I’m
sure most of you are familiar with the Unite the Right rally that occurred last
August in Charlottesville. It began with
white nationalists gathering together in protest against the removal of the
Robert E. Lee statue from Emancipation Park.
The majority of information I gathered is from a video by VICE News
Tonight, and I will leave the link to the video at the end of the blog; I
encourage those who haven’t seen it to give it a look!
While
the protest was about the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue, the white
nationalists really wanted to prove that they had a real, physical presence instead
of simply being a meme. The white
nationalists were clearly not nonviolent as the United Right speaker Christopher
Cantwell stated, “we’re not nonviolent; we’ll F***ing kill these people if we
have to” and “I’m trying to make myself more capable of violence.”1 Unfortunately, Cantwell was right that there would be violence as one white
nationalist plowed through a group of protesters in a car, injuring many and
killing one. The media and other groups
labeled the Unite the Right as white supremacists or nationalist, but with the
level of violence they committed and condoned I would call them white
terrorists. Terrorists who believe they “didn’t
kill anyone unjustly”, and state how “a lot more people are going to die before
we’re done”.1
Local
anti-white supremacy activist Tanesha Hudson said it best when she stated that
it was never about a statue, but about people standing for what is wrong. Another activist named Montae Taylor also had
a stimulating perspective on the white nationalists’ protest. Taylor’s great grandfather used to tell him
stories about his experience of racism, and the violence that he faced during civil
rights protest. Taylor found it
incredibly appalling to see the violence and hatred his grandfather talked
about firsthand. If you take the time to
look at photos of the Charlottesville protest like the photo of the white
terrorist hitting nonviolent protesters with a car, then you’ll notice the same
aggression of violence seen in photos of the Birmingham protest in 1963. I don’t think Taylor is wrong to compare the violence
seen now to the violence seen during the Civil Rights Movement as they may be
more similar than we may want to admit.
Anti-white
nationalist protesters were especially critical of the way president Trump
handled the situation, especially when he stated that people were wrong on many
sides. I believe Trump has demonstrated
that we cannot remain neutral in this critical moment; we have a moral
obligation to fight against racism until freedom from hatred has reached all
corners of the United States.
Video
1 Vice, “Charlottesville: Race and Terror— VICE News Tonight on HBO,” YouTube,
August 14, 2017, Accessed March 01, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIrcB1sAN8I.
I agree that this hateful protest was not just about the removal of a statue. The white supremacists had evil and violent intentions that stemmed from their racist and hateful hearts. I was disgusted as I watched the protest on the news, and appalled to see that so many people could act in such a disgraceful way. Their violent actions classified them as terrorists, and they should not be treated otherwise.
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