#defendcville

So I showed up at about 11:30 at one of the local parks that was holding a peaceable demonstration. We ran into a black lives matter group, who didn’t have a whole lot of people with them and we were going to join them, and then the DSA marched in, with black shirts and rose pins and bandanas and looking like they really knew what they were doing. (My husband is a leader of the Charlottesville DSA. Trust me, they do not know what the hell they are doing, like, ever) At first the people in the park thought they might be nazis, but when they saw who we were an how many of us there were they started to cheer.  I find it kind of problematic that the DSA uniform could be so easily confused with the other side, but on the other hand, when the nazis saw a group of big tall white dudes with black t-shirts and huge flags, I could see the fear in their eyes. That was fucking delightful.

So when the nazis got kicked out of their park immediately (the one good thing the police did all day) we were on every side of them, chanting against them. It was amazingly easy to get under their skin. Profoundly satisfying. The BLM group were really appreciative that we had their backs and I was happy to be a white body between them and some fucking nazi fascist idiots. 

After that there was a stupid amount of standing around trying to figure out where we should march and go. I’m not a great organizer, and everything moved really fast, plans changed every two seconds, but there was a lot of “hurry up and wait” and people offering us free burritos and sandwiches. There was also a jazz performance (the most neoliberal charlottesville garbage the world has ever seen) and a really horrifying papier mache Sally Hemings, the purpose of which I have no fucking clue. 

We heard that some Nazis were going over to Friendship Court, the public housing area where a lot of Charlottesville’s black community lives. But a protester who went into the community asked them how we could best help, and they told her that we could stop chanting and stay the fuck away, because we’d probably just bring more nazis there. Respecting that, we made our way back towards the downtown to just sort of go for a triumphant photo op and go home, when a black car going about 40 miles per hour smashed into the front of the group.

I was really far in the back, so I just heard it. There had been a lot of unnecessary panic earlier in the day, so people weren’t sure whether to run or if a car had just backfired or something. Then people started shouting for medics, and I saw some injured people being led away. At that point the DSA groups were told to retreat and regroup. They all went to their cars, and my husband and I went home. Our friend, Ross, saw the cars actually hit people, and was pretty shaken up. He was holding on to hope that it was an accident. 

Now with all the news follow up I know it wasn’t an accident, and someone has died. Our group of protesters were literally going on one last loop, gonna chant some anti hate chants, and go home. If the alt right was going to try to spur the left into violence, all they did was martyr somebody. This is America. Racism isn’t surprising, it isn’t new, it’s always been here. Ignoring it is not going to make it go away. I’m glad I showed up even though all I did was shout.