A View from London: Yes, America, This Is Who You Are
I am sitting in my home across the proverbial pond in London wondering why a portion of White America violently stormed and sieged the heart of U.S. democracy last Wednesday. People who watched the violence keep saying: “This is not who we are!” But this phrase expresses their strange cognitive dissonance when it comes to racism and violence. When I hear it — which is frequently — it makes me spit out my tea every time.
Yes, actually, this is who “you” are. It took a deadly invasion of the Capitol building encouraged by President Trump and supported by some Republican party loyalists and law enforcement officials for White supremacy to become as terrifyingly real to you as it has always been to Black Americans.
I can imagine how hard it must be for the parts of White America struggling with cognitive dissonance to admit that they wrongfully thought Black people were exaggerating the threats against Black lives. It is very telling that they didn’t give a damn until their way of life came under threat by their own.
And now the FBI warns of more armed insurrections ahead of the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. This contradiction is not lost on the global audience and has cost America its reputation as the bastion of democracy and the moral…
