By Diana Sanchez
In June of 2020, hundreds of BLM supporters gathered outside of the White House in order to protest police brutality after the death of George Floyd in the arms of police officers. The crowd consisted of people of different ethnic backgrounds who were fighting for racial equality. On January 6th, 2021, hundreds of Trump supporters gathered just blocks away from where the Senate and Congress were meeting. After listening to a seditious Trump speech, they walked to Capitol Hill forced their way inside the building. They were angry about the results of the 2020 election, and insisted that the presidency had been “stolen” from Trump and his followers. Most of the people in the crowd were white U.S. citizens who deliberately smashed windows to break into the capitol building, where some even spread feces on the walls and stole items from governmental hallways and offices.
The Black Lives Matter Movement roared to international attention in 2020 when a video came out where a black unarmed man named George Floyd was publicly killed in the hands of white policemen. There were protests for days that were calling for justice for this event, as well as other needless deaths of black Americans weeks and even years before the George Floyd event. The National Guard was immediately called to help police during these protests. There are many videos online of the violence that the police used against marchers during these protests. There are videos of police throwing tear gas at non-violent protesters outside of the White House, in order for President Donald Trump to have a photoshoot outside of a church.
Before the storming of the U.S. capitol, President Trump held a gathering for his supporters outside of the White House. He told his supporters, “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… our Republicans, the weak ones… the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.” Trump supporters gathered outside of the U.S. capitol waving American and Confederate flags yelling that the 2020 election was stolen from them. Within an hour, the Trump supporters forced their way inside the capitol building where members of congress and the senate were meeting by smashing windows and forcing doors open. The supporters were breaking things and roaming through the halls, some taking selfies and stealing souvenirs. Yelling “Hang Mike Pence!,” they shoved and beat Capitol security officers who tried to prevent the mayhem.
These two historic events have ignited controversy in the nation, because they highlight a double standard in the way law enforcement chooses to do its job. During the Black Lives Matter demonstration, the media was filled with videos of protesters getting pushed and hit by police. Police also threw tear gas at nonviolent protesters. Meanwhile, the Trump supporters who were aggressive and breaking into the capitol were not met with the same type of force.
Videos remain on the internet (many proudly posted by participants) which show police and Trump supporters taking selfies together, the police stepping aside to allow rioters into capitol buildings, and even police helping a woman in a Trump MAGA hat down some Capitol stairs. The Black Lives Matter Global Network, who is an organization that helps fight for the wellbeing of black people said, “When Black people protest for our lives, we are all too often met by National Guard troops or police equipped with assault rifles, shields, tear gas and battle helmets,” the group said. “Make no mistake, if the [Trump] protesters were Black, we would have been tear gassed, battered, and perhaps shot.”
On June 1st of 2020, the National Guard in DC were fully armed to stand outside of the Lincoln Memorial during a BLM march just because there were peaceful protesters near the White House; presumably fearing that they would destroy the property. But on January 6th, there were already rioters inside the U.S. capitol before the National Guard was called. There were live streams uploaded by rioters which showed that police supposedly there to protect the capitol, posing for pictures with rioters. There is even evidence that Trump supporters had been planning this event for weeks online, which reveals a lack of police effort to protect the capitol and its lawmakers.
The January 6th event resulted in conversations around the world about white supremacy in the U.S., spurred by reporters, celebrities, or other cultural influencers saying that the suspicious ease with which Trump’s violent mob invaded Capitol Hill proves how some white people think that they own the system, and that the rioters weren’t afraid of the police because the “police are them.”