Today, the world remains stunned by the chaos on the steps of Capitol Hill. Pro-Trump rioters made their way into the building with ease, with some videos even showing police officers helping them. Social media users were quick to ask how differently police would have behaved had these rioters been Black with many pointing out that while just 52 arrests were made last night, over 14,000 were made at protests for George Floyd which were largely peaceful. Comparisons between Black Lives Matter ‘rioters’ and ‘looters’ and Capitol Hill’s Trump ‘protesters’ soon became the centre of conversation.
This discussion of labelling by politicians and media outlets often arises when white people, often with fascistic aims, commit acts of terrorism. When suicide bomber, Anthony Warner, decimated part of downtown Nashville on Christmas Day many asked why he, like many other white terrorists, was not explicitly called a terrorist in the way that the Western media is so quick to when an attacker is a Muslim of colour. There seems to be a huge awareness — at least amongst Black people and other people of colour — of the unique effects a specific label has on perceptions and treatment of us. Labelling is capable of reproducing and legitimising violence against us both on an interpersonal and state level. However, this debate should not overshadow the core issue — white supremacy.
One must ask, what is so surprising about these labels? Black people and allies have come together in the largest national protests we’ve seen for years, specifically to protest the state violence that has been enacted upon Black people for centuries; in response, the state labels these protesters as domestic terrorists, looters and rioters. Does it not follow that those who protest the state would be hated by said state? Let us bear in mind that this is a specifically white supremacist imperial state that thrives on Black demise[1]. This state’s entire history can be boiled down to the maintenance of white power through any means necessary — exerting this power over its Black citizens and, quite literally, the entire global south. This is not a state that is open to more than marginal change, no, this is an empire driven by a burning desire to keep its position as world leader — as Master[2]. Does it not follow that those who dare to challenge that position be considered enemies of the state? Terrorists.
And here lies the issue, there is nothing to be gained from a debate over who gets to be called a protester and who gets to be a terrorist when we are discussing a fundamentally anti-Black state. To question these labels is to downplay the entire structuring of the United States of America. It is to delude oneself that this state has ever been interested in the needs of Black people, has ever been in pursuit of freedom for all and has ever been open to change. The Capitol Hill Trump supporters’ success has nothing to do with whether their behaviour fit into our liberal standards of decency and everything to do with the fact that the police, as a crucial pillar of white supremacist state, were and always have been on their side. Whilst these people protest the so-called political elite, the Democratic Party, they take no issue with the US at its core. And likewise, whilst the Democratic Party condemns their actions, they too take no issue with maintaining US power across the globe.
We will get nowhere in fighting off fascism if we are not ready to accept the true nature of the enemy. This was not an out of the blue act of Trump supporter madness but rather just one of many displays of the grip white supremacy continues to hold in the West. So sure, let’s call them terrorists but let’s also remember that their ideology is white supremacy, and their organisation is the United States of America.
[1] See Ruha Benjamin in Clarke, A.E. & Haraway, Donna Jeanne, 2018. Making kin not population, Chicago, IL : Prickly Paradigm Press for more on the dynamic between white life and Black demise
[2] See Singh, J., 2018. Unthinking mastery : dehumanism and decolonial entanglements,Durham : Duke University Press for more on the Master/Slave dichotomy of power
