We Should Not Whitewash What Took Place At The Nations Capitol
I will never forget January 6th, 2021, as I watched a substantial majority of white Americans storm and attack our nation's capitol. I, like many other people, sat in a state of shock, intimidation, and fear. One must feel the highest level of comfort and freedom by flying to our nation's capital and carrying the confederate flag. One must feel maximum comfort and freedom to storm the nation's capitol, force, and be allowed through armed security barriers due to the color of your skin being white. One must feel the extreme comfort and freedom to chase armed guards and rest their feet on the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives' desk.
Being a black man in America, I do not have these luxuries. I do not have this level of comfort. I don't have the privilege to feel always protected and confident around police or armed security. The entire time I watched this unfold and connected with a few of my black friends around this situation, there were consistent themes.
How privileged it must be to live this freely
If these were black terrorist, we would have been murder on the spot
As I continued to digest this with my black peers, I heard nothing from my white peers and friends. When George Floyd and Breonna Taylor protests were happening, I was almost forced into unpacking some of those conversations with my white friends. I hate the fact that it has been essentially radio silence from them on this situation. We danced around it, and we avoided it. We moved on. I felt the same this week while working in corporate America, we sent out an email, but we did not unpack how threatened people of color felt over this entire situation. To see confederate flags, Nazi sweatshirts, and black officers chased at the nation's capital is daunting.
We need to show up and do better as a nation and as a mixed group of people living together. I don't want to only talk about what the world deems as "black situations" I want you to unpack the white situations that I do not understand. I do not understand the pride behind the confederate flag. I don't understand how my experience living in America is starkly different from yours. I don't understand why people felt so privileged and entitled to attack our nation's capital and for only a handful of people to be physically harmed. When black and brown people say that we live in two different Americas, do you understand now? If not, let's talk about it.
Black and brown people do not want those white attackers or others to have been shot or killed. We want to be treated with the same honor, dignity, and respect that white Americans are granted. I am highly educated, am a law-abiding citizen, pay a lot in taxes, and give my time back to the community. I want a fair shot while living in this country as well. My white friends, especially my white brothers, help me unpack this. Let's not dance around the more challenging conversations. This attack was very traumatic; the world was watching, and black and brown people cannot just move on. To companies, give this the same level, if not a higher level of attention and time you committed to the protests earlier this year. Talk about it, check in on your staff, really ask them how they are doing and not how their weekend went. Black and Brown people are not living for the weekends right now. We are living and fighting for our freedom, respect, and equal opportunities.