This was originally published on August 14th, 2017, two days after I was at Charlottesville. I’m republishing it here to ensure I have a copy of it for posterity, without having to dig through the internet archive. I haven’t made any edits to the text, but I did change embedded tweets to screenshots with links to the original post (if still online). In cases where the original content I linked to has been deleted, I’ve replaced it with an archive link or screenshots, and I did replace the SPLC timeline with a more recent version as the original is now difficult to find.
CW for violence, racism, anti-Semitism, graphic imagery
My two friends and I showed up around 10 AM and started walking to the park. Along the way, we met up with a group of people (mostly students, some older folks) who were there to counter-protest as well. Together, we all practiced some chants, took advantage of having a public restroom easily available (after an hour drive & too much coffee, we needed it!), and started walking.
The first few minutes of the walk were pretty uneventful. After that, we walked past a line of cops in full riot gear. A helicopter flew low overhead, the sound from it bouncing off the buildings and mixing with our chants. At one point, we walked through a parking lot and there was a man in a truck clearly giving us the stink-eye. I remember keeping an eye on him, worried he was going to hit us and wondering if I was being too paranoid.
We were only at the actual protest an hour or so. It got nasty very, very fast. We were up by the front, near…what I think was supposed to be a barricade? It might as well have been made out of tissue paper. I was hit with several water bottles (some were being thrown up high, some were being thrown directly at people near the front lines). Someone was holding a sign about the evil Jewish media. There was a man standing at the top of the steps with a billy club and a riot shield, shaking it at us, shouting slurs and laughing.
I think that’s the thing that sticks with me the most: how many of them were having fun.
There were people standing there in pseudo-military gear next to somebody waving a Nazi flag, smiling and laughing like it was a music festival.
After we’d been there for twenty or thirty minutes, they pushed over the barricade. They pepper sprayed us and threw tear gas canisters. I looked behind me as I was running and saw one hit the top of the nearby tent, throwing off sparks, and hoped the tent wouldn’t catch on fire. I grabbed my friend, who was screaming that she’d been sprayed, and took her to a nearby patch of grass. My other friend and I spent the next thirty minutes trying to take care of her — she’d been sprayed directly in the eyes at point blank rage.
Throughout all of this, the police were entirely absent. We passed cops in full riot gear on the way there, there was a helicopter clearly watching the whole thing, and there was an empty cop car right there by the “barricade,” but actual police presence was eerily absent. As I was washing pepper spray out of my friend’s eyes, she asked through tears, “Where are the police? Why aren’t they trying to stop this?”
(Turns out, the police stayed out of it because — well, you know why — but also because they were afraid of the people with semiautomatic weapons. That sets a great precedent. Good thing they didn’t have something really dangerous, like loose cigarettes.)
Let me make this clear: there is no “both sides” argument to be had here. There were neo-Nazis with guns trying to break into churches used for first-aid stations and beating up clergy.
“if it hadn’t been for the anti-fascists protecting us from the neo-fascists, we would have been crushed like cockroaches.”
On Friday, they attacked a group of students (including a woman in a wheelchair), most of whom were younger than twenty, and marched on a black church while carrying torches and chanting “blood and soil” (a Nazi slogan). One person is currently in the hospital recovering from a stroke after being hit with torches that night.
They stood by with their riot shields and smirked as their compatriots beat a young black man almost to death1 (right by the police station — but it was his friends who saved his life, not the cops). And that doesn’t even touch on Heather Heyer, the woman who was murdered.
On our side, I saw one person carrying a baseball bat, out of probably a hundred people. On their side, I would say at least one in three (if not closer to 50–75%) was visibly armed (knives, clubs, guns) and wearing helmets, carrying riot shields (or wannabe-SCA wooden ones), shin guards, etc. They came with the intention of hurting people, whatever they will tell you now in the aftermath.
No, both sides are not just as extreme or bad or equally at fault.
As we sat there taking care of our friend, multiple people stopped to check on us, make sure we were doing first aid correctly, and help us out. A clergy member of some kind — I think Lutheran — checked on us, then looked around and said, “I was protesting the same stuff forty years ago.”
It could easily be a trick of memory, but both my friend and I recognized Heather from the photos and think that she was one of the people who stopped to help us. She walked down to a corner store to get milk for my friend’s eyes (because we were running out) and then laughed with us about how silly we all looked dousing ourselves in milk.
At some point, there was a loud “pop” and everyone flinched and hit the ground, waiting for more gunfire. I’m still not sure what that was.
Around noon, the police dispersed the rally, telling everyone to leave or they’d fire a sound cannon. My friend was still not in great shape, so we prepared to head back to Richmond.
As we walked to the car, a parade of camouflaged men marched by. Someone asked if they were the National Guard, and one of them said yes. (Come to find out, it might have been a white supremacist militia masquerading as National Guard.)
A local couple, who lived less than a block away, overheard us talking about trying to find a public restroom to clean up in (all of us were filthy at this point, covered in grass, milk, pepto bismol, and the sprays/gasses) and offered to let us use their shower. We did, thanked them profusely, and continued to the car.
About ten or fifteen minutes after we were in the car on the way back to Richmond, the news about the car attack broke. It wasn’t until I got home and saw video that I realized that had happened on the same street we’d been on, not thirty minutes prior.
I took another shower, trying to wash the smell and taste of pepper spray and tear gas off of me, mostly unsuccessfully. I was still coughing when I went to bed that night, and even though the redness and swelling went down after three or four hours, my hands wouldn’t stop burning.
I was already onboard the “punching Nazis is fine” train, but this cemented it. Polite dialogue is not the proper response to people who show up to a protest carrying Nazi flags, clad in KKK regalia, with riot-shields and guns.
I am not writing this because I expect cookies for going (because I consider showing up to protest Nazis & the KKK literally the least I can do as an able-bodied white person). I am writing this because I think first-hand accounts are important to balance out some of the narratives that are already taking place (even given the horrific events of Saturday) and because I don’t ever want to forget.
I am also writing this because I know that there are probably people who will read this and understand it because it came from a white person. To anyone who is finding this account making sense, while they felt that people of color were being angry, hysterical, and irrational, I say: please take this opportunity to examine yourself. Don’t get defensive, just think about it.
White people, we have to do better. These people are not fucking around. They mobbed students on Friday and marched on a black church carrying torches. They showed up on Saturday intending to hurt people. They stood by and watched as their buddies beat a 20-year old black man almost to death. They later cheered on someone driving a car into a crowd of unarmed protesters. They are fine with extreme violence, whatever they say in public.
It was never the time to sit on the sidelines, but now is especially not the time for silence, inaction, or hand-wringing about white supremacists experiencing consequences of their free speech. Your energy is 110% better off elsewhere. Show up. Give money. Speak out.
Take action:
Donate to the GoFundMes of people who were injured there and the organizers who made the counterprotest possible. (Deandre Harris, Natalie Harris, Marcus Martin, Tyler Magill, Tay, group fund for victim relief, legal fund for Solidarity Cville, list of nonprofits in Charlottesville, another list of places to donate)
List of ways to support when you can’t go to a protest
Sign up for Safety Pin Box. Didi Delgado has also set up a list of black women in need of monetary support.
Show up to a protest or counter protest. Tap into your local Black Lives Matter group and see what’s going on near you. There are already similar events planned for Texas A&M on 9/11 [update: that was canceled, although they intend to sue] and Richmond next month, but your local chapters can give you more information about anything planned near you.
Things you can do as a white person every day, not just when there’s a terrorist attack
White accomplices: opportunities for white people in the fight for racial justice
Ana Mardoll has some scripts/tips on talking to your white family members about racism.
Look at your workplaces and friend groups. Notice where people of color are absent, probably because they’re being shut out. Notice where they’re being talked over. Say something.
Resources & reading:
Charlottesville specific
Read as many firsthand accounts as you can get:
- Someone who was there & hit by the car
- Comments from another person who was there
- Another person who was there
- Another bystander account
- A resident’s POV
- “He saved me, then he was under the car” (please donate to his GoFundMe if you can)
- Interview with Deandre Harris (please donate to his GoFundMe if you can)
- 24 hours of anarchy in Charlottesville, through the eyes of one protester
- Here’s what really happened in Charlottesville
- Statement from the synagogue in Charlottesville
- Interview: How Corey Long Fought White Supremacy With Fire (“At first it was peaceful protest, until someone pointed a gun at my head. Then the same person pointed it at my foot and shot the ground.” … “The Nazis tried to force their way into the stairway that we were hiding in.”)
- Charlottesville: Race and Terror (video journalism; quote from one of the Unite the Right organizers in the video: “We’re not non violent, we’ll fucking kill these people if we have to.”)
Charlottesville organizers ask you to take these 8 actions
Explaining Charlottesville to my seven-year-old
White Feelings: 0–60 for Charlottesville
Racism & its history in America
Fascism has already come to America (Please educate yourself on the historicity of groups like these and their context here. Historically, self-defense is one of the only things that has deterred the Klan. They didn’t just go away after being ignored. More about the Klan here and here.)
Image from SPLC timelining when Confederate statues/monuments went up — note the spikes at Jim Crow era & Civil Rights era (full report)
17 books on race every white person needs to read
Confederate Monuments and White Supremacy (or, I, Too, Am a Southerner)
The Myth of the Kindly General Lee
General racism/cultural commentary
For our white friends desiring to be allies
Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston
Black Lives Matter is Not A Hate Group
Thread on “anti-PC” culture as relates to current events
Thread on why #ThisIsNotUs is the white people version of #NotAllMen
Thread on radicalization of young white men (Mikki also has a Patreon & PayPal tip jar, if you found her writing helpful)
White Male Terrorists Are an Issue We Should Discuss
Reasonable arguments and free speech
Read about the Paradox of Tolerance
Why privilege is white-washed supremacy
I need to talk to spiritual white women about white supremacy
Tolerance is not a moral precept (“It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.”)
Trump Asks, “What about the Alt-Left?” Here’s an Answer (another post along these lines)
This essay is not specifically about white supremacists, but is extremely relevant:
What makes the Googler’s speech dangerous (as opposed to just distasteful) is that he’s in a class of people that is accorded social power to use other people to satisfy their wishes: white men. So he’s not just expressing an opinion. He’s doing something. He’s committing a speech act that has the functions of either controlling and intimidating us, or marking territory as unsafe so we leave. It’s disingenuous to say “it’s fine if people say that as long as they don’t act on it”, because saying it is acting on it.
More resources will be added as I come across them, this is by no means complete (and feel free to send suggestions).
- Breaking my “no edits” rule to note that this man was DeAndre Harris; at the time of writing his name hadn’t been released, which is why he is only named in the resources/links. ↩︎