Is Charlottesville the most American we’ve been, lately?

Love and peace to Heather Heyer and the ones she loved.

I’ve been in anguish and at a loss, but I’ll give you what I’ve got.

It starts with brief moral signifying: the attack on free speech and free assembly is unacceptable.  And, it is deeply offensive when it comes from people – weakly using intimidation and violence – who have decided to forsake their personal sense of human dignity based upon convictions that whiteness and maleness are superior. Indeed, it is troubling that some of us choose the impulses that make others subservient to an ideology that is embraces racialized terror and brutality, hates people from other counties and cultures, and insists that we all subordinate ourselves to maleness and whiteness.  It is unacceptable to try to deny any of us the dignity of standing, without violence, in front of another person in pursuit of our personal convictions.

I am ashamed that I, like so many of us, sacrificed our dignity by not confronting and addressing shameful, fear-soaked, hateful white power and white supremacy talk during the nation’s latest presidential election and throughout the last president’s terms. Instead, we admired the candidate’s independence and focused on his brio when making demands for change on issues.  Prior to standing on the ballot line, should we have dealt with the moral questions – not just the economic and social ones – posed by the bigoted ideologies promoted by white nationalists and supremacists (and now denounced and opposed) that surfaced during the election?  As we do so often, we deferred the reckoning of our legacy – and so, here we are.

Somewhere beyond this place of denouncements, condemnation, disbelief and tears, I hope to catch another second wind. Come with me? In that space, there are no big answers. We’ll continue to try to comprehend and grapple with underlying causes, not just effects.  We’ll crew up with those who deplore the supremacist, as well as the conditions that create them. We’ll question our personal, daily interactions: where we live; how we spend our time and money; who we hang with; and, what we know. But I sincerely hope that in that space we don’t lose our cool, nor our sense of human dignity.

Is Charlottesville, actually, one of the most American things we’ve seen lately? Is it towards the greater America?

Peace.