Jan. 6, 2021 around 1:10 p.m. the United States Capitol was stormed by a pro-Trump mob, waving Confederates flags, hanging a noose and cross, and replacing the American flag with a “Trump 2020” one.

The historic scene captured attention all over the globe, the world watching as the United State’s Capitol Building was raided and vandalized.

Though Wednesday’s events at the Capitol building were shocking to many, junior Sydney Bishop feels as though this instance was simply a symptom of a larger issue.

“All of the events that took place at the Capitol last night only exemplifies what we already know, which is that white supremacists and those who benefit from the racist infrastructure of our country do not understand that [infrastructure], and also do not care enough to acknowledge [the infrastructure],” Bishop said. “Because if that had been Black Lives Matter or anything, it would have gone completely differently. These people waltzed right in and destroyed [the Capitol building], they’re taking selfies with the police and there are medics on standby for these people in there. They’re being gingerly removed, people are holding their hands as they walk down the Capitol steps, versus at the Black Lives Matter protest, they begin peacefully, until the police incite violence by throwing tear gas and other forms of irrational force.”

In the eyes of AP Government teacher Amanda Peters, the mob’s attack leaves a stain on the United States’s democracy and its influence on the world stage.

“It becomes harder for America to go out into the world and to promote democracy,” Peters said. “It’s definitely tarnished us a little bit more because it’s ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ I’m hoping we can return to some sense of normalcy, or make it better than it was, but I think it definitely did impact our presence in the world, which was already in decline because we had taken such a step back with foreign policy.”

The violence was incited due to the House and Senate vote to determine whether or not to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, with over 100 Republican congressmen and congresswomen voting to throw out the election’s outcome. Collin County Republican representative Van Taylor voted differently from most of his party, and did not object to certifying the election results.

“As a constitutional conservative, I have always considered our founding document to be my North Star, and I arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday planning to defend the Constitution by casting a vote to accept the electoral votes certified by every state,” Taylor wrote in a column published in The Dallas Morning News. “After a violent mob broke into the chamber to halt the democratic process, my job of defending our Constitution became all the more important.”

Many people have drawn comparisons to yesterday’s events with progressive movements such as BLM, March for Our Lives, etc, but others have denounced calling the event a protest- preferring the use of terms such as “insurrection” and “riot.” Junior Logan Schaefer believes that the movement responsible for the Capitol attack is much different, and much more dangerous.

“I would even go as far as to say that this movement has been far more dangerous,” Schaefer said. “Not because of the fact that it’s a right-wing movement, but because of the fact that in the entire 244 years of our country’s history the Senate has never had to have been evacuated. I would say that the imagery and ideology behind this movement have been much more overt. I’ve seen images of people hanging the iron cross, a neo-Nazi symbol, and I saw that being flown in the nation’s capitol. So not only has this taken on a more sinister tone, but the ideology has been much more prevalent.”

Bishop draws on a double standard in treatment and rhetoric between the pro-Trump mob and Black Lives Matter protests.

“These people are being called ‘protesters’ but all of the Black Lives Matter protests, which [most] of them were peaceful, were still framed in a negative light,” she said. “That is because this country was built on the foundation of institutional racism and whenever someone tries to fight against that, they get defensive and they put a magnifying glass on all the faults in the movement and fabricate all these flaws within it and frame it as a terrorist organization when [most] of the protests were not riots.”

Aside from double standards, Bishop highlights the difference between the motives of the two movements, and believes that the violence exhibited at the Capitol was unfounded, unlike violence seen at some BLM protests.

“Even when there were riots [at BLM protests], we had a passion behind it and we had a reason to riot because we are tired of our lives not being valued in this country,” Bishop said. “When we were rioting you saw the passion, the fear, and just complete and utter dismay in our eyes, but when these people, these pro-Trump people who benefit from all the racism we have to face, go to that Capitol Building, they look like a bunch of kindergarteners on a field trip.”

This story was originally published on Wingspan on January 7, 2021.