When it comes to Charlottesville, I know that I’m, at least, going to be following the lead of local groups who have been working quietly (and not necessarily in the media spotlight) for years to dismantle white supremacy in our town — like Black Lives Matter, the Charlottesville coalition of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition (VSEC), the Anarchist People of Color collective that’s located near here, the Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America; UVA Students United, and the UVA Black Student Alliance; there are so many groups. Just because the Neo-Nazis leave does not mean that the tools of white supremacy have not left our town … What we need to do is focus on the local level and make sure we’re dismantling it here. We need to reform the justice system here in Charlottesville; we need to not have drug task forces that target communities of color in low income neighborhoods. We need to be working from the ground up, and not only focus on these flashpoints of nazis in the streets with bats. At the end of the day, we’re all going to go home tonight, but it’s not going away just because the Neo-Nazis left.
MTV News, “A UVA Student Organizer Recounts His 24 Hours Of Counter-Protest In Charlottesville”
