The Discursive Construction of Race: A Comparative Analysis of Government Responses to the Capitol Hill Insurrection and 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests

This examination of biopolitical responses interrogates the juxtaposition of racial construction in the wake of the 2021 Capitol Hill insurrection and 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. To probe the facilitation of anti-Black racist discursive symbolism within US and Canadian federal government leadership. Examining race as a political category, this comparative Foucauldian Discourse Analysis explores the linguistic positionality of race and political allegiance, to determine whether a proximity to Whiteness and law enforcement has reproduced anti-Black ideology. The analyzation of Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau’s tweets and national addresses are a critique of power relations, subject positions, and government compliance in the propagation of White protectionism, following a genealogical timeline of history-making events while charting shifts in racial consciousness. In problematizing the government regulated subjugation of Black bodies, we evaluate the permeation of White ideological dialogue through a critical race theoretical lens, questioning whether political discourse enlists police as a mechanism of White protectionism in the shaping of racial phenomena.