I want to do nothing but make fun of the fact that they’re all carrying tiki torches, probably purchased for $3 a pop at their local Walmart or convenience store, and how they probably bitch about how fuel costs more than the hardware itself. And how it’s hard to really take them seriously because they’re protecting themselves from mosquitos at the same time they’re marching like sheep, preaching bigoted messages of white purity and some other hateful rhetoric.
But it’s because of the bigoted messages of white purity and some other hateful rhetoric that I can’t just laugh at the tiki torches, and instead have to wince and acknowledge that somehow, this is 2017 and not 1917.
Here’s the thing – I am a native Virginian. I was born in Virginia, and spent 21 years of my life in Virginia. Seeing shit like large, organized white supremacy groups marching down the campus of the University of Virginia is something that I never thought I would really see in my lifetime, and really, really makes me glad that I don’t live in Virginia anymore. It makes me ashamed of the state I was born in and grew up in, and I wish I could deny my Virginia origins.
This isn’t a post about a topic because it’s topical, it’s a post because there is a part of me that has some relation to the situation in the fact that this shit is happening not that far from where I grew up.
Despite the fact that I did the most of my growing up in Northern Virginia, I was actually born not far from where this unfortunate hatred is taking place. I would say my first home is probably 45 minutes to an hour or so away from Charlottesville. That being said, I don’t think the vast majority of the people marching white supremacy on UVA are necessarily all people from Charlottesville, because ultimately the city is a little more progressive and vastly better educated than the rest of the state.
The sad thing is that I’d wager that more people who are on site, boldly proclaiming their xenophobia of those who aren’t white, are probably from all of the neighboring towns, who decided that UVA seemed like the best place to conglomerate and send the biggest message. From places like the town I was born in, places like Staunton, Gordonsville, Palmyra, Lynchburg and Lexington. This isn’t to say that modern day Nazis also don’t live in Charlottesville, but I’d bet that way more are coming from outside than they are from the inside.
At least I’d hope.
Anyway, this is all a sad and unfortunate reality that is taking place, and it’s hard to believe that such blatant bigotry exists to this day. I don’t believe racism will ever vanish, but I do think people should want to be smart enough to keep their hatred a little more under wraps than the people converging in Charlottesville are doing, at least for social and possibly selfish reasons. If anything at all, because it’s the smarter choice to make, in my opinion.
When I used to work for a newspaper, every now and then there would be an asinine-seeming story about how Northern Virginia wanted to secede from the rest of Virginia, citing rhetoric about how the financial well-being of the state is so heavily anchored to the successes of Northern Virginia, and how people want that to no longer be the case. I laughed it off back then, but given the socio-well-being of the state seems to be an issue, now it doesn’t seem as funny as it did back then.
An even longer time ago, I remember driving down south on I-81, and nature called, so I pulled off at a rest stop, somewhere between Harrisonburg and Lynchburg. As I was taking care of my business, right at my eye level, etched into the tile wall was the words “KKK is here.” This was also in like 2003. Being not-white, I didn’t bother sticking around long.
The fact of the matter is that these pictures are absolutely frightening. Even more so that the people are not wearing masks or bothering to obscure their identities. These are people who are absolutely not at all apologetic or remotely concerned about people knowing that they are racists and they are bigots. When these people are done with their rioting, they are going to go back to their comfortable homes, and when they realize they are out of gas, they are going to go a gas station that has a very high probability of being run by a minority. When they run out of food, they are going to go to Kroger or Food Lion, that will also be shopped at and be staffed by minorities. When college football season begins, they will be cheering for teams that will probably be consisting of mostly black men, but hating them for the color of their skin.
These are people all around us, and as much as I hate to claim association to the state, much like myself, they are also Virginians.
