President-elect Joe Biden is zeroing in on Inauguration Day, and with his imminent replacing of President Donald Trump in the oval office, on Wednesday, there was a significant amount of civil unrest.
A large group of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. to protest the legislative branch’s formalizing Mr. Biden’s victory. It was quite a scene, as scores of protestors rushed the nation’s capital and did so without immediately appearing to meet heavy resistance from law enforcement.
Sixers head coach Doc Rivers watched in horror.
“It’s pretty disturbing, obviously sad.” Rivers said on Wednesday.
“What it’s not is — I keep hearing, like, this attack on democracy — it’s not. Democracy will prevail, it always does. It shows a lot, though.
…. When you saw the protests in the summer, you saw the riots are more the police and the National Guard and the army and then you see this and you saw nothing. It basically proves the point about a privileged life in a lot of ways. I’ll say it, I don’t think a lot of people want to, could you imagine today if those were all black people storming the Capitol and what would have happened? That is a picture that’s worth 1,000 words for all of us to see, and probably something for us to reckon with.”
Rivers pointed out the obvious difference with which laws appear to be enforced in America. Sports figures have become more outspoken about that reality, Rivers among them.
“No police dogs turned on people, no billy clubs hitting people, people peacefully being escorted out of the Capitol — it shows that you can disperse the crowd basically, I guess, would be the one thing. It’s a bad day in a lot of ways, not good for our country… It’s part of what we are and so we have to solve it.”
Rivers did add that this behavior does not reflect the majority of Americans.
“This is not the masses,” he said. “The masses have spoken. This is a group of people who have decided to be unruly and if we just left it at that, I think we’re all be in a better place. The symbolism of storming the Capitol without force done to them, if you’re a Black American, it definitely touches you in a different way. This is not a Black thing. This is an American thing again today and we shouldn’t turn it into that.”
In the meantime, the Sixers have to prepare for a matchup with the Washington Wizards at 7:00 p.m. ET in Philadelphia.
Rivers, obviously, has had quite a bit on his mind prior to tip-off.
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