Friday, January 8, 2021
“Herd Impunity”: White Privilege Flaunts Its Birthright Fantasies
On January 5th, my poet-translator friend Robin Myers tweeted, “We’re currently approaching herd impunity.” Never has a pun proved so prophetic!!!
The next day, a mob of white supremacists stormed the capitol building. Meeting only accommodating resistance to their intrusion, they proceeded to trash the offices of our government’s representatives in a display of contempt for democratic norms that exponentially exceeds anything I witnessed on the part of demonstrators in the 1960s. This was a massive hit job on representative government.
One of the key lessons to take away from this rampage is the extent to which white privilege truly does permeate the behavior of the police forces in this country. According to Katie Benner, in the article cited below, “Capitol Police (have) not explained why they arrested only 14 people and let hundreds more peacefully walk out of the building.”
You read that correctly: “hundreds” of people who had just participated in trashing our democracy were allowed to “peacefully walk out of the building” and return without any impediment whatsoever to the next order of business in their lives. At the very least, they should have been required to present personal identification to be recorded by police records for judicial action.
What the hell is going on here? I think of all the demonstrations that I’ve attended where there are obviously people taking photographs meant to identify those of us who are engaged in legitimate, peaceful protest, and yet the FBI and the local police end up depending on social media to attempt to identify the perpetrators of this outrage?
Any white person who would dare to suggest that white privilege is just a fantasy of African-American radicals really needs to do some soul-searching here. The contrast between how BLM protestors were met last summer in D.C. and how these protestors were granted a police escort — yes, a police escort — back to their daily lives is the most public proof I have ever encountered of the extent to which political power in this country is marinated in the temerity of white privilege and white supremacy.
The person who set this demonstration in motion needs to be held immediately accountable. His “very fine people” have crossed a line that requires an appropriate rebuke of his actions as the president. I call upon our representatives to take immediate action to remove the Commander-in-Chief from his position. I realize that the U.S. Senate will not vote to confirm impeachment, but people in Congress who are on the side of those who besmirched our democracy need to go on record for approving of this travesty. Their cowardice should not be allowed to slip into the shadows of mumbled apologies and half-hearted, self-serving recriminations.
*. *. *
Justice Dept. Open to Pursuing Charges Against Trump in Inciting Riot
The top federal prosecutor in Washington said investigators were examining anyone involved, “not only the people who went into” the Capitol.
By Katie Benner
• Jan. 7, 2021Updated 8:25 p.m. ET
KEY PARAGRAPH
He said the Capitol Police had not explained why they arrested only 14 people and let hundreds more peacefully walk out of the building. The chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, resigned on Thursday, amid questions about his force’s failure to protect the building.
Check out a featured interview by Camilo Jaramillo with Colombian author Gloria Susana Esquivel at
@worldlittoday
! Her most recent work ANIMALS AT THE END OF THE WORLD is in #translation by
@robin_ep_myers
, who has been previously published at LALT! http://ow.ly/AWLZ50CYWQH
About Bill Mohr