After Capitol Insurrection, Eddie Glaude Jr. Calls for Eradication of White Supremacism
11 Jan 2021
“Impeaching Donald Trump or invoking the 25th Amendment won’t get us very far.”
In his latest opinion piece in TIME magazine, APB exclusive speaker Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr. shares his thoughts on last week’s events at the Capitol with his sights set on both history and the future. “The mob made concrete the threat of white nationalism to the nation,” writes Glaude. “But I have to say, and America’s history is my witness, that impeaching Donald Trump or invoking the 25th Amendment will not get us very far.” Honing in on the historic threat of white supremacism, Glaude calls for “President-elect Biden to direct his Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland to rid the nation of these groups. That will involve a widespread investigation of the scope and extent of the penetration of white supremacists into law enforcement throughout the country and a plan to purge police departments of these elements.” He also calls for Congress to hold live, televised hearings that “should expose the workings of white supremacy groups, create the conditions for the eradication of organizations like the Proud Boys, and lay the groundwork for legislation that will, once and for all, banish these groups from the body politic.”
Dr. Glaude also observed that the treatment of the white men and women that engaged in insurrection at the Capitol exemplifies the “value gap” between white and Black lives in America. He wrote, “It was a glaring example of the different quality of their citizenship: that white lives, at least those who claim to be patriots of this sort, matter more than others.” Glaude also called upon all of us to help uproot this sentiment in our everyday lives. “We have to do something much more dramatic and sustained than getting rid of Donald Trump, democratizing who we call “thugs,” and prosecuting the criminals who threatened the Republic,” he declares. Dr. Glaude calls upon ordinary Americans to step up and do the hard work of “holding each other accountable—especially in our own families.” “Broken though it may be,” he writes, “America is ours, and together we can make this place anew.”
Eddie Glaude Jr. is the New York Times bestselling author of Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own and Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul. He is Chair of Princeton’s Department of African American Studies, a columnist for TIME magazine and a regular contributor to MSNBC’s Morning Joe and Deadline Whitehouse with Nicolle Wallace. Dr. Glaude regularly appears on Meet the Press on Sundays.