I knew Saturday’s white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia wasn’t going to be well received by decent people around the country. It was billed as the largest white nationalist rally ever, joining such groups as Neo-Nazis, alt-white activists, and the KKK. I thought there would be a handful of anti-racist protesters there too, and that they would be kept separated by the police as they held their signs (and their noses) while these haters marched through the streets.
But this turned out to be something very different. These young white supremacists showed up with guns, bats, and pepper spray, itching for a fight. And they got one. With only a small police presence, they physically attacked the counter-racists protesters. And vice versa. I watched on television from the beginning as few police could be found and those who were present, did little to stop the attacks. It was strange. I can only surmise that the police had miscalculated the ensuing violence and were waiting for backup before they finally intervened.
I am most disturbed by the youth of the people involved. It tells me that my generation has failed! As a parent and an educator, I ask myself how my generation allowed our children, now these young men and a few young women, to hate Jews, Muslims, black and brown people? We somehow failed to teach them that America is a nation of immigrants that belongs to all of us. Why did they revert to the bigoted past when America was first and foremost for white people? Did they think that was America at its greatest? Do they really want to revert back to the days of genocide of the American Indian? Slavery or perhaps Jim Crow for black people? Exclusion for everyone else who is not white nor Christian? And most importantly, my peers failed to teach these young adults that violent confrontation is unacceptable. My generation bears the blame for yesterday. And you can see the kind of failure that led to yesterday’s shameful display in the words and actions and began with the campaign of President Trump and now his cabinet members: Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Jeff Sessions. This President couldn’t even condemn white supremacy and white nationalists when he addressed the situation yesterday.
A young woman lost her life. She was only 33 years old. She was murdered at the event by a 20-year old white male nationalist who turned his car into a weapon and ran over a crowd of anti-racists protesters. Two police officers were killed when their helicopter crashed and many others were injured in the violent clashes.
I have to admit that as a black woman, I can’t begin to understand how one group of human beings actually believes that they are better than other human beings based on the color of their skin. Science already proved the eugenics experiments wrong. Nazi Germany learned the hard way that they weren’t superior. And I can’t wrap my head around the reasoning that claims that this nation actually belongs to white people and that Donald Trump was elected to give it back to them. What about the Native Americans? That’s like saying a thief who enters your house, kills you, and then claims that God made him the rightful, true, and only legitimate owner of the house.
What I do understand is fear, self-preservation, and greed. These are base emotions that I believe to be the fuel that these young white nationalists are tapping into. They fear having to compete in life with the talented youth from other ethnic groups, like the “Jackie Robinsons” and “Barack Obamas” in the country. They fear being irrelevant because they can no longer take it for granted that they presumably have the best ideas and the best athletic ability. They want to preserve their privileged place where opportunities to attend Ivy League schools, to apply for the best jobs, and to obtain investment capital, were all set aside for them alone. And they want as much of everything that they can get for themselves without having to share with others. And by others, I’ll include women. Just look at what happened at Google last week where a young white male engineer announced in a memo that women naturally lacked the technical ability of men. I call that fear, self-preservation, greed and delusion. The question is, how are we going to reach this generation before it is too late?