Stop Comparing The Capitol Riots To The Black Lives Matter Protests
In the wake of the January 6 terror attacks on the US Capitol, it is impossible to scroll through social media without encountering someone trying to derail any conversation about radical right-wing violence by saying “but what about the Black Lives Matter protests last summer?” These attempts to falsely equate protests against police brutality with the Capitol insurrection are, generally speaking, bad faith arguments made by people with antipathy towards social justice movements who want to simultaneously invalidate the BLM movement and excuse the atrocious violence at the Capitol. Although it is usually wise not to engage with bad faith arguments, this particular response is so widespread and toxic that ignoring it entirely also has great potential for harm. If someone you know is sufficiently unfamiliar with the entire history and modern political landscape of the United States to confuse a Black liberation movement with Proud Boys and Three Percenters storming the US Capitol, this explainer is for you.
Black Lives Matter is resistance to oppression. It is a reaction to the unjust carceral system, which continues to commodify and profits off of Black bodies a century and a half after chattel slavery was abolished. It is a countermeasure to the ongoing state sanctioned violence against Black people that ossifies racial disparities in wealth, in health, in opportunity. It is a cry for justice that seeks to create a more equitable society through protest, legislative reform, and removing barriers to participation in the democratic process. This struggle for freedom and survival, and for police to be held accountable to the people they serve, has often been met with violent suppression by the very institutions the movement seeks to reform. All summer long, protestors were met by police with tear gas, with rubber bullets, with beatings. Although property destruction sometimes occurred during the clashes resulting from police aggression, it is incredibly disingenuous to portray this as a goal of the movement. Protests aimed at reforming and transforming our institutions cannot be compared to an attempt to violently overthrow them.
An honest assessment of any popular movement must include the stated goals of that movement. The crowd at the Capitol was not an ideological monolith- they included ordinary MAGA enthusiasts, blackpilled QAnon conspiracists, white supremacist anti-government militias, Boogaloo boys hoping for a second civil war, Confederate flag waving Lost Cause diehards, and outright Nazis. The common cause uniting them was a desire to overturn an election and install Trump as an unelected leader. They came with pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails and zip tie handcuffs in a profoundly anti-democratic attempt to overturn the will of the people and consolidate power in the hands of the far right. There is no intellectually honest comparison to be made between Black Lives Matter, which seeks to reform our democracy in a way that ensures greater freedom and equality for all, with an attempt to undermine and overturn the democratic process.
If you still insist on comparing the Capitol insurrection to the summer of 2020, the correct analogy is to compare the people storming the Capitol in an attempt to quash any challenge to white supremacy and shield an embattled president from accountability seize with the violent riots by police who also wanted to seize and hold onto power and avoid accountability. The fact that the protestors at the Capitol eventually clashed with some police is incidental. Police fighting BLM protestors and MAGA militias storming the Capitol were both violently defending white supremacy. It is morality, not hypocrisy to support Black Lives Matter while condemning the treasonous assault on the US Capitol building.
Author; Aimee Baumann- Dudenhoeffer, MD, Physician Women SOAR Editorial Board
Founders Drs. Loucresie Rupert and Kadijah Ray started Physician Women SOAR (Support, Organize, Advocate and Reclaim) in 2017 to create a truly intersectional space to elevate marginalized voices. Physician Women SOAR members are dedicated to anti-racism work in order to learn how to better serve their communities. Through social justice efforts, the organization has donated over 600K to various political and social causes.
2. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-hill-insurrection-extremist-flags-soh/index.html
