(1) I refuse to be blinded by the invisibility of whiteness! I woke today expecting to see trump removed from office after emboldening his supporters to incite insurgency against the US government and investigations ordered to explain the lack of police response to the rioters.

(2) I was shocked to see the US legislature in session continuing their work. While I applaud their work ethic and recognize the importance of getting Biden/Harris certified, I am troubled by their composure after the magnitude of yesterday's events.

(3) I listen carefully to their speeches to understand how they are constructing the narratives that will be fed to the public. I am struck by Ben Sasse’s folksy story about how we should help our neighbors shovel snow from their sidewalks.

(4) I realize we are being asked to follow the old America habitude of ignoring our heinous legacy of white supremacy even when it walks up and pees all over our Capitol building in broad daylight. Senator Sasse is simply asking us to ignore the white man behind the green curtain

(5) The one who always holds the levers of power that determine who is subject to the rule of law and who is exempt from it, whose votes count and whose don’t, who has the power to protest, destroy property, threaten the safety and lives of others without being called terrorists.

(6) Well Ben, how ‘bout we ignore the whiteness of our neighbor’s snow and focus on the whiteness of your politics instead because it is a damn blizzard out there right now.

(7) From the earliest days the trump administration has emboldened and animated the sin of white patriarchal supremacy that has so long haunted, tyrannized, and terrorized America. He and his media ilk have radicalized many disempowered, cognitively and emotionally challenged

(8) people desperate to embody the mythical supremacy and corresponding individual and systemic privilege long been promised them by history, families, churches, judicial systems, etc. These populations are ripe for the cult picking and make excellent weapons and cannon fodder.

(9) I was watching trumps unhinged rally speech as he instructed them to march, unleashing the rabid dogs he has fed and trained, on the US Capitol building while our representatives were counting the votes that will finally free us from his disastrous rule.

(10) And for some unexplainable reason they were met with no real resistance or consequence. They were allowed to walk right in and despoil. And that’s the big fat white elephant trashing our Capitol building, our politics, and our country.

(11) Because white culture is centered as the default setting of America its power and privilege are often invisible. It can be difficult to recognize how the rule of law and equal protection under the law become entitlements - the property of whiteness.

(12) Critical race theory describes the racial identity of whiteness as a form of cultural capital akin to ‘real estate’. If we use the concept of property to interrogate whiteness as unearned privilege or cultural collateral to spend when we participate in insurgence against our

(13) own government it is easier to understand how racialized power remains invisible, systemic and ingrained in our daily lives. It’s important we all learn to recognize and call out when race, gender and other identity markers become pivotal points in the negotiation of power.

(14) As we witnessed yesterday, police and laws can be used as tools deployed to protect the power and wealth of privilege associated with whiteness. They can be used to support and reify the dangerous narratives we are hearing from our (mostly white) representatives implicitly

(15) supporting the tyrannous actions of a (mostly white) mob. Regimes of white supremacy are maintained, taken for granted, invisible in our narratives. Talking instead of shoveling neighbors snow to comfortably ignore the radicalization of whiteness in our country.

(16) This is the power of the opaque and unmarked status of white culture as it is erased and place outside consideration it is imbued with a racialized privilege to walk into our Capitol building, sit at the Speaker of the House of Representatives desk and steal their mail.

(17) There are a million ways in which yesterday's events were profoundly disturbing and destructive but it's hard to see them past the blinding glare of invisible whiteness as it continues to work as an effective barrier to social change. #TrumpRacist #TrumpRally #Insurrection