You shouldn’t expect to be the recipient of peace when you sow discord.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court leak to overturn Roe vs. Wade, protesters demonstrated outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh‘s home and they continue to do so now that the highest court has ruled abortion rights unconstitutional.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Chuck Grassley from Iowa slammed the protesters. A man was arrested for a possible attempt on the life of Kavanaugh. McConnell called for a security bill to protect Supreme Court justices and their staffs from protests and assassination attempts.

Conservatives really want to have their cake and eat it too.

Why do they believe that they should be treated with a modicum of respect and decency when, through their rulings and opinions, they’ve failed to treat the people in the fashion they wish to be treated?

Voicing displeasure with politicians, justices and their staff isn’t anything new. Ours is a country where people can voice their displeasure with those in power. However, recent disrespect of conservatives got steam with Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Tomi Lahren, and Candace Owens.

It is important to note that these folks supported the white supremacist Trump administration (Spicer and Sanders worked for it). The same can be said of the Republican Party — it too believes in white supremacy. Republicans, of course, would disagree but their track record speaks for itself — killing a voting rights bill, establishing voter suppression laws, outlawing the teaching of Black history labeled as critical race theory (CRT), gerrymandering in various states, and establishing anti-protest legislation.

Republicans can say “I don’t have a racist bone in my body,” but Black folk know better.

Republicans can’t cry “love your neighbor as yourself” when they fail to do unto others as they would to themselves. People don’t expect politicians to get everything right. But there’s a reason why the people I mentioned get treated the way they do, including Kavanaugh. Their engaging in politics, jurisprudence or punditry indoctrinates some while harming others. You cannot claim ignorance anymore.

I’m not advocating for any violence against any Supreme Court justices, whether I agree with their ruling or not. However, rather than create more legislation to protect any conservatives in the halls of power from people they’ve angered by taking away their rights, Republicans should simply do what’s right for people.  If you want to stop people from marching at your house or from threatening to kill you, have regard for people, their livelihoods, their rights, and their humanity enough to use your power to support them and not oppose them.

Then again, white supremacy does not care about people. White supremacy is about sustaining itself, even at the expense of white people.  White people are harmed by legislation and court decisions that strip away rights and further exacerbate inequality. The question is whether white supremacy, as a social structure, can withstand the entitlement that it has bestowed upon white people to sustain itself. Put another way, will the social structure crumble at the hands of white people who are tired of the okey-doke, or do white people continue to fall for it?

I’m not sure of the answer to that question, but what I do know is that if you sow chaos, you will reap it, and to sustain white supremacy, chaos is sown. Is it any question why chaos is the fruit of the harvest? So, for conservative politicians, unless they change, they better learn to live with the chaos of their doing. They should also know that like the white people that they harm, they too may be collateral damage.

Photo: Protesters gather in front of the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill, Sept. 24, 2018. A second allegation of sexual misconduct has emerged against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. President Donald Trump stands by conservatives in his choice of nominee. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Rann Miller is the director of anti-bias and DEI initiatives as well as a high school social studies teacher for a school district located in Southern New Jersey. He’s also a freelance writer and founder of the Urban Education Mixtape, supporting urban educators and parents of students in urban schools. He is the author of the upcoming book, Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids, with an anticipated release date of February 2023. You can follow him on Twitter @UrbanEdDJ .