While the Capitol riot was still unfolding on January 6, with Trump supporters scaling walls, smashing windows, beating up police officers, and threatening reporters’ lives, some white friends contacted me privately, asking if I was sure that “every single one of them [the rioters] is white,” as I reported in a Facebook post and on this blog.
I responded that I had been watching the insurrection for 90 minutes and had not seen a single Black person who wasn’t a journalist, police officer, or member of Congress. And I posed a question in return: If it turns out that one Black person participated, would it change anything?
If I did a “Where’s Waldo?” and took a magnifying glass to the innumerable images of the riot, searching for a single, possibly Black face, would it change for a second that the Cult of Trump is a white movement, predicated on racist assumptions that our president has frequently expressed and that are transparent to anyone with even a passing regard for African-American concerns?
Now just so you know that, as a journalist with more than 30 years of professional experience, I am careful with words, I shall reveal herewith that I think I saw one light-skinned guy among the rioters who might be Black, but I’m not sure, because I only glimpsed him for a fraction of a second after three straight hours of television coverage, and, well, it’s a silly point to begin with.
I’m sure a lot of my white friends are having second thoughts about their support of Donald Trump now that we’ve seen the culmination of his cult members’ madness. As a white person myself, I’m inclined to say “be patient with them,” but that, of course, is easy to say precisely because I’m white. I can step into the fray for a moment, pen a few strong words, then retreat into the white evangelical world of suburban living, Christian private schools, and seeker-friendly church services finely gauged never to offend anyone.
(And, when the chips are down, these churches protect their affluent white base. Because those are the guys on the elder boards who write the big checks.)
It is because of white privilege, and the astonishing ignorance of history and the dynamics of racism that I have witnessed again and again among my white evangelical peers, that Christian organizations and churches are now stumbling over themselves to issue statements denouncing the violence of the Capitol riot and calling on those who are responsible to be brought to justice, without ever mentioning who those mysterious individuals might be.
And we know exactly who is responsible. President Donald Trump, who was partying with family members, eyes glued to the television, just before the riot began.
Black Christians have been warning us for more than four years that it would come to this. They clearly saw the racism embedded in the Cult of Trump, and they tried to tell us again and again, just like the stream of prophets God sent to Israel and Judah before Jerusalem’s total destruction in 586 B.C.
Our Bible records that Israel and Judah ignored, gaslighted, and killed most of those guys, just like we’ve silenced the voices of Black people in our diverse congregations, delighted to have them serve as the sprinkle on our vanilla cupcake as long as they never confront us about our racism.
So spare me the empty statements and equivocating posts. If you’re not at the point where you can name the perpetrator (Trump) or the sin (racism), you’re not ready to take a stand.
