Ugly Mess

Two more Capitol police officers who responded to the January 6 insurrectionist riot have committed suicide. These deaths are added to the first two officers who took their own lives in the wake of the ugly mess that occurred shortly before the inauguration of the forty-sixth President of the United States. The ugly mess that was encouraged by the embittered forty-fifth who expected to have his supporters disrupt the certification of the election results by both houses of Congress. People died that day.

They are dying still. 

And there are those who choose to deny the ugly mess ever happened. Case in point: Tucker Carlson. This should not come as a shock or surprise that Young Tuck mocked the tears of one of the officers who survived the ugly mess. Another Fox News "host" suggested one of the officers testifying at the hearings about the ugly mess receive an award for his acting.

Acting hurt, disillusioned, afraid? 

Suicidal?

So currently in that same building where the ugly mess occurred, we are putting on a show of concern. And here's the twist: There are apparently two sides to this discussion. Like the Congressman from Georgia who described the breaching of the chambers of Congress as being akin to "a normal tourist visit." If those tourists were masked and carrying zip ties, shouting threats and looting as they rolled through the halls. The representative, Andrew Clyde, was photographed as the ugly mess unfolded. He can be seen helping to barricade the doors. To keep the normal tourists out, apparently. 

But now there are those who want us to take a step back and compare what happened on January 6 of this year to the protests that erupted across the country in the name of Black Lives Matter. There are those who would like to suggest that nothing was done to halt the rioting and looting in the streets during the summer of 2020. 

Let me make this clear: Those scenes were ugly and unfortunate, but not once were they reframed as "a normal tourist visit." The anger expressed in the summer of 2020 was four hundred years in the making. It was in response to the deaths of countless men and women of color at the hands of those who are sworn to protect and serve. The ugly mess of January 6 was the result of a bunch of people who do not understand the electoral process or basic math, who were egged on by the forty-fifth former president. The one who does not understand the electoral process or basic math. And in the middle of this comparison of apples and oranges, the defenders of the ugly mess would like us to forget that they had only recently been defending law enforcement officers and holding them up as heroes. 

Somewhere along the line, that perspective was replaced by one of derision and mistrust. The men and women assigned to the job of protecting Congress and its inhabitants became the problem. 

They are dying. 

This ugly mess needs to stop. 

Before anyone else gets hurt.