F ³: An Unforgettable Day

 

Today’s Free Form Friday takes a look back at two years ago today. Let’s begin here:

Breaking and Entering (January 7, 2021) 

 Yesterday was a very rough day.

The final indignity came right here at home in Howard County, where the Board of Education Building was damaged by vandals. 

(This photo shared on social media by Board of Education member Jolene Mosley)

That’s what yesterday was all about, wasn’t it? Some people break things. Other people will have to clean them up. 

Or perhaps it was about those who insist on justifying their own violence, born of the anger that someone of their importance did not get their way, by equating it with the outcry of those who have been oppressed in this country for over four hundred years. It’s not at all the same.

Yesterday was brute force and threat, terror and mockery.

What will today be about?

Today they will order new glass at Central Office. They will try to reassure staff who now feel less safe. They will be assisting the police in identifying a suspect. And they will continue to do the work they have been doing everyday, keeping the schools functioning during distance learning. Because that’s their job. That’s what they do.

Last night Steve Inskeep of NPR posted the following:

That’s immediately what I thought of when I saw the destruction at the Board of Ed. What did they think they would accomplish?

Fear and intimidation, I suppose. Like showing up at someone’s house when you don’t agree with them.

The fact that we have people like that in Howard County sickens me.

Our teachers will still get up this morning and try to make the day's lessons the best they can make them while also trying to be there for kids who know something truly awful happened in Washington, DC yesterday and are trying to process what it means. 

Oh, and Central Office was attacked, too. That’s not going to make our children feel very safe.

The attack on Congress yesterday was fueled by lies, like “election fraud” and “Trump won”. The attacks I read daily about our schools in Howard County are also fueled by lies: 

• schools are closed (they’re not) 
• teachers don’t care (they do) 
• the BOE is against science (evidence refutes this)

Fueled by lies, motivated by privilege. 

Some people break things. Other people have to clean them up.

*****

Have they been able to successfully identify and prosecute the person who broke into Central Office? Not that I know of.

Have the elected officials who conspired with mobs to overturn an election been successfully identified and prosecuted?  No. And some are sitting in Congress right now - -  a full two years after this violent and destructive event. They’re effectively gumming up the works so that government cannot function.

These are people who break things and have absolutely no interest or ability in cleaning up the mess they have made.

What did they think they would accomplish then? What do they think they are accomplishing now?

When I saw the news that the capitol had been breached I knew exactly what that meant. I felt a kind of horrified chill pass though me. At the same time I wanted to believe it was like a bad television show and I could just change the channel and it wouldn’t really be happening. My brain just didn’t want to accept it.

We see so many fictional horrors on television dramas that living through a real one can take on a surreal quality when we are not right there at the center of the action. 

Two years ago insurrectionists stormed the seat of our democratic government with a clear intent to do harm. The political party that nurtured them - - stoked anger their with lies, fed them funds out of their own privilege - - has not truly taken responsibility nor faced the consequences of their actions. 

So January 6, 2021 isn’t simply a one-time attack on our nation. It’s an unhealed wound that has become infected and continues to fester. We’re all watching its ongoing symptoms play out in the House of Representatives right now. 

Until every person who was involved in aiding and abetting that violent attempt at mob rule is removed from government our democracy is still in danger.