By Terry Tomlinson
01/16/2021

The Social Studies question of the moment seems to be, “Where did this Middle Class, angry, violent uprising come from? How is it that we are beginning the year 2021 with such a hateful, ugly slice of the underbelly of our nation’s history suddenly rising to the surface? What made these people believe that this insurrection would work or go unanswered?

This is my opinion:

Blood runs deep!
The now “years down the road” relations of former wealthy landowners, slave owners and people whose relatives were anti-British, rebellious combatants are still members of the American citizenry. They still believe Western European (mostly white) people deserve the lion’s share of the land, wealth, power and authority... just as their ancestors did when they immigrated to this country. Certainly, not everyone who is descended from self serving, power hungry slave owners is still of that same frame of mind, but there are clearly many out there in the year 2021 who hold such beliefs.

We are not all that many years down the road from having our own relatives who openly referred to people of color by ugly racist slurs - whether their skin was black, brown, red or yellow. Anybody who wasn’t “white” was a second class citizen of ignoble birth, low intelligence, questionable morality and always a nuisance to have to tolerate.

So... what makes you think those attitudes just disappeared because it became socially unacceptable to express those opinions?

My guess would be that those opinions have been alive and well and lurking right under the surface this entire time.

People who still hold those opinions may have learned to “bite their tongue” in most social settings, but that doesn’t mean those deeply held beliefs just went away.

One significant thing that happened was that a president was elected who secretly held those same opinions. Except, he wasn’t good at keeping his deeply held opinions secret for very long.

What the people who stormed the United States Capital on January 6, 2021 actually did was let out years and years of pent up anger and emotions that they suddenly saw the President of the United States expressing quite openly. I think they believed, as Judas Iscariot believed, “... if we just start the insurrection our savior has the power to swoop in and make everything right - that is, “the way we want it.”

What they failed to realize was that Donald Trump had absolutely no intention of going to a “cross.” Hell, he didn’t even go to the Capital, like he told them he would. He started an unintended, or at least “unanticipated” real, live insurrection and then he ran the other direction.

So... from where did these deeply held feelings and opinions come? They were here all the time. They never went away. They were just hiding under a thin veil of social politeness that probably doesn’t exist in small private gatherings.

It would appear that these United States have a lot of work to do before we can truly claim to be “united.”

My favorite typo for the word “united” is “untied.” I believe that is closer to the truth. We are now the Untied States of America. The question is, “what can be done to promote healing, re-education and a new belief in social justice?”

We can only pray that the person, or persons, with a solution to this massive moral dilemma will soon come to the forefront. We can only pray that there are enough people who are wanting to make that change that the social fabric of the United States of America can begin to be mended. It will take time to tell. See Less