Michelle Obama's Emotional Reaction To The Unrest In D.C.
Michelle Obama is among many who have released statements to the violent events that unfolded at the Capitol on the day of the Electoral College certification. The former first lady used Twitter to release a long and powerful statement, and she didn't mince words.
She started with recognition of the historic Senate win by Reverend Raphael Warnock in Georgia and how the day had started off for her as a good one. But then she says, things took a turn, "In just a few hours, though, my heart had fallen harder and faster than I can remember. Like all of you, I watched as a gang — organized, violent, and mad they'd lost an election — laid siege to the United States Capitol. They set up gallows. They proudly waved the traitorous flag of the Confederacy through the halls. They desecrated the center of American government."
Obama continued, noting how those who had stormed the U.S. Capitol were treated differently: "And once authorities finally gained control of the situation, these rioters and gang members were led out of the building not in handcuffs, but free to carry on with their days."
Michelle Obama called out Trump and racial disparity
Michelle Obama didn't try and hide her feelings about Trump. "The day was a fulfillment of the wishes of an infantile and unpatriotic president who can't handle the truth of his own failures," she wrote, further describing him as "so obviously willing to burn our democracy down for his own ego."
Obama also mused that if the rioters had been Black, things would have been different considering how Black Lives Matter protests were handled over the summer: "... for those who wonder why we need to be reminded that Black Lives Matter at all, yesterday made it painfully clear that certain Americans are, in fact, allowed to denigrate the flag and symbols of our nation. They've just got to look the right way."
She ended with a call to action for every American, imploring us "... [t]o reach out. To listen. And to hold tight to the truth and values that have always led this country forward. It will be an uncomfortable, sometimes painful process. But if we enter into it with an honest and unwavering love of our country, then maybe we can finally start to heal."