Clash in Charlottesville
August 12, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Hundreds of white supremacist, KKK, neo-Nazi fascist scum descended on Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, August 12, to hold a “Unite the Right” rally. They came to defend the statue of Robert E. Lee, who commanded the Confederate army that fought to keep slavery alive, from being removed from a public park. They came to glorify the decades of open subjugation of Black people in this country under slavery and Jim Crow—and to promote the continuation and intensification of this oppression today. And they came to brazenly celebrate the history of Hitlerite fascism—and step up their fight to help consolidate the American fascist regime in power today.
These extreme reactionary forces have been encouraged and emboldened by the Trump/Pence Regime, and they’ve been increasingly active across the country. What we saw in Charlottesville was a major leap in this—some media commentators compared it to Kristallnacht, the night of violence and terror aimed at Jews by Hitler’s Stormtroopers. The hundreds of white supremacists came heavily armed. They did a KKK-style torch march through the University of Virginia campus the night before, chanting things like “blood and soil,” a Nazi slogan. They attacked people who came to protest them—as the hundreds of police watched. And one of them used his car as a murder weapon, ramming into a crowd of protesters—killing one woman and injuring 19 others, with five people still in critical condition.
After all this, the fascist-in-chief, Trump, refused to condemn the white supremacists but only talked of violence “on many sides”—an all-but-open endorsement of the racist neo-Nazis.
Confronting the White Supremacist Fascists
The white supremacist mob did not go unchallenged. They were confronted by hundreds of counter-protesters—from Charlottesville and nearby and from other areas of the country.
There were white middle class people disgusted by the racist fascists. There were Black Lives Matter activists. There were clergy and faith leaders, from locally and across the country, including national leaders Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Traci Blackmon, and hundreds of church people. At the KKK-style march on Friday night at the University of Virginia campus, a group of students courageously held up a banner saying “VA Students Act Against White Supremacy,” in the face of threats and violence by the fascists.
People from Refuse Fascism were in the thick of things, calling on people to carry on the fight against the white supremacists as a part of the fight to drive out the whole Trump/Pence fascist regime. Revolution Club members were there, and they brought a banner with a statement of solidarity signed by people from the South Side of Chicago. Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party issued a statement right from the scene in Charlottesville.
One man who had gone to grad school at University of Virginia said, “The statue that people are rallying around needs to come down—it’s a sign of ongoing structural white supremacy. It’s clear there is a huge mobilization of fascists in this country who are organizing around that statue and what it represents as a central structural principle and it needs to be opposed in every way possible.... That statue was put there as a monument to domination and violence and that’s the function it’s always served, that’s the function it’s still serving. Anybody who says it’s about heritage is fundamentally lying about that basic truth of why it’s there. Because that heritage is white supremacy, that heritage is evil and it needs to be fought.”
They were determined to send a message to the world—in word and deed—that people will not tolerate for one second this white supremacist shit. Throughout the day, wherever the white supremacists went in Charlottesville, they were fiercely opposed by different groups of protesters. These protesters on the frontlines represented the sentiments of many, many more across the country. And many, many more have to actually follow the example of the protesters in Charlottesville and step up and step out in the fight against fascism.
As Carl Dix said in his statement, “What is going on in Charlottesville is a direct outgrowth of the Trump/Pence fascist regime. And it is the outlines of a new civil war in this country. These fascists are serious. And we must wake up and confront them with resistance that is just as serious.”
The “Unite the Right” rally was scheduled to begin at noon in the park with the Confederate statue. Hours before the rally, hundreds of fascists marched through the streets—dressed in military gear, carrying all kinds of automatic weapons and signs upholding white supremacy, Hitler, and the KKK. Counter-protesters on the scene near the park confronted the white supremacists and defended themselves against the violence of the fascists. There were clashes for at least an hour near the park, and there were other confrontations elsewhere as well. Hundreds of police, including state troopers in riot gear, and the Virginia National Guard had been mobilized and were in the area—some close enough to clearly see the clashes. They watched as the fascists who were already in the park rushed out to join in the attacks on the counter-protesters.
David Duke, a former imperial wizard of the KKK, was at the fascist torchlight march through the University of Virginia campus on Friday night and was quoted saying, “We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” to “take our country back.” Many of the white supremacists carried Trump campaign signs along with their Nazi signs. There was a real feeling among counter-protesters that white supremacists are being are being emboldened by Trump and that they cannot go unopposed, that they cannot be allowed to threaten people and spew their poison.
By noon, the city declared the white supremacist rally an unlawful assembly and the police then cleared the park. Soon after this the governor of Virginia declared a state of emergency. As the fascists left the park and marched down the street, clashes continued. People chanted: “Nazi Scum Off Our Streets,” “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA,” and “Black Lives Matter.”
This Nightmare Must End
Hundreds of people came out to Charlottesville under the banners of open white supremacy and Nazism, brandishing automatic weapons and attacking people with clubs and sticks, running rampant through the city... and then, even after they killed someone, they were given what was essentially a green light by Trump's refusal to condemn them by name and his equation of the armed, aggressive Nazis and KKKers with the unarmed and courageously resisting masses.
This, coupled with the nuclear roulette now being played by Trump with his threats against North Korea, makes it even more starkly clear where things are headed. This IS a nightmare. What must happen now is that many, many more people need to face the depth of the situation and respond immediately by marching in the streets across the country on Sunday, August 13, to condemn the racist, murdering thugs that marched in Charlottesville—and, even more importantly, coming out to and building the meetings next Saturday to organize massive, night-after-night demonstrations, beginning on November 4, to drive this regime out of office.
If not now, when? If not you, who?
Where Did This Fascism Come From...and How Do We Fight It?
Some Key Works by Bob Avakian
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