This is Part 2 of a 2 Part Program. Part 1 was featured last week.
Insurrection Part 2:: The Chickens Coming Home To Roost with Eric Ward, Ex. Dir. and Senior Fellow with Southern Poverty Law Center and Race Forward and Ex. Dir. of Western States Center, a national hub for innovative responses to white nationalism, and structural inequality Ward is a nationally-recognized expert on the relationship between authoritarian movements, hate violence, and building toward an inclusive democracy.
While its a New Day of Infamy, its Rooted in Centuries Old White Supremacy!
The far-right siege on the U.S. Capitol has been called unbelievable, shocking, and beyond imagination, but, lets not forget the attacks on statehouses around the nation and all the symbols hate deployed (guillotine, hangmans noose, confederate and Nazi iconography), though they received far less coverage. The playbook for the Maga invasion of the nations Capitol building has been developing for years in plain sight, at far-right rallies in cities like Charlottesville, Berkeley and Portland, and then, in the past year, at state capitols across the country, where heavily armed white protesters have forced their way into legislative chambers to accuse politicians of tyranny and treason.
While what happened was outrageous and wrong, was it really unbelievable? The far rights fears about replacement of the white race and outsider invasions have become standard tropes at conservative media outlets, and its anger is routinely stoked by the president of the United States and his cronies. White nationalism is closer to the mainstream of American politics than ever before.
This is a dangerous and scary time, but it is not the first, and wont be the last eruption of the white supremacist violence we experience. Lets not get fooled thinking the 25th Amendment, Impeachment, prosecutions of insurrectionists and/or those in power who incited violence/sedition will end this. Historians are rightly making connections to the civil war, including declaring the confederacy finally stormed the Capitol. But white supremacy goes deeper than the civil war and pre-dates slavery " it is foundational to the U.S. settler state. So, instead of being shocked, this time, lets learn our history and lets start showing up for racial justice, against poverty and for economic justice, as internationalists and against militarism, and live that credo and standing firmly against red-baiting
Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
please notify us if you are planning to broadcast this radio program - knash@igc.org
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