Snohomish County Human Rights Commission Statement on January 6^th Attack on Democracy

EVERETT, Wash., January 7, 2021 – The Snohomish County Human Rights Commission stands in opposition to the disgraceful attacks on the US Capitol, on the home of Washington State’s Governor on our legislative campus, on our local elected officials, and, indeed, on our democracy at large. It is imperative that we recognize that these attacks on human rights had been simmering as intolerance, exclusion and inequity long before they boiled over into domestic terrorism on January 6th, 2021. 

We aspire to create a nation in which all people are treated equally. We struggle against the violence waged against Black, Brown and Indigenous Americans, including physical, political, legal, economic and environmental violence. We strive to overcome a broken criminal and legal system, massive disparities in the availability of financial services, affordable and accessible housing and healthcare, as well as environmental and educational injustice.

Standing against these attacks on human rights is an issue of patriotism, morality and integrity, not partisan politics. We must all stand together to affirm the value of our cultural diversity, raising our voices loudly and repeatedly, defending our Republic and democratic way of life at the national and local levels. 

The siege by white nationalists of our nation’s capitol depended on a foundation of normalized bigotry and a long history of racial oppression and injustice. The attempt to undermine our democracy, to disenfranchise our fellow citizens, and to intimidate and terrorize was not an error, but an inevitability. 

Our democratic values require robust participation, not exclusion. No citizen can ignore the marked difference in the treatment of lawful Black Lives Matter protestors from the treatment of domestic terrorists assaulting the national capital. The disparate state-sanctioned treatment of Black, Brown and Indigenous organizers and activists working to mobilize voters, promote civil engagement and oppose police brutality emphasizes the importance of anti-racist work, both locally and nationally. 

To believe in a better America—an America where human rights are valued, and a pledge of allegiance is a promise of honoring the terms of our social contract with each other, where democracy will prevail according to the terms of the Constitution—we must all work together to bend the long arc of history toward accountability and justice. 

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