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It’s been over a year since a white mob stormed the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Did anything end up happening to these insurrectionists, who threatened the lives of members of Congress? Did they face ANY punishment?
So far, 727 rioters have been arrested, many of whom were charged with low-level misdemeanors, receiving ONLY probation or home confinement. And there are still hundreds who haven’t even been arrested!
The FBI is struggling to track down mob participants, and Senate Republicans blocked Democratic members of Congress from organizing an unbiased investigation! None of this sits well, especially when we ask, “what if the mob had been Black?”
Data on sentencing disparities shows that Black people are charged more harshly for similar or lesser crimes than white people. We’re more likely to be stopped, detained, imprisoned, and executed.
Incidents like the Capitol attack, when compared to peaceful BLM protests that were met with police violence, shows this happens even in extreme cases. Since the white mob didn’t hide their faces, and were armed with guns and explosives, it’s clear white privilege is at play.
The “criminal justice system” is a system that works to protect whiteness and detain Black bodies. Prison industrial complex abolitionists want to dismantle the carceral system entirely and reprioritize.
We must recognize that the system does NOT work to provide “justice” at all, and collectively challenge it!