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By Mary Evangeliste, PC #75 Project Lead-LD9 Communication Team
My phone started pinging from multiple text chats.
-
- “They are at the Capitol”
“OMG, they are scaling the walls!” - “They are breaching the building.”
- “They are at the Capitol”
These notices were coming from friends and family who currently or used to live in Washington, DC. This, of course, was January 6, 2021, the day of the insurrection at the nation’s capital.
I have spent a lot of time on the DC Mall, of which the Capitol is a part. In the 1990s, I worked at the Smithsonian Resident Associates Program and the National Gallery of Art. I would often pop into the Department of Justice for stamps on my lunch hour. I always removed my backpack, and a guard always went through it while I was going through a metal detector. This was security as it existed in every building of the Mall.
When I became a librarian, we often toured the Capitol with groups like the District of Columbia Library Association to see colleagues working in the Congressional Research Office behind the scenes. Once again, the same drill as the Department of Justice. I walked through a metal detector, and my bag was searched.
This is all to say, as someone who lived in DC from 1985-2005, the National Mall was an area that has always been “locked down tight!”
So when the glass on doors and windows began being smashed with no push back on January 6 of this year, I was more than disturbed.
I have always identified as a Washingtonian. I moved there with $200 in my pocket in 1985 after I was ceremonially asked to leave by my own family. While the news called DC things like “the Murder Capital,” I felt safer than I ever had before. The people of DC welcomed me, embraced me, and made me feel like I belonged. It was something I had never felt in my small rust belt town growing up.
As one who has lived in DC, experienced its safety and enjoyed the goodness of its people, I can’t help asking:
- Why did the events occur on January 6 as they did?
- Why were the Insurrectionists allowed to get so close?
- How could there be a large man with horns and a painted chest walking freely around the Senate chamber?
Knowing all the security that has existed in this town for decades and on January 6, the only explanation I can come up with is that these people—the ones who stormed the Capitol — were white. They were allowed to gain entry into the Capitol’s sacred halls in ways other groups could not.
Furthermore, I believe that had Washington DC been a state, Mayor Muriel Bowser would have had the authority to immediately call in the Metropolitan Police. This would have significantly affected the outcome of the day.
Help DC Achieve Statehood
Washington DC is a magical (and yes, a safe) place. Despite the racist events that occurred with Trump’s rally in January, all of us, no matter what state we live in, have an excellent opportunity to help DC achieve statehood. And our efforts won’t be new in 2021. DC Statehood is something that local activists and House Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton have worked on for decades.
Here’s another fact to keep in mind: DC has 700,000 residents, most of whom are not white. The continued denial of equal representation to these citizens is rooted in racism that goes back hundreds of years. Did you know, for example, that Wyoming (a state with a majority of white residents) has 578,759 citizens and two senators?
But DC has none!
We can work for the people of DC to achieve their rights as Americans. They deserve representation like every other citizen from other states. The push for statehood has gained lots of momentum and national attention this year, so for the first time, I believe the concept of statehood is more achievable than ever before.
ACTION ITEM: Starting on Monday, April 12, LD9 asks each PC, volunteer, and other interested people to honor our Country’s beautiful capital city, give the citizens of DC their due representation in Congress, and protect DC citizens from a very racist act—the Insurrection of January 6.
Use this Indivisible form to alert both Senator Kelly and Sinema to say that you are a resident of Arizona and want them to vote YES on DC Statehood.
Please act with the people of DC to make DC a state this week!
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