By: Catherine Daleo
Reading time: 5-6 minutes
The word ‘unity’ has been thrown around quite a lot this past week, and there has been much discussion surrounding the word and what it means, where it fails, and why it is not the answer we need in this time of crisis.
That’s because, after the attack on our capitol building this past week, there are people who are calling for “unity.”
Except that the people who are requesting that unity are the same people who not only condoned the rhetoric and actions that lead to Wednesday’s attack, but many of whom voiced the same thoughts of those who carried it out or had a hand in the attack, directly or indirectly.
Like those who claimed there was fraud in the election and voted against confirming the electoral votes, those who support or make excuses for what happened, and those who we’re now learning were actively a part of the plan to attack the capitol and put their colleagues’ lives and our country in jeopardy.
These people are calling for unity and civility. Except, you don’t get to do that after condoning and/or attempting a coup on our country and threaten our republic. Without accountability and consequence, there can be no moving on or unifying.
We don’t need to extend unity or civility to those who wish to cause harm to others or wish to overthrow the government. That is the exact opposite of being unified or civil. And we shouldn’t be gaslit into thinking otherwise.
Many of those people were wearing Nazi paraphernalia. Shirts that said “Camp Auschwitz” and “6MWE” – which is short for “Six million wasn’t enough,” meaning these people think that more people should have died in the Holocaust. People with Nazi symbols tattoed on them, which they were openly showing, and people who carried Confederate and Nazi flags into our capitol building are the people we’re being asked to ‘unify’ with.
These people, and those who excuse their actions and words, deserve no civility. They openly wish for the death of millions of people and have always fought against people being granted human rights. There is no such thing as unity with these psychopaths. Their idea of unity is a world of full-blown white supremacy and fascism in an authoritarian state that they erect with their hatred and self-righteousness.
I will not ask for your forgiveness when I say fuck them and fuck being civil with them.
If that offends you to hear me say, but you’re not offended by what happened or is actively and openly happening, or condone any of it, this is not the publication for you.
They bludgeoned a capitol police officer to death while touting Blue Lives Matter flags and shouting ‘USA!’. They were ready to take people in the capitol hostage, or worse, assassinate them. THEY PLANTED THREE BOMBS.
And they are actively and openly planning for a civil war as we speak, threatening to attack or blow up every state capitol building and city hall in this country over the next week or so.
There is no room for unity nor civility with these terrorists. They don’t get a pass. They don’t get forgiveness.
Now I felt a need to say something on the word ‘unity’ because it is a part of our mission statement. We’re working to combine content, conversation, and community to develop unity.
To us, unity means coming together as people to work together in building our communities, country, and world up so that it becomes a better place for everyone in our society and future generations. We want to build a world that is equal and equitable, where people are cared for, have their basic needs met, and are granted the dignity and life we deserve as human beings—a world where we cherish and promote love, kindness, and respect to one another.
But unity does not include every single person or group of people that are out there. We will never work to unify with people who wish harm, oppression, or death upon other people or groups of people. Those are the people who actively work against making the world a better place, and they deserve no seat at the table.
In other words, we are not and will never be tolerant of intolerance.
So let me reiterate by saying this: Fuck racist people. Fuck sexist people. Fuck those who are homophobic or transphobic. Fuck white supremacists. And fuck fascists/Nazis.
And fuck those who apologize for or excuse any of the above. We are past the point of allowing any grey area regarding whether we treat other people as human beings who deserve the right to live or be safe or have rights in general—end of story.
Again, if you’re more offended by my words than what is happening, you’re welcome to unfollow this publication. There is no need to announce your departure, should this be “too much” for you.
I will not entertain any debate about what we see with our own eyes, nor will I be gaslit about what I witnessed and what has come to light in the wake of this insurrection.
Words matter. Actions matter.
We need to start acting like it and take this seriously before something even worse happens because it’s being plotted and planned as we speak.
So if you see someone calling for unity or civility, excusing what happened, or saying we need to heal from this, call them out on it. Those words are becoming dangerous sentiments. They are a request to ignore what just happened and just “PuT iT bEhInD uS” or “mOvE oN.”
And yes, I’m saying that in the mocking Spongebob meme format, in case you don’t catch my absolute fucking disdain for what I’ve seen the past few days. We don’t owe these people a single thing.
The calls for us “healing” as a nation are also damaging rhetoric, as it continues to push to look past all the horrendous shit we’ve seen in just the first week of the year. We can’t “heal” if we don’t mend what is broken. This means we have to CHANGE.
Our country has been built on white supremacy, colonization, and authoritarianism (and arguably, fascism).
We have never faced our past, and we cover up our wrongs or minimize them to nothing. We refuse to admit that we have caused and continue to cause harm to different groups of people throughout our history. Slavery and segregation. Native American Genocide. Japanese Internment Camps. The abuse and violence against Hispanic people. The intolerance against Muslim people and those of Middle-Eastern descent. And don’t get me started on the destruction of our interference in the Middle East and South America as we conducted coups and carried out war abroad in the name of “democracy” as we destabilized these countries for profit and power.
This is all so very wrong. We have yet to face these realities head-on as a nation.
So when people say, “this isn’t who we are as a nation,” excuse my eye-roll at the sentiment. This is who we’ve always been.
And until we confront ourselves and our history, and really look at ourselves in the mirror, it will always be who we are.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few weeks. I sincerely hope that those who are plotting death and destruction are quickly stopped and removed from our public spaces. Lock them and all those who laid siege on our capitol to undermine our democracy, up for the rest of their miserable lives.
But we desperately need to address our problems and fast. Because these dangerous ideologies will not go away. I don’t know if they will return to the shadows again and lie in wait for their next opportunity or if they will feel emboldened to remain out in the open and continue to push this unapologetically. Either way, they are dangerous. And we need to respond to that danger and the underlying sources of it.
If we do not, the next demagogue that appears will quickly attract these people to them. And next time, they will be even worse than Trump.
I fear we are on borrowed time if we don’t act accordingly and take all this seriously. We cannot just move on from this.
There needs to be action. There needs to be justice. And there needs to be accountability.
You want unity? Throw the book at anyone and everyone who excuses this, who supported this, who was part of this, or who was connected to this in any manner. Remove those from office who have had a part to play in the escalation of violence we saw and continue to see.
There are legislators right now, even in our own state, who are calling for violence, and who are using the republican party’s platform to do this. There were police officers from precincts across the country and active-duty military who were involved in this attack. They all need to go. They must never hold any office or power again. And they should all be locked up for treason.
After that’s done, we need to address all of our long-standing systemic and societal issues upfront that set the stage for this to manifest. This includes addressing every aspect of our lives and how we do things in this country.
If we can’t even agree to provide healthcare to people, house the homeless, feed the hungry, protect the planet, or provide overdue relief to our people during a pandemic, how can we unify ourselves against a threat such as this now, let alone in the future?
What I’m saying is that this issue is bigger than the Republican party. It’s an American problem that we have been putting off since before our country’s inception, no matter what party or person was in charge, and we have picked up additional issues to ignore along the way while telling ourselves we’re the “greatest” country in the world.
No more excuses for why we can’t be bold in doing something about all of this. This can NEVER be allowed to happen again.
Stop tolerating intolerance. If we can agree on that, then maybe we can work on “unity”.
