01/29/2021
From the JCS Madrikha
on the U.S. Capitol Insurrection
The following remarks were delivered at the JCS's most recent First Friday.
On Wednesday, January 6, I sat glued to the TV, much the same way I did on January 28, 1986, when the U.S. Challenger exploded, killing its seven-person crew just a minute after take-off, and much the same as I did on September 11, 2001, when four airplanes, in a coordinated terrorist attack, brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center and plowed into the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Unable to turn away, I sat in horror, watching a video loop of the mob of rioters storming the U.S. Capitol, breaking through barricades and windows and locked legislative office doors, and breaching the well-guarded Senate and House chambers themselves. I saw Confederate flags, and flags with swastikas, and Camp Auschwitz and 6 Million Wasn’t Enough t-shirts, and I crumbled inside. I sat, my head in my hands, wondering how we had come this far away from our foundational principles as Americans, and yet knowing exactly how it happened.
We became inured to the lies and the smoke and mirrors. We were accustomed to the lack of civility and deception; we kept thinking no one in their right mind would allow this to happen as immigrant children were separated from their parents and housed in cages, as environmental laws were ravaged, as our civil rights were undermined, as racists were called good people by our leaders, and as people of color were killed in the streets or in their homes by people of authority.
Our fatigue was and is overwhelming, and the world is different today because of our exhaustion as well as due to the events in Washington DC earlier this week. The world is different, and we stand at a crossroads.
Yes, America could continue moving down a self-destructive path of extremes and incendiary language, of vilification and promoting falsehoods. Or we could claim this as the last straw, the final awakening, and as a society, we could say that enough is enough.
I have strong hope that our leaders hear our national outrage at the siege of the U.S. Capitol and the attack on our political institutions and unequivocally condemn these acts, prosecuting both those who acted and those who inspired the rioting. I am confident that we can look into the breach and choose a different path. I believe we have a chance to engage with firm purpose, and that we should take every opportunity or make opportunities to do so.
I want to note, because it would be irresponsible not to, that as a mother of two children of color, it does not escape me (or, frankly, them) that law enforcement’s treatment of the rioters and insurrectionists was singularly different from what people of color, their allies, and the LGBTQ+ communities have faced when legally and peacefully protesting in our cities across this country for basic human rights and equal treatment under the law. We have much work to be done, even with a new administration entering the White House.
We cannot forget these last few days, weeks, months, and years and become accustomed again to the background noise of injustice, racism, anti-Semitism, and white nationalist politics. We must continue to fight for the rights of the underdog, for the disenfranchised, for the political outsiders, for our immigrant neighbors, for our children, for science, and for facts, because we are secular humanists, and as such, we believe that reason is the source of truth and compassion is the key to morality. We must live our values and stand up for what is right. Hillel’s words are as potent now as when they were written. “If not now, when.”
With that I wish you Shabbat shalom and a Happy New Year, and I pledge to work with you for a better world.
Julie Gales
January 8, 2021
