When thousands of Trump supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, they not only vandalized offices, but also fought with law enforcement officers, raising questions about how the situation would have been handled if the crowd was mostly Black and Brown.
"I believe those people yesterday should be tried for sedition, they should be tried for treason," said Rev. Michael Nabors, the pastor of Second Baptist Church in Evanston and president of the Evanston/North Shore NAACP.
Nabors said the law enforcement response to a Black Lives Matter march near the Lincoln Memorial was much greater and said the police response at the Capitol was an example of "white privilege."
"These terrorists were actually white," Nabors stated. "They stood to the side and allowed them not only to enter into the building, the Congress of the United States of America, but to desecrate it as well.”
Chicago community activist Ja'Mal Green, who has taken part in Black Lives Matter protests across the country, was appalled in June when peaceful protesters were teargassed so President Trump could take part in a photo-op at a church.
"If it was Black Lives Matter, anything like that it would be a bloodbath," Green said. "Them saying they had to defend the federal building, and they feared for their lives.”
Even President-elect Joe Biden said the law enforcement response wouldn't have been the same.
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"If it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protestors, they would have been treated very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol," Biden said.
