the capitol building, breaking windows, destroying federal property, taking the speaker stand in the Senate chamber, destroying the office of the Speaker of the House, and even stealing property before the National Guard was even called.
Why wasn't Washington prepared? They knew this was coming. The leader of the federal government incited it. He called them out. He said something "wild" would happen January 6. After threatening for days they were going to attack the capital, the federal government did nothing to prepare. But for Black Lives Matter, planning protests in the streets, the big guns were called out.
Last June, BLM protesters were given a curfew to get off the streets, even though they were peaceful. Before the curfew took effect, Donald Trump had them teargassed and chased away from Lafayette Square in front of the White House so he could take a photo-op outside a church while holding a Bible upside-down.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump held a rally in Washington and told his MAGAts to storm the capitol building. He told them to be tough. Rudy Giuliani called for "trial by combat." Donald Trump Jr. told the crowd to "stand up and fight." Daddy Trump told the, "Let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue," and promised he would "be there with you." Instead, he ran back to his bunker inside the White House which can barely be seen for all the security around it.
There were 88 arrests from one protest last June. Wednesday, there were only 26 arrests on Capitol Hill.
The man photographed in Nancy Pelosi's office with his feet on her desk, who vandalized the place and stole government documents, is white nationalist Richard Barnett from Arkansas (shocker).
White nationalist Richard Barnett, who broke into and vandalized the office of the Speaker of the House, gave interviews to the national media where he brandished documents he stole. Law enforcement knows who he is, knows his face, and they know where he lives. And yet, he's still a free man. That is some serious white privilege.
A black protest wouldn't have made it up the steps of the capitol building less enough, through the doors. There's no way in Hell a member of the Black Panthers would have ever made it to Mitch McConnell's office to put his feet on the desk.
There were only 26 arrests on Capitol Hill Wednesday...and they even killed a cop. The Capitol Police, for their part, killed one of the terrorists. How many would they have killed if had been a cop-killing black protests? How many cops did Black Lives Matter kill last year? None. MAGA brought Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs to the capital. Black Lives Matter, did not.
MAGA has killed more police than Antifa or Black Lives Matter. Yet, who gets the military called out before the protest even starts?
The police and military in Washington failed. Their failure is based in systemic racism.
White privilege extends to white terrorists.