Usually we publish a “Sunday Funday” link roundup on Sundays, devoted entirely to uplifting news. But we can’t really put “Sunday Funday” in a headline on this website today, and we’re also not a website capable of doing its own original reporting on the situation in Charlottesville, and thus instead what we have is some links and some space to talk about them.
+ On August 4th, It’s Going Down published a field guide to the groups and movements involved in the rally that began last Friday, What You Need to Know About the Nazi Rally in Charlottesville, VA – It’s Going Down: “As the Unite the Right protest draws closer, Alt-Right trolls and neo-Nazis have increased their calls from the safe space of the internet, for violence and openly are talking about bringing weapons and concealed firearms.”
+ Today, The Root talked to 20-year-old Deandre Harris, a Black man assaulted by White Supremacists in Charlottesville: “The beating happened right beside the police department, and no police were there to help me at all.” (Here is a GoFundMe for Harris)
+ VIRGINIA: Hundreds Of Nazi Trump Supporters Chant “Fuck You Faggots!” At Counter-Protesters [VIDEO]
+ From The New Yorker – The Ugly, Violent Clichés of White-Supremacist Terrorism: The “Unite the Right” rally, with its secondhand slogans—“blood and soil,” “Jew will not replace us”—and its hand-me-down flags was still less shocking given Charlottesville’s recent history.
+ At Forward, My Family Is Black and Jewish. Here’s What Charlottesville Means To Me:“But I also I felt a new pain today: the pain of being a mother. Today, it was personal. It was the pain of watching men march in opposition to our bi-racial Jewish-Black family. They oppose my life as Jew and the lives of my family members as Black Jews. They find the family life that brings me such joy to be an abomination.”
+ Neo-Nazi Site Daily Stormer Praises Trump’s Charlottesville Reaction: ‘He Loves Us All’
+ From Very Smart Brothas (which migrated to the Gizmodo Media platform this weekend): Those Va. Police Really Fucked The Dog in Charlottesville, Eh?: “As a black man, you almost never hear me ask the following question, but: where the fuck were the police?”
+ From this very website, Trump Lit The “Good Ol’ Boy” Torches That Set Charlottesville On Fire
+ Here’s What We Know About The Man Accused Of Killing A Woman At A White Supremacist Rally
+ This twitter account is attempting to identify the White Supremacists and Nazis pictured at the rally so that we can get them fired.
+ Colorlines has Some Background on Those Violent, White Supremacist ‘Unite the Right’ Actions in Charlottesville
+ From The Cut, Charlottesville: The Truth About Women And White Supremacy: “Those who think white supremacy is a “white guys’ thing” must ask themselves about the nature of the fantasy they have constructed. Do we really believe the men holding torches in these photographs live in some sort of single-gendered society, or that the women they interact with hold no sway in their communities? There may be fewer of them marching with lit torches, but rest assured women are playing a powerful role wherever they can enact their agendas.”
+ A GoFundMe set up for Heather Heyer. HuffPo talked to the mother of the 32-year-old who was killed after a man drove his car into protesters at the “Unite the Right” rally.
+ Also from The Root, Donald Trump Just Blamed The White Supremacist Hunger Games on ‘Many Sides.’ Here’s What He Meant: “Some people are wondering what Trump specifically meant by condemning hate and bigotry “on many sides.” Allow us to explain: He means the side that hates people of color, and the people of color who are recipients of hate.”
+ From Jia Tolentino at The New Yorker, Charlottesville and the Effort to Downplay Racism in America | The New Yorker “It’s a community that manages to embody the honeyed ease of a small Southern enclave while modelling the progressive values and professional advancement of a liberal city. The idea is that there’s sophistication and dignity in Charlottesville—good food, tasteful living, and sun-dappled long afternoons. And there is. But, as certain reactions to recent events from white friends and politicians have reminded me, an air of enlightened blamelessness is more often concealment than it is proof.”
+ From ProPublica and Mother Jones, Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville: “In the weeks leading up to the protest, city and state officials put together a detailed plan for the rally, mobilizing 1,000 first responders, including 300 state police troopers and members of the National Guard. Judging from how events unfolded today, it appears that the strategy was to avoid direct confrontations with the protesters.”
+ From The Washington Post, Trump babbles in the face of tragedy: “Ultimately this was not merely the failure of rhetoric or context, but of moral judgment. The president could not bring himself initially to directly acknowledge the victims or distinguish between the instigators and the dead.”
+ Trump is a fucking nightmare
+ Also, “If you’re tempted to point out that you’re one of the good ones right now . . . please don’t.”
+ From after the Affirmative Action announcement of last week, but (obviously) still relevant: “White resentment put Donald Trump in the White House.”
+ The KKK Rally In Charlottesville Proves Why #NoConfederate Is Needed: Confederate asks us to imagine a world in which the South did not lose, and white supremacy won. The rally in Charlottesville — and the systemic forces protecting the white nationalists behind it — proves that we are living in it.
+ The Forward’s reporting from Charlottesville: What A Jewish Journalist Saw, Heard In Charlottesville
+ From What We Need White Allies To Do About The White Supremacists In Virginia:
- You can donate here to support the legal fund for the Charlottesville, VA anti-racist activists.
- Donate to the Black Student Alliance of University of Virginia fund here.
- Donate to the Legal Aid Justice Center which provides legal assistance to low-income individuals.
- If you’re striving to take steps towards being a white ally but you don’t know where to start, you can look into Safety Pin Box.
Also: Guide to Charlottesville Solidarity Actions Around the World
Finally, The Charlottesville Syllabus:
The Charlottesville Syllabus is a resource created by the Graduate Student Coalition for Liberation to be used to educate readers about the long history of white supremacy in Charlottesville, Virginia. With resources selected and summaries written by UVa graduate students, this abridged version of the Syllabus is organized into six sections that offer contemporary and archival primary and secondary sources (articles, books, responses, a documentary, databases) and a list of important terms for discussing white supremacy.
Thanks for the thorough link round-up and the discussion space. Myself, on the one hand I feel horrified by what’s happening, and on the other I feel horrified by how numb to it I am.
When 45 won I predicted terrible things. Many people told me I was overreacting and I still hope they’re right, but I wonder, how much more can happen before things officially are not okay? What’s the sign that will tell my more chill friends to freak out? Because I think we might be there…
I grew up hearing about 1930’s Germany from my Holocaust-survivor grandparents, and, well, I am not the first to point this out but the parallels just keep growing.
I don’t have an answer, but I did want to say I feel you on the horror/numb thing. Also on the trying-to-get-chill-friends-to-wake-up thing.
Thank you for these.
This is important fucking work. Please, do not feel guilty that you don’t have the resources to do on-the-ground reporting. This is wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you. It’s been difficult to watch this from a distance and I’m especially worried about the upcoming protests in Berkeley given how many people I know there.
thank you thank you thank you.
i live in charlottesville, and was a few hundred feet behind when the car plowed into a peacful march.
i was walking along, smiling and chanting “Who’s streets?! Our streets!” when I see something fly into the air, and hear screaming.
i panic, thinking it was a tear gas canister, and run.
only to find out that no, it was a car who plowed into innocent people.
someone was murdered.
i counted 12 injured people that i saw with my own eyes.
i have so many images playing through my head that probably will never go away.
an hour earlier, i also saw another (women) nazi-filled car hit someone as they were leaving a parking lot.
100% on purpose, and this man was literally not doing anything. luckily they were going slow enough that the man was okay.
dawn, thank you for sharing your account of what happened. Sending you lots of love from California.
Like so many others around the world I watched the news in both disbelief and and a kind of shocked disappointment, in the knowledge that the predicted mass horror had begun.
I hope that decent people in authority can can halt this before it gets worse. I fear that that will not be the case.
The rest of the world is watching, perhaps that will help the decent authorities do what is needed before the next step on the way to civil war.
We shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s standing by the water side
We shall not be moved
Thank you for posting this. I live outside of Charlottesville and was not at the counterprotest but many of my friends and neighbors were. We knew it was going to be bad, ahead of time, but still were unprepared for the violence and chaos. I really don’t think “the authorities” are going to do anything besides stand by, just like the cops did that day. We’ve got to be our own authorities. I was heartened to see the news of so many solidarity marches!
That article from the Cut about women’s involvement in white supremacist movements was pretty eye-opening for me, I have definitely thought of it as a male thing. I’d add to your links this piece from Unicorn Riot, for some on-the-ground reporting from the event: http://www.unicornriot.ninja/?p=18055. Also this piece from Yes magazine, which underscores the way media reported on the event: http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/charlottesville-was-not-a-201cprotest-turned-violent-201d-it-was-a-planned-race-riot-20170812/
I also think it’s important to talk about the way the white supremacist movement is using freedom of speech as their shield. Where do we draw the line? The rally was supposedly about protesting the removal of the Lee statue, but it seems pretty clear that that was just their excuse to make a show of force and brutality, see how far they could push things. The mayor/city council made the decision that the rally would only be granted a permit if it was moved to a larger space, McIntyre Park, and Jason Kessler’s lawyers worked with the ACLU to get an emergency court order to allow the rally to occur in Emancipation Park as planned.
I’m currently writing the index to a biography of Lucy Parsons, famous POC anarchist of the 1880s, and drawing a lot of parallels to current events. (The previous book I indexed was on racial ideology in Nazi Germany… yep.)
Thanks for this
There was a militia group rally planned in support of my own VA towns statue on the twelfth, but it was cancelled when groups more openly white supremacist planned to show up (at least, that’s what they said, but my suspicion is that they cancelled bc they couldn’t be in two places at once, and perhaps many members wanted to be at the bigger rally in Cville). Now it’s rescheduled for the sixteenth of September. I’m hoping they’ll cancel again, and kinda think they will, since a (probably much bigger rally) is planned on the same day in Richmond, Land Of Confederate Statues.
I heard that the Richmond rally is canceled.