The past four years have been extremely painful for many communities, including the varied and diverse communities of immigrants and noncitizens in the United States. Racism and xenophobia (not to mention sexism, heterosexism, and classism) targeted and harmed immigrants and people of color on a daily basis. January 6th was a horrendous but predictable culmination of the despicable policies and practices of the Trump administration and its base supporters. Make no mistake: Trump’s base supporters are white supremacists.
Yesterday, after two weeks of learning more and more about the horrors of January 6th Insurrection, I heard a different, uplifting perspective on what that insurrection means for Trumpism and white supremacy: January 6th was a desperate last act of a people who know that their beliefs, their tactics, their movement have reached the end. January 6th was not the beginning of a movement; it was a funeral. Trump and his supporters have no hope, no vision for the future; they only have anger and a tortured attempt to hold on to a past that they never had. (White supremacists may have ruled the US, but they were never the only Americans.)
Sometimes at a funeral we celebrate the life of the deceased. Here there is no cause to celebrate the life of the white supremacy movement. However, if January 6 was the funeral for the Trump era and the rule of white supremacy, then at least I find solace knowing that, freer from the chains of white supremacy, we can work to build a country that we love. Let’s get to work.
Thank you to Egberto Willies for posting Anand Giridharadas’s perspective on the events of January 6, 2021. My thoughts on the funeral for the Trump era come directly from this Facebook post: In strikingly optimistic prose, Anand… – Politics Done Right with Egberto Willies | Facebook.
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