The year was 1814, a brand-new country by the name of The United States of America had just emerged from the colonies under British rule; they just entered one of their first wars, now it’s 2021 and the insurrection stays the same.

The War of 1812 was the last time the Capitol had been stormed back in 1814, and as of the first week of 2021, January was the last time it was stormed.

It was a time of disbelief and shock, no one knew it was going to happen, but I for one, am not surprised one bit.

After four years of fanning the flames of hatred from white supremacists, it came as a no-brainer to me that thousands of Trump extremists thought they could overthrow the government just because they didn’t get their way.

It’s not the fact that they raided the Capitol that makes me mad, it’s how easy it was that makes me furious, where were the rubber bullets and chokeholds?

That’s right- where were the rubber bullets, tear gas, National Guard, and excessive force that they had ready by the time Black Lives Matter protestors arrived on sight?

There weren’t any because the people there were white.

When the safety departments claim that they didn’t have enough people or didn’t know the raid on the Capitol was coming, it’s laughable.

There was absolutely no hesitation to send out practically all of the nation’s military forces when People of Color protested for human rights, when we took to the streets to beg not to be killed.

The difference between them and me might be the amount of melanin in my skin and beliefs on a different end of the spectrum, but it makes all the difference when people like me go out and protest in the streets.

I ask why they weren’t prepared for such a deliberate attack, but then I remember it’s like asking why Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus are never on the stage together, they’re the same people attending the riot.

An embarrassing amount of these protestors were law enforcement officers, Trump has given them his outpouring support when this militarizes force was finally called out for getting away with unjustly murdering and incarcerating People of Color.

While the Capitol was raided and lawmakers’ lives were put at risk, officers were there taking selfies with rioters and directing them where offices were, they weren’t unprepared, they were in the mob themselves.

I want them all removed from their positions, this kind of hatred is absolutely unacceptable and should come with serious consequences.

The far-right party called BLM protestors thugs and savages, meanwhile the president tells his fans they are patriots and that he loves them.

Right-wingers have called democrats hypocrites for not condemning the BLM riots, but it was never the intention of those protests to become violent, the police incited violence continuously when they met us with weapons of war.

This raid was fully planned, people planned on Parler, Facebook, Twitter, and any other platform for months because their president brainwashed these crazy them that he had actually won an election he had, in reality, lost by millions of votes.

It is evident that this one-term president and his posse don’t care about all American lives, they only care about their white supporters so they can continue to vote them into office.

These people need to be held to the same degree that we were, they need to be seen as an even greater threat to this country because their deranged far-right ideologies grounded in conspiracy theories is actual lunacy.

This is no longer an argument about the First Amendment- it’s an argument that should have denounced white supremacy and any type of misinformation from the beginning.

White nationalists have tried to write off their lunacy as protected under their First Amendment rights to free speech, but this type of speech endangers the very means of democracy, it threatens what little dignity this country has left.

Police met others and me in the streets with pepper spray, riot gear, and weapons of war yet they practically gave right-wing rioters a guided tour into the Capitol building.

Might as well hand them pamphlets.

For decades, Americans have tried to sweep this issue of race under the rug since slavery ended in the US, but they failed to face the fact that racism is still potent, it’s our modern-day poison.

We have glorified and glamorized white history in this country for far too long, and the moment People of Color rise up to get the recognition they deserve- whether it’s through protesting or voting in a new president that voters feel will represent them, they attempt to overthrow the government.

God forbid they have someone who will hold them accountable to their racist upbringings, it’s their worst fear.

Martin Luther King Jr. may have said that “A riot is the language of the unheard” but these people aren’t oppressed, they’re upset by the fact that they didn’t get their way for once and they feel so superior to us who are underrepresented that they committed federal crimes at one of the most revered places in US government.

If these people happened to be of color protesting that their life mattered, or had any immigrant status, they would have been shot dead on the steps of the Capitol.

There was no better way to showcase our not-so-internalized racism by what happened on that doomed Wednesday, the government and the domestic terrorists showed who they really favor in this country.

It’s okay to riot if you’re white, but if you’re anything else, you might as well build your own coffin, because the consequences are not equal.