Charlottesville

Editor's Note: Again, I apologize for last week. I was quite busy with planning for the kids' birthday party, cleaning and getting ready for the start of school for Alyson. Also, Evie got sick on Thursday and I really wasn't feeling all that great on Friday and into the weekend. 

The incidents in Charlottesville, Va., two weeks ago have already created so much of a stir, through angles and ideas, points and counterpoints. A story like this exposes so many raw nerves/fears/emotions that it's hard to do them all justice. It's impossible to focus on just one thread of the rope and claim that's the one we should be focusing on. So instead I'm going to break my reaction into a series of smaller points, in no particular order.

Could Be Anywhere
I don't own a winery in Charlottesville like our President does, so I can't know what the "feel" of the community is. But I can tell you that I don't believe Charlottesville is particularly unique or has any significant distinction from practically any other city in the Old South. If it wasn't Charlottesville, it would have been a different city. Charlottesville just happened to be the city that drew the short straw this time.

Riot v. rally?
Alyson and I debated this one for a while. We can't figure it out. Reports have continued to call the events in Charlottesville a "rally," but I want to know why it's not called a "riot." There was a loss of law enforcement control and people were injured. I think the choice of "riot" comes with racial connotations against people of color. Or, put simply: They only call it a riot if it's people who aren't white. Given, I've seen a few publications call Charlottesville a riot, but not the publications that you'd expect — mostly REALLY far-right publications and like, Entertainment Weekly. I'm OK with being wrong on this, but I'd like to see an editor's logic be explained about the difference.

Ready for a Fight
I think it's fair to say that the neo-Nazis and white nationalists did not go to Charlottesville expecting to protest peacefully. They came ready for a fight; they came ready to create terror; they came organized. There are report, photos and videos of these thugs wearing planned uniforms. They all clearly got the tiki torch memo. Many came with taped fists like a fighter. You can easily find photos of the riot shields many of these men (I haven't seen many photos of women, interestingly) brought. Reporters talk about seeing batons and barricades and semi-automatic weapons guarding entrances to a public park. From what I've seen, there were a few "weapons" on the counter-protestor's side, but they appear improvised, like the aerosol/lighter flamethrower that has been photographed. The important thing here, I think, is that one side (the side with Nazis and white nationalists) came ready to induce fear and to start a fight. I saw one post on Facebook that protesters should not have picked a fight with groups that "had all the guns." It was written almost to intimidate, with the seeming message of "Don't try to stand up for yourself, minorities and women." I felt sick after reading it.

Empowered and Emboldened
Racism has existed forever in our country. We can't eliminate it by fiat or law or edict, but that's not to say that "we" don't have power. Societal pressure has the side effect of shaming/quieting the most racist among us. Racism existed in the recent past, too, but this "rally" showed a level of organization and intent on behalf of neo-Nazis and white nationalists. They felt it was acceptable for them to go out and do this in public without hoods or false identities. So while racism has existed, until recently it has been shamed into the shadows. Which led me to another question: What changed to make them think they could do this in public? And in this case, I go to primary sources. I don't like to be inside the mind of a David Duke and pretend I know what they're thinking. Instead, they said it: David Duke  said the groups were inspired by Donald Trump and felt it was their mission to fulfill his mission. You can search for that video on your own, but it exists. Trump can be forceful when he wants — practically all of his other enemies. Yet with these white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, he seems to be reluctant or nonchalant about denying their support.

Dre Harris
Heather Heyer — a white woman — died when a vehicle plowed into a group of peaceful protestors. Included in that harrowing photo that has been quite public is many other victims, including several black men and women. We haven't heard their names much. We also haven't heard much about Dre Harris, 20 years old, who was beaten by a crowd of white nationalists with poles in Charlottesville. Heyer deserves the attention, because there's no more story to tell for her — it was taken from her. But Dre Harris deserves some attention, too.

Driving into Protesters
After Ferguson and other racial events, protesters often filled the streets. Sometimes, they'd block the freeway or other major artery. In response, legislators in six states introduced bills to remove civil liability if a person drove into a crowd of protesters blocking a street. In essence, they've deemed a driver's right to drive unimpeded as equal to or greater than another group's freedom of assembly. Needless to say, this was a dumb idea before Charlottesville. It's an even dumber idea now. I can't imagine any of these bills making it to the floor and becoming law now.

Laws and Law Enforcement
Let's talk about Charlottesville's response real quick. I think it's obvious to say that law enforcement didn't have a good handle on the event. They were quickly out-armed and out-manned by both the white nationalists/Nazis group and the counter protesters. In short, they couldn't protect the peace. That's a local failure. But let's also talk laws. Virginia is a fairly open carry state. Charlottesville basically allows the open carry of assault-style weapons. Imagine you're a counter protester and you see the white nationalists/Nazis carrying assault weapons. Suddenly you want a weapon, too, right? This is how escalation happens. Stronger laws and stronger law enforcement would have helped remove an agitator from the equation, I think. I don't know for sure how to deal with this issue the right way. But maybe open carry of assault weapons is not a great idea in practice.

Adventures in Protesting
It seems in America, a certain sub-set of people will never believe protesters have good intentions. If violence breaks out at a rally, then the protesters are considered to be "thugs" and without purpose. We want peaceful protests, but I don't think we, the public, understand just how hard they are to pull off. It takes a ton of organization and intent and self-policing to make peaceful protests happen. The larger a crowd gets, the harder that is to do. The most recent protests in Boston were peaceful, but they also had the numbers against their white nationalist/Nazi opposition. They didn't in Charlottesville. Protesting is hard. I think the public kind of forgot what real protesting looked like. After the 1970s, protesting as a social response kind of went out of style for a few decades. The platonic ideal of protesting is MLK or Gandhi, but that sort of organized, targeted effort was not easy to pull off.

Purpose of the Statues
The Confederate statues at the heart of the debates were not built in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. Rather, they were largely built in the 1910s and 1920s by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. They were built 50 years after the Civil War not as testaments to important things that had happened at the site. They aren't built at museums or cemeteries — possibly acceptable locations. Instead, they were built during the Jim Crow era to remind black people of who was still in charge. They were reminders of the people who were traitors to the USA whose goal it was to own people — black people.

Southern pride
A friend from college made an excellent comment about Southern pride that I loved. Being a "Southerner" often has to do with love for or respect for certain things: gentility, hospitality, a certain way of cooking, old-time religion, country music, and Southern architecture (think Savannah, Ga., or New Orleans). None of those things draw their power from the Confederacy. Or, as he put it "There's no rule that white Southerners HAVE to derive their sense of being special from a wistful connection to a treasonous war fought by long-dead chattel slavers." Southern pride and racism shouldn't be tied.

Call it By Its Name
I'm really trying to avoid getting into the President Trump wildness because you've probably had enough of that by now. But one thing that really struck me was how he had a hard time identifying white supremacy and calling it repugnant (deplorable, perhaps?). On the Monday after Charlottesville, the first of many CEOs dropped out of one of Trump's advisory councils in the wake of the President's first comments. Almost immediately, Trump commented negatively about the CEO. But at that point, he still had yet to comment negatively about the white supremacists. It took him a few hours to denounce the CEO, but days — and it's arguable that he still hasn't really — to denounce white supremacists and neo-Nazis. For a man who raised such a stink about Obama and Sec. Clinton refusing to call ISIS and Al Qaeda by the name of "radical Islamic terrorists," he sure has had a hard time calling neo-Nazis and white supremacists by their names.

Paul Ryan
For a minute there, I thought that the Charlottesville comments would start the end for Trump. I waited to hear what McConnell and Ryan — the two most important people in this situation — had to say. McConnell has been largely silent, but mostly rebuking the false equivalency Trump promoted. Then Paul Ryan had a "town hall" on TV in which he was asked about censuring the President "What good does it do to unify this country?" he said. In short, he said that a censure battle would lead to partisan bickering that doesn't heal the country. But if he, the Speaker of the House, took a stand that President Trump's own party thought he crossed the line, it wouldn't be partisan bickering — it'd be bipartisan unison. In short, it was a dodge, a cop-out, and a tacit approval that Trump can say anything and he'd never lose Paul Ryan. It means that President Trump can continue saying outlandish, insensitive things, and there will never be consequences — even something as symbolic-but-not-lasting as censure.

Polling Shows Little Change
Until you can convince Republican voters that what Donald Trump is doing is hurting America, then he'll always have 35-40 percent approval in the polls. Which he still does. In fact, a survey of Republicans found roughly 2/3 approved of his Charlottesville response. Two-thirds! There's a reason I've started calling the president Teflon Don — nothing seems to stick to him.

Steve Bannon
It took 10 minutes for the news to break about Steve Bannon leaving the White House before two different stories emerged about whether he quit or was fired. It took less than a day for him to return to Brietbart. I said back in December that I found Bannon to be "highly troubling." Years ago, he declared Breitbart to be the platform for the alt-right — the same crowd that is interconnected with the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists. Bannon is dangerous. I'm not sure putting him behind the Breitbart megaphone will help America move forward. But I'm also sure having him in the White House was equally dangerous. Instead, let me ask you a hypothetical: If you're Donald Trump, would you rather have this snake on the inside or the outside?

Summary Judgments

ESPN had a pretty funny story about a baseball "trick play" that went all sorts of terrible. It was chaos and silly and everything good sports stories should be. I loved the story.  •  •  •  The president's Afghanistan speech was largely without specifics. He framed it to make it sound like a lack of specifics was part of his plan, but I kind of think his plan was just to distract us all from Charlottesville. But for what it's worth, I thought it was a fine speech to show he can stick to subject once in a while. Then he ruined that goodwill the next day with a wild speech in Arizona that did away with all that good will.  •  •  •  I've seen both conservatives and liberals upset over ESPN's hypersensitivity about moving announcer Robert Lee (Asian descent) away from covering the Virginia basketball game. Both sides think it's dumb. Both sides think ESPN "shot itself in the dick." This isn't the partisan issue some believe it is — ESPN's just overly sensitive to the point of being obtuse.  •  •  •  Poor Elaine Chao. The Secretary of Transportation is married to Mitch McConnell and serving in the Trump administration. Her husband and boss are reportedly feuding. This feels like a dumb soap opera story.  •  •  •  I haven't run much because of how busy I've been lately and how sick I was. But I did run a 5K twice in the last week, both times under 31 minutes — under a 10:00/mile pace! My next run will be a 10K in two-ish weeks, which means this weekend I need to get up to running 5 miles at a time. A good time in a 5K is a good start.  •  •  •  I have two 3-year-olds now. Some call this age "threenagers." Roland had a rough early start to 2 years old, then settled down now. Evie's the opposite — she's very much a threenager right now. It's nearly nightly timeouts and attitude problems. And then, like 5 minutes later, she's the sweetest girl in the world. It's maddening.