Every year on Jan. 6 Ethiopians regale Christmas Eve. On that same date, Latinos celebrate the day with a parade they promote as Dia de Los Reyes or Three Kings Day. For a vast majority the date is a marker to dispense with Christmas decorations and end the holiday season.
Christians worldwide consider the 12th day after the birth of Jesus, Epiphany, and the time it took the three wise men to travel to Bethlehem where he was recognized to be the son of God.
Cambridge dictionary defines the word “a moment when you suddenly feel you understand, or suddenly become conscious of something that is important…”
A more conventional explanation takes it straight to the obvious exhorting the period of illumination as an aha moment.
Americans and the rest of a global population experienced an epiphany, on Jan. 6, 2021 when Americans invaded America’s symbol of democracy — the Capitol — with intent to kidnap, capture and harm legislators because they disagreed with the losing results of their candidate.
President-elect Joe Biden referred to the date as a day of insurrection.
As many of his colleagues huddled under desks, hiding in offices and undisclosed areas behind barricades the winner of the national election redefined the meaning of the day.
Like Dec. 7 or September 11 he made it clear Jan. 6 will live in infamy.
Undoubtedly, watching from afar it must have been more than an aha moment for him to see armed dissidents ascending the steps of the Capitol building.
As with many Americans he was repulsed seeing gun-toting citizens scaling walls, breaking windows, defiance of police orders, and at least one individual photographed sitting mockingly in the chair of the Speaker of the House and other lawmakers.
Inside the Rotunda, they brandished an over-sized Confederate flag, paraded a lectern Speaker Nancy Pelosi often used while a scary-looking character (later identified as Brooklynite) — posed for pictures holding a stolen, lucite, police protective shield.
There where a burial chamber for George Washington honors the first president of the United States — though he was buried in Mount Vernon — revolt exposed a divided America.
Thirty-four men have laid in state there, among them politicians, military personnel, government officials — President Abraham Lincoln, President John F. Kennedy, Jacob J. Chestnut, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, first female, in Statutory Hall, Cong. Elijah Cummings, Cong. John Lewis, the first Black lawmaker, Sen. John McCain and some of the nation’s avowed citizens.
It is also the place the nation pays the highest honor to private citizens affording them to lie in honor — Rosa Parks, a Civil Rights among the few.
That Air Force veteran Asli Babbitt travelled from San Diego, California; and on arrival to the state capital attended a pro-Trump rally and afterward felt compelled by the message walked to the Capitol and attempted to climb through an opening to be shot for breaching the sanctity of the institution proved to be an aha moment for television viewers.
Thirty-five-year-old Babbitt is alleged to be a “staunch Trump supporter.”
She believed the president was robbed of votes. She was not convinced 80 million Americans could decide her future. In hindsight, they did. One bullet from a police officer and she has no future.
Since the alleged attempted coup de etat, insurrection, or suggested domestic terrorism, and Capitol break in, media outlets have detailed a double standard in policing. Some cite racial bias and blatant white privilege with few arrests from police who vividly ignored felonious acts of criminality when the majority of dissenters are white as opposed to Black protester who publicly railed last summer about the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and other BlackLivesMatter demonstrations.
Social media highlighted those discrepancies citing the differences when arrests are made or when police stops drivers.
More often than not, the end result is the cold-bloodied killing of Blacks while in many instances whites are excused for wrong-doings with a majority with their life intact.
Visuals from Jan. 6 spotlighted police clearing barricades for white invaders of the Capitol; aiding as escorts to provide safe exit to whites, and as if unintimidated from reproach urged on insurgency.
Whites are now declaring their epiphany.
The outgoing president has been described as the “terrorists’ leader” who since Nov. 3, 2020 denied the landslide that 80 million Americans voted to oust him from the White House. Some of his former loyalist Republicans are now denouncing his role in inciting his supporters.
The day following the incursion, President Donald J. Trump seemed to have experienced a belated epiphany — he said “a new administration will be inaugurated on Jan. 20. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power.”
It may have been coercion that persuaded the loser to admit loss or the fact numerous associates, supporters, and media outlet resigned or called for his immediate resignation.
The year is new, a new government will be installed in the new month and hopefully a new reckoning will prevail.
Catch You On The Inside!
