I keep thinking that these are the latest in a long line of violehnt white supremacists. And how Whiteness erases its traces to seem seamless.

I only saw these photos of segregationists from the Civil Rights Movement era as an adult. https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1346917795083247617

Of course I knew about CRM. I saw the the photographs of MLK, Malcolm X, of CRM leaders. We were taught at school (and not just in USA).

But I didn’t see photographs of white people so full of hatred and violence.

Even as early as 1970s visuals of White hatred and violence had been erased from mass media (or what counted as that). It was entirely all pervasive by the 80s when I got to NYC, as a teen.

Instead media relentlessly peddled images of Black and brown men engaged in violence

I remember being at NYPL and the the shock I felt at seeing images of violent hateful White people - not soldiers, mind you. I am from a former colony and we knew white colonialist violence well. But these images of ‘normal’ White folk.

Much of the backlash from big name White Women journalists against ‘Karen’ videos and images is because they know those videos visibilise White hatred and violence, specially of White Women and ruptures narratives of their innocence, exposes their collusion and participation

Even with all the evidence we have, daily White violence is invisibilised in the press, in mass media, in our cultural narratives.

Despite all the evidence, White cops killing Black and brown civilians are seen as anomalies, White terrorists as lone wolves/mentally ill

And that is what Jan 6th attack on the Capitol has laid bare: White hatred, White violence.

And the most important part for me is not the press photos. These invariably focus on the most eye-catching, attention grabbing visuals.

The most important ones - the ones we should REALLY ensure never go out of circulation and remain available for use for teaching are the ones taken by the insurrectionists themselves, of themselves and eachother. From Schmuck Jr’s video to various legislators to average citizens

Because it is in these images that the full horror of Whiteness is laid bare: their hatred of BIPoC, their joy in carrying out violence against them, and the entitlement to do so (the shouts of ‘our house’), their absolute confidence in impunity, and most/worst of all...

the Unshakeable Absolute White Innocence that ensures that there can be no doubt, ever, that their violence could be wrong, unethical, immoral

We need these images going forward. Not just as evidence of insurrection and crime but also as reminders of what we face, struggle against, myst vanquish if we are to survive.

We must find ways to keep these in our public knowledge and imaginary going forward.

End thread