North Texas Daily

I am sure George Washington would be turning in his grave to know that the thousands of people he set the precedent for, stormed the building that he himself laid the cornerstone in. Without any reverence to past presidents and a total disregard to human lives, thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol aiding in further solidifying just how far America’s racism bleeds into the backbone of society. 

As soon as the riot at the Capitol took place, there were immediate comparisons to the Black Lives Matter protests. For one, we saw a brute use of unnecessary force and backlash, for the other there was a suspicious lack of initial defense and a poor plan of how to deal with these domestic terrorists in advance. Could it have been because one crowd was majority white and the other was fighting for the betterment of Black people? I know the answer, but to get a better understanding, let’s compare the other racial disparities in this dysfunctional system that promises justice and equality. 

Racism has intertwined itself in so many aspects of American society that most Americans often forget about it until it’s uncovered in the media. However, the damage that it causes follows Black people around in almost every situation we participate in.

One glaring example included Black male offenders continuing to receive longer sentences than similarly situated white male offenders, according to the United States Sentencing Commission. It’s imperative that the judicial system is fair and impartial because people’s freedom depends on it, yet, the continued bias causes many to be in prison longer than their counterparts. 

Another example of just how far racism has seeped into our society is the treatment of Black women in the healthcare industry. This one is far more dangerous in the sense that a person’s well-being can be placed into the hands of someone who is racist and already has pre-conceived notions based on skin color.

Black women are often placed on the back burner by medical professionals and are not offered the same medical treatment as white women. A 2016 study done by the Journal of Clinical Oncology showed that there is an implicit racial bias in oncology interactions. While it may be harder to spot racism in the medical community, it has been studied and confirmed to actually exist.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. In education, Black, Indigenous, and other non-Black students of color attend schools that are statistically more likely to be under-resourced, outdated and be in poor conditions that can put the students in harm’s way. There have been continued efforts to better these conditions but many have not come into fruition, leaving millions of students stuck in subpar environments with little educational advancement.

Now, bringing it full circle to how the riot was handled. Besides the fact that the extremists were even allowed to enter the federal building, they proceeded to parade racist memorabilia. Hundreds of people were allowed to proudly show their faces, give their name to media outlets and make a mockery of government officials as they stormed the U.S. Capitol. In comparison to the Black Lives Matter protests where if they even got close to a building or police officers, they were met with tear-gas and rubber bullets. 

To all those who believe the response to the Capitol riot would have been the same if the crowd was majority Black, this has been disproven by not only how the riot was handled, but by the other racists practices within American society. On top of all the times America has continued to fail people of color, the response to the riot has exceeded our expectations by being compliant where otherwise chaos would have ensued. 

Featured Illustration by Olivia Varnell