We’re only 7 days into the new year, and what seems to be the general consensus on social media is that so far we are living in the “sequel to 2020”. News headlines and the general public have been arrested with the scenes of what was allowed to transpire at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. as a vast number of unmasked Trump supporters breached the building, amped up by one of his defiant speeches that claimed, once again, the election was fraudulent AND that he rightfully is the next President of the United States.
“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” said Trump to a crowd of his adoring fans and emotional supporters. Once incited, the crowd made their way to the esteemed government building and proceeded to trash and defame offices, while lawmakers were forced to hide.
Social media was incensed all day, January 6th, as the events unfolded and videos and snapshots of the melee went viral. By nightfall, four people had passed. While citizens worldwide watched in horror and expressed messages of disappointment and anger towards the situation, Black Twitter, in particular, erupted as they proceeded to highlight the major differences in the way procedures were handled by law enforcement in the past towards Black and Brown people as opposed to the events of the Capitol Raid.
Imagine if this mob at Capitol Hill comprised of Muslims or Black people ?
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) January 6, 2021
“What if they were Black” circulated throughout social media, becoming one of the main trending topics on Twitter. Rapper Killer Mike held a discussion on Late Night with Seth Meyers where he spoke on the unprecedented event and denounced it as simply “evil.” “I don’t encourage what we saw. And, essentially, it is violence. It is evil. It is I-didn’t-get-my-way-ism,” Mike said.
Also watching along with America and disgusted with the raid and all those who participated and/or complicit was rapper T.I. Never shy of offering his opinion on any matter, the rapper shared a video to his followers voicing his thoughts.
“Welcome to the future,” the Atlanta native stated after wishing his viewers a Happy New Year. “Can ya’ll believe the s**t we saw yesterday? I mean, did you see it? This don’t surprise any of us. This is the thing. We got to understand, we don’t have the same immunity. We can’t be out there fighting the same fight as white folk. Cause we gon’ end up being the only MF’s to get sh*t down […] Until we get the same kind of immunity, the same consideration and acknowledgment, we can’t be out there. We’re going to be the ones that get killed.”
He then offered a solution to the Black community, encouraging folk to stand back and stand by. “Let the whites fight,” T.I. suggests. “Our allies, get out there and do your things. If we can find a way to do something behind the scenes and be an asset to you, we will. But we can’t be out there. Nah, man. They gon’ look the other way when ya’ll do it. The s**t was planned.”
T.I. then surmises that it could potentially have been an inside job, a theory many others shared on social media after viewing different angles from the many videos that circulated. “…Us coming from the hood, we know what an inside job on a home invasion look like,” continues Tip. “We know when somebody in the house that left the backdoor open. We know what that look like. So now, we gotta fall back. This s**t beyond me at this point. We did our thing. We flipped the White House, we flipped Georgia, we flipped the senate. We did everything we were supposed to do. So now, we’ll back up. Let us know how we’re going to benefit from the work we’ve already put in.”
He added, ”I don’t know where the military was. I don’t understand. But don’t get caught out in the middle of them white folk business. Somebody getting money. The market was at an all-time high all of a sudden. It broke records every day. The market was up, even though the muthaf****n’ Capitol was getting raided. So fall-back, and find our way to benefit our community. We don’t need to get in the mix.”
Tip’s message then included a sort of warning to America to tighten up, as the world is watching. Noting how easy it was for the U.S. Capitol to be infiltrated, if there is no reprimand now, they may not see the last of that type of action.