We Haven't Learned...

Today marks two years since white supremacists descended on a small city in Virginia in an attempt to flex their muscle and demonstrate they could inflict their will to spread fear and intimidation. The prior night set the tone, with their torchlight march and attack on students, Charlottesville residents and UVA staff members. The day of the Unite The Right rally continued that violence as local and state police stood by watching. By the end of the day, Heather Heyer would be dead and hundreds would be injured, some permanently. 

In the weeks and months that followed, despite the publishing of chat logs demonstrating organizers and people who planned to attend the rally specifically planned to inflict violence, many expressing their desire to see people killed, the majority of the country debated. We debated the merits of violence as a political tactic. We debated "both sides." We debated the legal and philosophical foundations of free speech. We debated police procedure. We debated dozens of topics. We didn't even spend much time looking into those chat logs or beginning to ask exactly what kind of radicalization process was happening to create all of those attendees, and the army of trolls and fans they have online. Those were things left for outlets and personalities long codified as "radical." 

Anti-fascist and anti-racist organizers and activists (those bad folks who'd protected clergy and non-violent protesters throughout the day at Unite The Right) said it was the beginning and that if this rising tide of militant enforcers for patriarchal white supremacy weren't dealt with, it was going to get much worse. An interesting thing to note about a lot of  these anti-fascist and anti-racist groups is that they often disagree about philosophy and tactics. What they didn't at all disagree about is that people willing to march around with guys carrying swastikas are Nazis, and if they're not "technically Nazis" they're close enough to be able fall under the nomenclature. Everyone else seemed really interested in splitting hairs and making sure the various groups of hyper misogynists and racists were all being given the benefit of taking time to respect their ideological differences. When we were incapable of coming to some kind of "compromise" on whether or not they can really be called Nazis or even white supremacists, we just kind of gave up on that discussion altogether, which is actually the reason the right creates the argument to begin with.  

Unite The Right was covered by the media as if it were a national tragedy or some kind of wake up call. Even now, politicians like Terry McAuliffe are attempting to profit personally and politically from "Charlottesville," as if the city sprang up and then disappeared because of Unite The Right. They keep referring to it as "Charlottesville." It wasn't Charlottesville. It isn't Charlottesville. Charlottesville and it's issues with white supremacy existed long before Unite The Right, and with Unite The Right being over, they still exist. Unite the Right was a specific thing. It was a gathering of far right white supremacists in the pursuit of demonstrating their desire to intimidate anyone who opposes their will and their willingness to use violence to achieve that goal. By continuing to call it "Charlottesville," it obscures that fact. It wasn't and isn't Charlottesville. It was Unite The Right. McAuliffe has even gone so far as to name his book "Beyond Charlottesville" in keeping with the before and after narrative the press and most of the population have adopted. 

It seems a pedantic distinction, doesn't it? To make a point about whether someone uses "Charlottesville" or "Unite The Right," seems to be splitting hairs. It's not though. Because here we are two years later, and what has actually come from this "wake up call"? What "progress" has actually been achieved in the wake of this "moment of realization"? Part of the reason for that lack of progress is anchored in exactly the same lack of will to call it what it was, and therefore highlight that it was a day of violence planned by white supremacist organizations. 

How many people have even a clue of what the body count is since Unite The Right? How many people have been killed by radicalized far right adherents, since August 12, 2017? In spite of the "wake up call," it takes some work to figure out. It's not something major press outlets or political organizations are keeping track of. If you want to know, you have to hunt down all of the articles about them, or put the data together from other sources whose purpose was to look into some other aspect of our culture of violence. In 2018, all political driven extremist murders were committed by adherents to far right ideologies. In the last month alone we've had politicians propose setting up databases to keep track of people with mental illness, while Trump suggested rounding up people with mental illness until we can "figure out what's going on" and banning violent video games as an answer to mass shootings which have been repeatedly claimed by the perpetrators to be inspired by right wing ideologies. A number of Republican politicians, including Trump, have decided anti-fascists are a terrorist threat, and need to be targeted by federal law enforcement as such. 

Two years later, and now we're not arguing about whether they are technically Nazis, but instead whether or not the detention camps across the country are "actual" concentration camps or not. They don't seem to include ovens or gas chambers, so they can't be concentrations camps apparently. Yet there is no shortage of people who'd otherwise be considered experts (scholars of Jewish history, scholars who have dedicated their entire careers to the study of concentrations camps) who have emphatically been saying, "Yes. These are concentration camps. They typically come before the death camps. Death camps don't always follow, but those are definitely concentration camps." Like the discussion about whether or not there is enough of a historical correlation to call them Nazis or whether there is significance in understanding the differences in the tactical philosophies, the question of concentration camps won't be finally answered, and it'll just fade away. 

We've seen hate crimes continue to rise dramatically. Temples, synagogues and mosques have all been targeted with vandalism, destruction and outright attempts to kill members in the process of worshipping. Multiple mass shootings have been attributed to being committed in the service of some combination of racism, misogyny or xenophobia. We're still acting like there's an argument to support people who find discussion of institutional and systematic racism "the real racism." 

This past weekend a man in Las Vegas was arrested for planning attacks on LGBTQ bars and a synagogue. Also this  weekend, a backfire set off by a motorcycle caused terrified crowds to run for their lives in Times Square and a falling sign caused the same at a mall. The entire two years since Unite The Right, Trump, the Republican Party, and adherents to the same groups and their ideologies which organized and attended Unite The Right have been engaged in all of the same gaslighting techniques and arguments. Even as that's the case, it still seems to be of paramount importance to dictate that somehow, there is a difference between Trump, the Republican Party and far right adherents and organizations. 

So, we wait for the promised "progress" to be delivered. 

Who do we look to in order to achieve this though? Who do we give the responsibility to set the agenda, to make strategic and tactical decisions? Who do we even look to for a general idea or example? Institutionally, the most powerful people who would seem to have some common cause to begin to drive this back would be Democrats. Realistically, Democratic Party leadership  might not have been able to more spectacularly demonstrate what passive failure is as far as addressing the growth of white supremacy is concerned. It does seem to be extremely important not only to make sure that "compromise" is the watchword, but also that the anti-fascist and anti-racist activist organizers, the likes of whom attempted to warn everyone prior to Unite The Right, and who showed up and defended members of the clergy and other non-violent counter protesters, are "far left" and not the people to be compromised with. Who that leaves to compromise with, is pretty much the people who are either in favor of patriarchal white supremacy altogether or those who don't find it particularly bothersome. 

Let's not forget how much the Democratic Party leadership also seems dedicated to being the Charlie Brown to the Republican Party's Lucy with the football. Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the leadership demonstrated how well they've learned in being goaded into the attacks on Ilhan Ohmar and the rest of The Squad. The regular swipes against the popular new members may not at all be meant as racist, but there's no way to dismiss that racists see it as supportive of their beliefs and are emboldened by it. 

We've also managed to spend little to no copy or television time dedicated to the fact that the thing which happens to tie all of these far right ideologies together is patriarchal belief and misogyny. Despite the strange coincidence that racial and gender hierarchies have run damn near parallel for the 400 years Europeans have been in trying to make America. We still seem to be unwilling to look into the plain fact that just about every single variety of identity based discrimination is gauged by it's proximity to white masculinity. This past weekend a guy who'd apparently been making "rape lists" while in high school and college went on a shooting rampage, his trans brother apparently being among the first victims. Jeez, what a coincidence... 

In two years, even as different law enforcement agencies have repeatedly stated they believe right wing extremism to be the most dangerous threat to US security, the killings, the beatings, the burning and vandalism of houses of worship and community gathering places still continues. 

Two years, amidst this entire other nothing, this vacuum of any kind of institutional or official action, the arguments about doxxing or punching Nazis are still popular. It's incredibly important to make sure that at every opportunity we express just how much we do not agree with or are associated with those tactics! However, we really also need to make sure we don't hold someone like Joe Biden to too high a standard where his instincts about race and gender are concerned. It's important we still make sure to give a fair hearing to everyone who is going to come screaming into our public forums about pulling down monuments and statues to white supremacists being "erasing history."  While we're arguing about exactly what redemption might look like for people who renounce these far right white supremacist movements, we're ignoring the guidance and advice of people who have renounced those movements and beliefs and have been trying to get others to do the same. 

Legacy publications are still publishing articles, essays and stories which directly use the arguments and talking points of white supremacist organizations, as long as they're willing to write the occasional piece that decries the use of racial slurs. TV is much the same. That this is the exact strategy Lee Atwater, the PR mind behind the Reagan campaign infamously outlined as the way to appeal to white racial resentments doesn't seem to really sink in. There won't be a mea culpa for the decades of time these same publications were willing to see anyone who acknowledged Reagan's racist policy as a radical, hyperbolic, and not to be taken seriously, even now that there's audio tape of Reagan calling African UN delegates "monkeys who still aren't used to wearing clothes" or some such obviously racist non-sense. Instead, it is noted as a "stain" on Reagan's record, but the fact that his ideological and political progeny are still following the Atwater playbook, to this day, seems to escape any kind of scrutiny. 

So it is that was we've been waiting for just the right moment, and time and place and event for the long promised progress to come about, somehow brought about by dismal leadership, informed by a willfully ignorant press, those same elements and organizations who descended on Charlottesville with the intent of spreading intimidation and fear to any who opposed them are being allowed to succeed at that goal. Once that goal is well enough achieved, nothing else will really matter. 

We can tell they're winning because a large crowd of people in Times Square in New York, in decades past one of the more unshakeable populations of people on the planet, ran for cover at the first sound of a backfire. As did those people in the mall where the sign fell down. Not that they cautiously attempted to investigate. They all immediately ran, as if their lives depended on it. There's a phrase to describe this. It's called "hypervigilance." Hypervigilance is defined as "an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect activity. Hypervigilance may bring about a state of increased anxiety which can cause exhaustion." It's often associated with PTSD. Some past trauma creates this sense of constantly needing to be on alert to be able to perceive a threat as early as possible. 

For the majority of the country, they didn't need to witness in person the entire day of violence that was Unite The Right or even road littered with the bodies broken, bloodied and screaming as medics scrambled to prevent Heater Heyer from dying. They saw it a thousand times. Every week or two, another story of some attempt at a mass casualty attack happens. Mass shootings. Attempted bombings. Arson. Sometimes it's less catastrophic and more personal, the videos of irate white people screaming slurs or needlessly calling police because someone happened to be Black, brown or speaking a language that isn't English. Even in the context of being online, it's almost impossible to tell exactly what it is which can bring a slew of death threats by email or private message, combined with rape threats if your a woman. 

All of it has the same goal, to make the rest of us afraid. To instill that hypervigilance in us so that when we do run down the street or duck because a car backfires or a balloon pops, we feel ridiculous and embarrassed, and when we catch ourselves checking for exit routes or where we might be able to take cover in open public spaces, we feel embarrassed. It's meant to make you question yourself and to wonder, "Well, why am I so sensitive about this? It is only words," even as the evidence being regularly presented to you is that those words inspire deadly action. 

We begin to question ourselves because we don't know many people at all, if any, who seem to be acting in accordance with the urgency of our feelings. We're scared and angry, and lots of other people say they are too, but since everyone is just going about their business, maybe our feelings are a little extreme. Maybe it's weird to be this frightened. Maybe we're just being dramatic. 

And that's what all of it comes down to. The arguments about whether it's fascist or not, whether  it's a concentration camp or not, whether it's okay to punch of doxx Nazis, the consistent drum beat that "the real Nazis" are the people refusing to allow the advocation of policies and actions which target minorities and marginalized people, the rallies, the mass shootings, all of it is just about making sure we are frightened and confused. When we're this frightened and confused and we're not focused on the fact that a movement of patriarchal white supremacy is committing regular acts of violence and degradation in both the private sector and using governmental institutions. When we're this frightened and confused, we don't even know what to demand of our "leadership." We don't know what to do, and are afraid of what trying to do anything will actually end up meaning for us. 

The problem is that the longer we continue to be distracted by the bullshit arguments thrown around by an entire right wing and conservative movement which has adopted this violent patriarchal white supremacist movement as an integral part of their base, the further confused and frightened we will become.

Heather Heyer was murdered at Unite The Right. Hundreds were injured, ranging from basic bumps and bruises to permanent spine, leg and neck injuries. Since then, the body count has continued to rise. This isn't even to take into account the likes of the murderer who killed a bible study group in Charleston, or the likes of the extremist who introduced the world to an ideology which held women owed men sex, and he murdered as many people as he could because he'd been denied it. Most would probably say that as this piece is about and written on the anniversary of Unite The Right, it's not fair to bring up the many warning signs which came before. 

We've been telling ourselves Unite The Right was some kind of turning point or some kind of wake up call, but we have yet to begin to act as if it were. We're running out of time to start. As a white male who was in attendance at Unite The Right, in support of anti-fascist and anti-racist organizers calls for people to attend, I can't help but wonder what it looks like to all of the people of color, the LGBTQ people, the Jewish people. I know what it looks like as someone who more or less watched the calls from a Democrat to start a database of the mentally ill, and for Trump to start talking about "rounding us up until we figure out what's going on" pass by with little recognition.