OOC’S STATEMENT ON WHITE SUPREMACIST VIOLENCE IN D.C.
January 8, 2021
Just as we began celebrating the incredible work our Black-led organizing partners and some of our organizers accomplished in Georgia, we saw yet again the organizing axiom play out: The action is in the reaction.
While white supremacists attempted to seize our Capitol on Wednesday, Georgia voters chose to send the Black pastor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s former church and the descendant of Jewish immigrants to the U.S. Senate. These are historic, hard-won victories, achieved in the face of toxic narratives of white supremacy, Anti-Blackness and racial injustice that still dominate our public discourse.
Like many of you, we were shocked, angry, disheartened, and terrified by the chaos that shook our nation’s capital. Violent white mobs tried to take our democracy hostage by forcibly interrupting one of the most time-honored traditions of the electoral process. It was a deliberate attack on our country, on our people, urged on by a president who refuses to accept that millions of Americans rejected hatred and fear in order to move the country into a better future.
In recent weeks, we also saw Columbus police murder two Black men with impunity within mere days of each other - one shot in the back after returning home with dinner for his family, and the other shot dead in his friend’s garage after a holiday visit. The murders of Casey Goodson Jr. and Andre Hill are painful reminders of the racial violence and injustice that Black people have endured for centuries. And on Wednesday, we saw an abject double standard play out on Capitol Hill, when police failed to stop or at worst supported armed white vigilantes threatening our elected government. We saw the hypocrisy and complicity of some of those sworn to serve and protect us, who would much rather terrorize, maim, and kill Black people during protests for equal justice than hold white rioters accountable for threatening our democracy.
All of these events are connected. Our continued refusal to honestly confront our history of white supremacy has resulted in a bloody cleavage of America’s soul. For far too long, Black and brown people have known the harsh truth and struggles of living in a democracy that does not represent all of us. Many of us feel centuries-old pain deep in our bodies. We have first-hand knowledge of the dangers of white rage. Over and over again, we have been victimized by law enforcement - and by some of the public officials supporting them - that inflict and permit violence on Black and brown bodies.
We must take decisive, bold action to make our country a true democracy. Black, white or brown, we must stand with and for each other. We must demand our elected officials and public servants respect our rights, no matter who we are. That requires we all reimagine our future together.
As Black and brown people, women, immigrants, Indigenous and LGBTQIA people build power and bend the arch more closely towards freedom, we see the reactionary forces of white supremacy be encouraged, stoked and permitted to exist in this new future we are building. If we do not reckon truthfully with our past, we are doomed to repeat it.
As we close out the week, we want to encourage you to take space, be kind to yourself, lean into your community and relationships to process what this means for us all collectively. When we build power, there have always been and will continue to be counter-reactions. Yet, we continue to choose to make this the road we are walking down together because we are worth it.
