George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis after allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at a neighborhood store. Breonna Taylor was killed in her home by police while sleeping in Louisville, Kentucky. Ahmaud Arbery was lynched by a trio of neighborhood vigilantes while jogging in Glynn County, Georgia. In 2020, Americans protesting structural racism and anti-Black violence were tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, pelted with rubber bullets, misrepresented as threats to the public peace, and subjected to arbitrary arrests in cities across the United States.
Then, on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021—a day the world will not soon forget—hundreds of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump besieged the U.S. Capitol in a serious attempt to overturn the results of the free and fair election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next president and vice president. After rushing doors, breaking windows, and charging through the halls of Congress, the insurrectionists sat in the Senate president’s seat, put their feet up on the House speaker’s desk, ransacked congressional offices, and defaced statues. The consequences? A remarkably small number of arrests and even some selfies with security officers.
