{"id":177273,"date":"2021-01-18T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=177273"},"modified":"2021-01-16T09:17:37","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T09:17:37","slug":"color-covid-and-the-coup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/01\/color-covid-and-the-coup\/","title":{"rendered":"Color, COVID and the Coup"},"content":{"rendered":"

14 Jan 2021 – <\/em>President Donald Trump\u2019s second impeachment was swift and decisive, just one week after he incited a violent white supremacist mob attack on the U.S. Capitol that left five dead, including a Capitol Police officer. Accounts of the insurrection from several elected Congresswomen of color capture the chaos of the moment, and the many dangers they faced:<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was one of 12 trapped in the House Gallery. I heard the shot being fired. I saw the smoke from the tear gas….I watched one officer with no protective equipment face a raging mob just outside the chamber,\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Norma Torres, Democratic Representative from South Los Angeles, said at a House Rules Committee meeting this week,<\/p>\n

\u201cI answered my phone to my son, Christopher. The call lasted 27 seconds. All I could say, \u2018Sweetheart, I\u2019m okay. I\u2019m running for my life.\u2019 And I hung up.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also trapped in the upper Gallery was Washington Congressmember Pramila Jayapal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe insurrectionists were domestic terrorists, many armed and many associated with white nationalist groups,\u201d<\/em> Jayapal said in a statement. \u201cTear gas was being used and we had to get down on the ground for cover. Capitol Police barricaded the doors with furniture and had their guns drawn.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cort\u00e9z, known as AOC<\/span>, said on a livestream the night before the impeachment vote,<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was going to die.\u201d <\/em>She explained why she felt she needed to avoid a secure extraction location: \u201cThere were QAnon and white-supremacist sympathizers and, frankly, white-supremacist members of Congress in that extraction point who I know and who I have felt would disclose my location and would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt [or] kidnapped.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ayanna Pressley, the first African American Congresswoman from Massachusetts, did go to the secure room, with people sheltering shoulder to shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second I realized our \u2018safe room\u2019 from the violent white supremacist mob included treasonous, white supremacist, anti masker Members of Congress who incited the mob in the first place, I exited,\u201d <\/em>she tweeted on Tuesday. \u201cFurious that more of my colleagues are testing positive.\u201d <\/em>Her husband, who was with her at the Capitol, has since tested positive for COVID<\/span>-19.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pramila Jayapal has also contracted COVID<\/span>-19, likely in the same, cramped, multi-hour lockdown with unmasked Republicans during the siege.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly hours after President Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, our country, and our democracy, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID<\/span>-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic \u2014 creating a superspreader event on top of a domestic terrorist attack,\u201d <\/em>Jayapal said in a statement. Her husband, who was not at the Capitol, has also tested positive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Congress\u2019 attending physician, Brian Monahan, said in an email four days after the attack, about that secure room,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time in this room was several hours for some and briefer for others\u2026individuals may have been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

New Jersey Congressmember Bonnie Watson Coleman was there, and later tested positive. The 75-year-old African American is a recent cancer survivor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am angry that after I spent months carefully isolating myself, a single chaotic day likely got me sick,\u201d <\/em>she wrote in a Washington Post op-ed piece this week. \u201cI am angry that the attack on the Capitol and my subsequent illness have the same cause: my Republican colleagues\u2019 inability to accept facts.\u201d<\/em> Her case highlights the potentially-lethal risks that mask-deniers selfishly pose on others around them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Detroit Congressmember Rashida Tlaib was not on the Capitol grounds during the assault, as she wasn\u2019t feeling great after receiving her first COVID<\/span>-19 vaccination shot. She tweeted on Tuesday, as new security measures were implemented at the Capitol,<\/p>\n

\u201cJust had to go through a metal detector before entering the House floor. Some colleagues are frustrated (guess which ones) by this requirement. Now they know how HS students in my district feel. Suck it up buttercups. Y\u2019all brought this on yourselves.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set fines of up to $10,000 for Congressmembers who refuse to pass through the metal detectors.<\/p>\n

People of color in the United States are more likely to die of gun violence. They are also more likely to contract COVID<\/span>-19, and when they do, disproportionately suffer more serious consequences, including death. The violent white supremacist insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th put the ugly realities of racism and inequality in this country in stark relief. Taking these on, remains the urgent challenge of our time. Trump\u2019s departure from the Oval Office is only the first step.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Amy Goodman is the host of \u201c<\/em>Democracy Now!\u201d a daily international TV\/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of <\/em>Breaking the Sound Barrier, released in paperback and now a <\/em>New York Times best-seller.<\/em><\/p>\n

Denis Moynihan is the co-founder of <\/em>Democracy Now! Since 2002, he has participated in the organization\u2019s worldwide distribution, infrastructure development, and the coordination of complex live broadcasts from many continents. He lives in Denver where he is developing a new noncommercial community radio station.<\/em><\/p>\n

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 democracynow.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 Jan 2021 – People of color in the USA are more likely to die of gun violence and to contract COVID-19, and when they do, disproportionately suffer more serious consequences, including death. The violent white supremacist insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th put the ugly realities of racism and inequality in this country in stark relief. Trump\u2019s departure from the Oval Office is only the first step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[867,1829,1868,103,249,70,71,498],"class_list":["post-177273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-anglo-america","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-racism","tag-trump","tag-usa","tag-white-house","tag-white-supremacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}