Racist double standard in policing clear at Capitol riot, says Fortune Society head
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Far-right rioters storm the U.S. Capitol. AP Photo/John Minchillo
By David Brand
As far-right extremists, mostly white men fueled by racism and grievance, stormed the U.S. Capitol with relatively little resistance, Joanne Page thought about her clients.
Page is the president and CEO of the Fortune Society, an agency that serves formerly incarcerated New Yorkers, mostly Black and Latino men caught up in a criminal justice system that disproportionately impacts poor people of color.
The lack of preparation for the armed insurrection on Jan. 6 only underscores the double standard that exists when it comes to policing whites and people of color, particularly Black and African Americans, she said.
“This was not a shock. This was not a surprise. There were warnings about this,” Page said, referring to social media posts and President Donald Trump’s own speeches leading up to the riot.
“If that had been a Black Lives Matter protest and they had broken into the Capitol there’d be buses around the block waiting to take in thousands of arrested people.”
The lethal attack on the Capitol left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer. Page said it could have been even worse.
“We could have seen a situation where our congress members were murdered in the Capitol,” she said. “There were guns, pipe bombs, people trained in the military, people dressed for it. They killed a police officer. They tried to crush another.”
Page, who is white, said the far-right riot provides an opportunity to examine over-policing and how law enforcement gives white people the benefit of the doubt in a manner rarely, if ever, afforded to people of color.
Post-insurrection reflections, she said, can help spur meaningful changes to the way authorities crack down on people of color — whether they’re protesting, caught with a small amount of drugs or simply walking along the street.
“I grew up as a kid in the Long Island suburbs and lots of my friends were using drugs. Not one got incarcerated, not one got convicted, not one got arrested,” she said. “When I talk to our clients and staff, the norm was they were handled through the criminal justice system.”
“If you just sit in a courtroom in New York City, you’ll rarely see a white person.”
