I have read, watched, processed, and am continuing to process the insurrection at the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. When I read articles like this one from NPRTimeline: How One of the Darkest Days in American History Unfolded, I feel many emotions, but surprise and shock are not among them.
Based on my informal and formal education of American and world history, my observations of the racial inequities and injustices among the diverse individuals and groups in my social networks, and my own life experiences, I am neither shocked nor surprised that predominantly White domestic terrorists invaded the United States Capitol. I am neither shocked nor surprised that those White insurrectionists have not suffered punishment for their actions in the way that protesters for Black Lives Matter have endured.
I am still hurt. I am still mourning. I am still livid. I am still sad that this transpired.
In case you are wondering where I have been for the past two weeks, I have been active. I might not have been active on this website, but I have been active. Like many of you, I have been dedicating my time to my day job, exercise that is never frequent enough, napping, and honestly doing “nothing.”
When I say “nothing,” I really mean resting; times are tough, and we all need to practice self-care. If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I am no stranger to talking about this topic and recently covered the importance of it in Lunch with Lindsay: Supporting Black Lives Matter and Practicing Self-Care.
More than a week ago, I created another video titled Lunch with Lindsay: Public Acknowledgment of Juneteenth, US History in Schools, and Screening Practices at Bars. I did not post it on this website right away because 1) I was busy with other things, and 2) I needed time to process the conversation.
As you will hear in the video that I posted above, my friends and I were observing many employers and companies acknowledge Juneteenth for the first time. Companies across industries were figuring out how to properly acknowledge and/or celebrate this holiday in a time where they are determining what it means to foster a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for all people, particularly Black people.
If you couldn’t tell by now, the titles for my blog posts are getting really long. There is so much to discuss in the world that short titles do not seem fitting anymore.
When I first started Unfiltered Snapshot five years ago, you could tell by my earlier posts that it was meant to serve as a place for advice. The first post is titled Are You Really Looking for Advice? The tagline originally was “Raw Advice for Real Life.” That was the intention.
Actually, if you are like many people in my social circles who have been heavily engaged in the active work of racial justice, the last few decades have felt extremely long.
I both am encouraged to see more people fighting for racial justice—especially Black lives—in ways I have not seen in my lifetime, and I also am frustrated that this journey to progress is both so long and mentally and emotionally taxing for those involved. This is why when I saw the NPR Code Switch piece titled A Decade of Watching Black People Die, I thought to myself, “A decade? JUST a decade?” I decided not to listen to it.