After the attack in Charlottesville, VA, over the weekend, buzzwords such as "Freedom of Speech," "First Amendment," and "White Privilege" have been thrown around by respective sides of the political aisle. A young man drove his car into a group of counter-protesters at a white supremacist rally, killing a young woman and injuring several other people. Two state troopers were also killed after their helicopter crashed while they were monitoring the situation.
This attack has left a lot of people distressed and confused, and has widened the rift between political ideologies as people grapple with what occurred this weekend and disagreements between parties with which they identify.
This event should serve as a wake-up call for all of us, regardless of our political affiliations or who we voted for in the last election. It's also an obvious sign that this country is in desperate need of a history lesson: one of freedom of speech and the sordid history of racism that remains prevalent in our society to this day.
This rally consisted of American citizens promoting an ideology of white supremacy: toting Nazi propaganda, Confederate flags, and attracting members of the alt-right to convene in the progressive town of Charlottesville. While hateful beliefs are technically protected as free speech under the First Amendment, there are nine types of speech that are not considered our First Amendment rights as citizens. Courtesy of the Newseum, they are: "Obscenity, fighting words, defamation (including libel and slander), child pornography, perjury, blackmail, incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, (and) solicitations to commit crimes." The rally was declared unlawful and the governor of Virginia issued a state of emergency. This was hours before the car attack was committed.
Trump refused to condemn a specific group of people, avoiding words such as "white nationalists", "racists", "Nazis", and "terrorists". In fact, it took him until Monday to even directly confront the people at the center of the attacks. However, the response was too little, too late from the White House regarding this event.
Far-right news sources such as "The Blaze" reported on David Duke's Twitter interaction with Trump. Duke is the former head of the KKK and is a Louisiana State Representative. He emphasized that the protesters were fulfilling Trump's campaign promises and then he listed off dozens of reasons for the supposed oppression of white people. Despite finally calling out white supremacists for their behaviors, Trump cannot escape the reality that these are the people that put him in the White House; that the racist, bigoted white supremacists among us see him as the person who most closely shares their beliefs. It is one thing to condemn them in the wake of a terrorist attack but it is another thing altogether to disassociate oneself with such a hate-filled group of people.
Let's make one thing clear: white people are not oppressed. They never have been and they never will be. It is impossible for people to practice "reverse racism," because racism involves the systemic oppression of a specific group of people because of their race. Never in the history of this country have people of White European descent been prejudiced against or been subjected to work for success in a system that had set them up to fail.
The fact that groups of fascists can gather in the streets; armed, angry, and dangerous and be allowed to leave, to go home to their jobs and their families, is the ultimate in white privilege.
The fact that these people could engage in physical altercations with the police and not have one shot fired in their direction is the ultimate in white privilege.
The fact that the Nazi party, one which has a horrifying history of mass genocide, not even simply hate speech or racism, and which is outlawed in Germany, feels so comfortable in the United States, is horrifying and shameful.
The fact that we're shying away from referring to the attacker as a terrorist because he has a skin tone lighter than bronze is flat-out racist. How many brown and black people have been stopped, held up in security lines, and forced to carry the blame for the actions of others while these white men are out here murdering people and being dismissed as "just a lone wolf" or "mentally unsound"?
By definition, what happened in Charlottesville was a terrorist attack. To treat it as any less or to dismiss it as simply an expression of one's freedom of speech is a move of privilege and irresponsibility, and it is behaviors such as these that offer bigotry a breeding-ground to continue expansion.
America is a melting-pot. To be a white supremacist is, by definition, to be un-American. We were founded on the premise that all people are equal and, therefore, no one is inherently superior to anyone else.
You cannot be both a Nazi and a proud American. Those things simply cannot co-exist.
You cannot be both a bigot and a good person.
I'm sure that many of the people at this rally would consider themselves "Christians," but it is impossible to be both a Christian and a racist.
These attitudes and behaviors do not belong in the United States. They are not welcome here. However, we cannot ignore the history that has allowed them to breed. We need to take complete responsibility for this toxicity poisoning our country and we need to get ahead of it... while we still can.
