With all the focus on the white violence at the US Capitol on January 6, let’s also recognize and rebuke the white violence that comes from the US Capitol regularly.
The US Capitol has always been a site of white violence. The physical structure of the US Capitol, and much of the work that goes on there, is not worth anyone’s tears. The white terrorist attack on January 6 brought together different sides of white violence in the same space.
The US Capitol began as a site of white violence with its construction. In the Capitol’s history, its construction was under Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of White Violence, known at the time as the Secretary of War.
In 2012, Guy Gugliotta wrote these words about the US Capitol and Jefferson Davis on a US government website:
“The U.S. Capitol as we know it today would never have existed without Jefferson Davis. In many ways, it is his building.”
Does that history count? Does that history influence what we see today?
After pictures of the white terrorist attack at the Capitol came out, I listened to a white reporter express shock that a white man brandished a Confederate flag inside the US Capitol. The white reporter didn’t acknowledge that Confederate sentiments are on the building and…
