I have to talk about Charlottesville. -Topic Tuesday

On Saturday August 12th a group of White Nationalist gathered in Charlottesville, VA for something they called a "Unite the Right" march. At least that's what all the news outlets are saying and calling it. 

The truth is, a bunch of homegrown terrorist and racist white supremacist, gassed up by this clown show we call the Trump Presidency and stale light beer got together carrying Tiki torches they bought at home depot and chanted things like "You will not replace us" and "blood and soil", whatever that means. Let's not forget some of their more poetic chants like "fuck you faggots" and "hell trump" either. 

Many of them wore Nazi armbands and chanted Nazi slogans while police stood by and did nothing. It obviously didn't take long for violence to breakout among the group, I mean so much rage and feelings of inadequacy are bound to cause some kind of animalistic outburst, am I right? 

They carried American flags, and confederate flags, and even Nazi flags. Some even held up signs with KKK written on it in black spray paint. They wore Make America Great Again hats, white polo t-shirts, and khaki pants, the new uniform of today's modern racist. 

This was an act of domestic terrorism. 

I debated talking about this on my blog, my thoughts being that I didn't want to alienate some of my small audience. A line from a poem by Andrea Gibson called A Letter To White Queer People, A Letter To Myself then came to mind. 

"... white is having somebody tell you you'd be a pleasure to hang, having a whole lot of people agree and not even thinking to lock your fucking door that night. White is knowing if somebody's going to be hung, you are not the one." 

If you don't understand metaphors, what she is basically saying is because I am white, and I benefit from the type of system that lets things like Charlottesville happen, of course I debated talking about this. Whether I do or I don't, it doesn't affect me. That being said, I honestly don't care who I alienate. I'm angry. 

When protesters took to the streets after Mike Brown was murdered by police officer Darren Wilson, they were met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and swat teams. The same happened in 2015 after Freddie Grey died from injuries he sustained while in police custody. The media and news outlets called them rioters and thugs and animals. 

This display of our first amendment right was not met with such violence from the police however. No, the violence that occurred within this march, the violence that killed Heather D. Heyer and left 34 people wounded was caused strictly by the Nazi armband wearing, bullshit chanting, white racists who formed this ridiculous march, yet when you Google Charlottesville you don't see "thugs formed together to riot". You see "White Nationalists come together to march for the far right." Talk about white privilege. 

I don't know how to wrap up this post and perhaps it would have been better suited for a Thursday's Thoughts, but here we are. I am not a racist. I support the Black Lives Matter movement, I believe in intersectional feminism and try my best to promote it, and I try to ally myself the best I can. Sometimes that means staying quite but other times, like right now, it means speaking up. 

The horrendous display of bigotry and racism that took place in Charlottesville is just a symptom of the racial inequality in our country. I can denounce it until I'm blue in the face but the fact is I look like those men and woman carrying those torches. Their breath is my breath and that's why it's not the responsibility of people of color to speak out against this, it's our responsibility. Those of us who look like them but don't think like them. 

I don't know what else to say, but this isn't okay. 

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A heavy topic for sure, but I hope you gained something from this weeks Topic Tuesday. 

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Thanks for reading! 

- Fallon xo