White Supremacist March: Charlottesville NC

Watch this Vice piece on what's happening in Charlottesville NC. It's appalling.





This is the woman that white supremacist killed in NC, by running her over, and injuring 20 others:



This guy named Cory Long who is a care worker, said he had a white can of spray paint thrown at him by the White Supremacists, while he and the elderly white man behind him were at the counter rally, so when the Supremacists came near him and the old man, he took out his lighter and made it into a flame thrower:



Here we have a band of anti-right protesters surrounding a Confederate statue greatly outnumbered by White Nationalists:





And here's what that young black guy looked like afterward:




From an actual resident of Charlottesville:

"There seems to be a perception from people outside of Charlottesville that what is going on here is two opposing groups coming to town and fighting some ideological battle that has gotten messy. That is not what is happening here. What is happening here is that several hate groups from the extreme right have come together under the "unite the right" banner here in our town and basically started acting as terrorists. This may seem like an exaggeration but it's not.

A church service was held over because they had surrounded the building and police had to disperse them. People had to be escorted to their cars. My friend was there with her daughter. Everywhere they meet, businesses close. We had drive by shootings yesterday from a van marked kkk.

A car plowed into a huge group of people. I'm sure you saw that on the newsfeeds. What you probably didn't see is that some of those people were on their way back from helping to repel a white supremacist march to predominately black housing development a few blocks away where they were attempting home invasions. I guess they were unfamiliar with the neighborhood. The residents repelled that one before antifa got there but there is some video of the alt-right folks getting run off on the daily progress twitter feed, if you're interested.

So, basically, what I'd like you to understand is, this IS NOT two side egging eachother on to unavoidable violence for more attention. This is one side of terrorists declaring that they can and will hold a town hostage (they've been saying it for over a month now, actually) and the town responding to that threat. The car that killed and injured people yesterday? Ohio tags. The medic tents (which treated both sides... turns out the alt right erst didn’t bring any medics. Guess they planned on doing all the injuring), water bottles, snacks, shade tents (all volunteer, donations, none shut down by police... all manned by that radical left you keep hearing about) yeah, we all live here. I saw a lot of people I knew yesterday, none of them were speaking for unite the right. None of them were escalating violence, most of them were offering some kind of aid and defending."


My take?....

First, this isn't about Trump. Trump might have emboldened these people, but they were still here way before Trump was elected. They believed what they believe way before Trump was elected. Nothing here is new.

I find it hard to even address this because it shouldn't need to get to this for people to realize this is what people of color, LGBTQ, and many other minority group in the US deal with on a regular basis. These people go home and they are your clerks, business owners, waiters, police, sales people, and general citizens, and they might seem like normal people to you if you aren't black, gay, Muslim, etc. They are sprinkled all around the US just in greater concentrations some places than others.

I've had so many conversations, and listened to people try to claim "race wouldn't be a problem if you'd all stop bringing is up", "Racism isn't even really a problem any more", "stop playing the race card", well this is just them coalescing into a MORE visible display of what the people that are the targets of their hate have been talking about. Remember this. Don't forget this in a month. Don't forget this in a year. People that actually have to deal with this can never forget, and neutrality only supports the attacker. These people want us exterminated.

It's 2017 and you would think some of these images could have been taken in the 1950's

 

I grew up in a town that was known to have Neo Nazi ties. Those ties were mostly expunged by the time I was born, but there were still a few holdovers. I very rarely have had instances of outright discrimination, but I have had plenty of times when I felt uncomfortable in some areas. My parents also raised me never to see race, to always see myself as an American above an ethnic group, and to never lean on my race or ethnicity for any reason good or bad.

I've had some great luck in my life to never run into people ^like that. I've been in the back roads of Virginia and felt the stares, but nobody brazen enough to do anything about me. That being said, I'm afraid Trump does have something to do with this. These people feel empowered by that man whether that's fair or not to Trump. I don't know what he could do to stop that, but they feel strongly enough that they're not alone to gather in these groups. There's people claiming he didn't call this out by name and I understand the argument. These people disgust me and I hope we can all agree they're the bane of our country and as shameful as anything we've seen from foreign terrorists.

I've come to realize that we'll never kill racism in our times, but we can do better. In fact, this needs to be the death throes of this side of America. This action here should be remembered. Everyone who attended that rally should be revealed so they can get what's coming to them. I don't mean violence, I mean public ridicule. Remember that kid who raped the girl, but got off because the judge "didn't want to ruin his life?" Brock Turner. His name was made public and there's few places that kid can run now where he isn't a pariah. All of those men (and I assume a few women) should be given the same treatment. I want to know who they are so we never have to see them again. This is not what our country is. Anyone who could proudly display Nazi signs and Hitler quotes is not a national. Anyone who could fly a swastika is not a representation of who we are.

 

The reason I feel Trump isn't the problem here is because these people were always here, and just because they weren't band together in huge mobs, they were still effecting peoples lives. They didn't have some racist switch turned on. They were spitting at gay people, telling black people to get out of their stores, and harassing Jews in their daily lives all along. So their racist ideologies were still hurting people and this country way before Trump and after.

Trump is a sack of s***, and embolden them to come together to intimidate and threaten whole towns, but I don't want the narrative to read this is all because of Trump. It's not. It's because this country lives with a cancer that is ignored until it flares up into a visible lesion. We need to stamp it out at every opportunity.

 

I'm not disagreeing necessarily. I'm saying, whether fair or not, this particular event was caused by Trump. Like you said, these people weren't bold enough to make this move until Trump was elected. For whatever reason, they've married white supremacy to Trump in their heads and thus felt like they could pull this off.

I'm not blaming Trump for racism. I'm saying with Trump in office, these people felt big and while that's unfair to Trump, it's the truth. In some ways, it's good this came out so that people can see there's still a small, but apparently strong and organized?, faction of deeply seeded racists that exist. These people should be circulated through social media so we can all recognize them as the purveyors of outdated hate in our time.

 

Trump has White Supremacists married to him because he doesn't denounce it in unequivocal terms. He had a chance to denounce it during his candidacy and he didn't and then when this all happened, he accused the White Suprimists and the counter protesters to be equivalent by saying there's violence on both sides. White Nationalists loved it:

 

That's what I'm getting at. He could do more to stop this sort of behavior. He has some hand in this. It's not a direct correlation and I'm not saying it's all his fault, but this type of hatred comes to light when it feels comfortable doing so. Unfortunately this hatred has always existed, so it's exposure is in some ways a good thing (you can't fight what you can't see), but it's still due to his presence that these folks felt empowered. It's not fair. It's a s***ty situation to be in, but Trump's presence has inspired hatred from all angles. We were a frosty nation with Obama as the President, we're a violent nation with Trump thus far in his young office career. Fair or not, it's the truth.

 

And now, one day later, Trump just backtracked and said there's blame on both sides again.

 

We calling this "Alternative Blame"

 

The whole scene was just disheartening... Thank goodness for movies, music and sports for a break from crap like it. Not that it should EVER be swept under or ignored.

 

I forgot to post this earlier last week

 

^^^ That is fantastic.