This Isn't the [BLANK] I Know

This past spring, in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, many people in positions of privilege issued statements that often followed a similar pattern: “This isn’t the Minnesota I know;” “This isn’t the Minneapolis I know;” “This isn’t the country I know.” The message underlying these statements seemed to be the same: this cannot have been the reality until now, because I have not seen reality in that way.

This week, the statements returned, in their own way, to describe the actions seen in Washington, D.C. People marveled at the scenes: the President whipping a crowd into a frenzy; that crowd continuing on to invade the Capitol building; congresspeople mounting an opposition built on lies to challenge the will of the citizenry voiced in a democratic election. This is a thing we have never seen before, people declared. This does not look like our country, but a foreign, unstable country; a third world country.

It is fair to say that a piece of this is true: this did look like scenes we have seen in unstable, foreign countries. I am personally reminded of Guatemala, a country I spent a semester in, which suffered a decades-long civil war after the overthrow of their democratically elected federal government. I am reminded of a now former president of that country, the man who was president while I was there, who was removed from office on charges of corruption four days before the end of his term. 

The Guatemalan scene is personal: others that are less so still resonate. This extends from news coverage I’ve seen throughout my life to a video clip from The Daily Show, which was recently reposted, in which host Trevor Noah draws comparisons of the rhetoric of then-candidate Trump to rhetoric seen from dictators across Africa.

And yet, I must reiterate: only a piece of the statements made about the events in Washington, D.C., this week should be accepted as completely true. These events are unique insofar as they have not happened specifically in this country, just as the same could be said for the events seen in Minneapolis this spring. However, the violence demonstrated this week is in no way unique. This violence has been present throughout the history of this country, and there are many who are not surprised that it was once again demonstrated.

Racial violence is not unique in Minnesota to the events of this past spring. This violence has been seen, from the Dakota wars and the mass hanging of Dakota in 1862, to a set of lynchings in Duluth, MN, in 1920, to the attempted forced removal of a black family that moved into a white neighborhood in south Minneapolis in 1931, a site just blocks from the spot of George Floyd’s death.

In the same way, this political violence is not unique to what was seen at the capitol this week. This country fought a civil war over its disagreements; this country has seen violence woven into its framework and legal structures throughout its history; and this country has seen violence advocated in the midst of the current presidency.

Very little of what we see is new, and we must move to treat these events as the continuation of a story. We will not be able to create change if we do not recognize the trajectory we are on. This may not be what you know, but this is the reality that is present.