Under the baobab: Is this America? Confronting a complicated identity

It was the evening of Jan. 6. The pillagers had completed their murders, mayhem and destruction. The National Guard had finally removed them from the Capitol building. Two African American officers who had spent the day battling the hundreds of invading white supremacists, Nazis, terrorists collapsed on the floor of the People’s House. One of them screamed out loud and then sobbed.

“Is this America?”

The Capitol is the shrine of our secular society. The White House gets a new tenant every few years. The presidential monuments are stopover tourists spots. There are several national cathedrals. In the People’s House our chosen leaders carry on the nation’s business, and set the nation’s agenda. Its dome shelters the sacred remains of our fallen heroes. In just this past year, Justice Ginsburg, Congressman Lewis and officer Brian Sicknick have lain in state there. Then as the Congress went about the business of a 233-year-old tradition of a peaceful transitioning of the presidency, self-privileged marauders invaded. They destroyed relics of our collective memory, threatened to lynch our elected leaders by erecting a gallows scaffold. They made pipe bombs to augment their guns. They chanted obscenities and spread feces on the walls, floors and historic monuments.

Is this America?

I am offended and bruised. The Capitol was built by my enslaved ancestors. It is hallowed ground to me. Back during the Ford Administration, it was also my workplace. I was an intern caseworker for a Congressman. For six months I walked those halls on which the New Know-Nothings defecated. Like many others I consider our Constitution, and the government it established, fundamental to our civil society. Though it has taken most of 233 years to begin to live its ideals. On Jan. 6 we all saw who we would be without it.

Is this America?

It hasn’t always been. America had flawed beginnings. A quarter of the country’s people were held in a system of chattel bondage. The original inhabitants, native people, could not be citizens. Women did not have the voting franchise. We did not all share the same values . The country was a work in progress. What sustained us on our trek to build a nation was hope, the possibilities of opportunity, a belief in the dignity of the individual and a belief in the primacy of law. The domestic terrorists who invaded the Capitol imposing their will over the law, in order to keep their candidate in the presidency, were not just intruders, they were desecraters.

It is no accident that so many white supremacist groups were well represented in the mob. A belief in a false system of racial superiority leads to the erroneous notion of exaggerated personal privilege. It is a very familiar concept to African Americans. It is called a lynch mob, a group of people embolden by a wolf pack mentality. To see such a mob invading the halls of our sacred institution is tragic.

On Friday at the conclusion of the formal impeachment proceedings, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, paused the proceedings, an often heated debate that had pretty much followed party lines. They introduced a joint resolution recognizing Officer Eugene Goodman, another African American policeman. He had risked his life to save members of the Congress during the insurrection. He had confronted the lynch mob by himself, diverting their attention and leading them away from the Senate chambers while Senators were still being evacuated to safety. Everyone agreed that but for his courage this disaster would have been worse. The entire collective body of the Senate gave Officer Goodman a five-minute standing ovation. He was unanimously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal:

“By putting his own life on the line and successfully, single-handedly leading insurrectionists away from the floor of the Senate Chamber, Officer Eugene Goodman performed his duty to protect the Congress with distinction, and by his actions, Officer Goodman left an indelible mark on American history.”

Sisters and Brothers, is this America?

You bet it is.

Stay strong. Talk to each other. Love each other. Don’t quit.