A group of about 500 people chanting “White Lives Matter” and “Unite the Right” suddenly descended on 12th Aug 2017 to Charlottesville (Virginia) to protest the removal of a statue of one General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate Army, long known as a symbol of a Confederacy that fought to maintain slavery and white supremacy in America. The statue has been a subject of dispute for many years as the civil right groups considered it as a memorial of America’s slavery days. The marchers displayed swastikas on banners and shouted slogans like “blood and soil,” a phrase drawn from Nazi ideology.
The white supremacist protesters mostly made up of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and members of the Ku Klux Klan brandished torches and marched onto Charlottesville. As they were met by counter protesters, the demonstrations got violent. The white supremacists intimidated and attacked counter protesters. A car driven by a white supremacists and a reported Nazi sympathizer Alex Fields rammed into counter protesters and killed one besides injuring 19 people. A state police helicopter, responding to the protests, too crashed killing two pilots.
The White Americans believe that the racial and ethnic superiority is the basis of their identity. They argue that Americans are not bound by the abstract concepts of freedom, equality and self-determination, but rather by their superior European racial and cultural heritage. Donald Trump during his Presidential campaign had wisely sensed this developing insecurity and weaved his campaign around anti immigration and built a narrative that the non white racial groups in America would outnumber the Whites by 2042. The result of the Presidential election illustrated that the fear of changing racial demography and declining influence of White Americans had gripped the voters psyche and altered their voting preferences at many places.
President Donald Trump in his bizarre awful statement refused to condemn the white supremacists in particular, initially blaming “many sides” for hatred, bigotry, and violence. This posturing of Donald Trump drew heavy criticism. The white supremacist movement is widely alleged of getting the encouragement from Donald Trump, who sowed the seeds of this movement during his controversial Presidential campaign. The White House later clarified that Trump condemned violence and bigotry on “many sides,” “of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazis and all extremist groups.”
The Whites behavioral insecurity can be best understood by Robin Di Angelo of Westfield State University who in a paper “white fragility” submitted in 2011 said that
“White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.”
Di Angelo’s paper explained that
“white Americans have a range of “triggers” that can make them defensive about race, from suggestions that a person’s viewpoint is racialized or to the rise of people of color into prominent leadership positions. All the triggers she listed were present in the past year — through the presidency of Barack Obama, and Black Lives Matter protests against the dominance of white privilege.”
The boiling racial undercurrent was first manifested in Donald Trump’s election campaign when Whites were responding to the suggestion of racism with immediate vitriol, disdain and dismissal. That was basically their defense mechanism to the confronting questions about privilege and to perpetuate a status quo favorable to white Americans by avoiding discussions. Many of the people involved in Charlottesville have led advantaged lives and enjoyed the privilege that society that has historically given them more than anyone else. But that privilege was challenged and dented by the election of first black president Barrack Obama
They are seeing their racial security challenged. They saw the first black president with Barack Obama. They know that white Americans will no longer be the majority in the coming decades. This frustration has now boiled down to protests and brawls in a small city in Virginia by the same people who have always dominated American politics but now playing victims.
The pro-white “Patriot Prayer” demonstration were planned much before Charlottesville. The Daily Stromer, a neo Nazi website was spreading the message. But once that happened, hundreds of counter demonstrators showed up at a different cities park to march to the pro White rallies rally. The counter protestors calling their group as “Solidarity Against Hate” brand the people behind “Patriot Prayer” as far-right extremists who bring violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and Islamophobia. The effects of Charlottesville sent ripples through cities across the United States. Pro and anti White demonstrations have been from New York City to Seattle to Texas.
The United States is now embroiled in a situation that was expected to build up post Donald Trump election. Now their city police in every city are running from one park to another with pepper spray and devices known as “blast balls” to prevent the congregation of confronting group and a certain violence. The permissions to hold rallies are denies to both the groups. But what is worrying the administration is the flash mob that comes from nowhere and leads to a possible clash. Recently a Solidarity group member tried to climb the Trump Tower in New York to protest the President’s equivocal stand on Charlottesville. The protestors outside Trump Tower were angry with the president for spreading rhetoric that they believe encourages the sort of violence that happened in Virginia.
Finally Donald Trump seems to have yielded after being criticized by senior Republican colleague. In a new statement he said “Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans”. But this is only lip service. The world has seen this racial conflict in USA coming during the Trumps election campaign itself and now the worst nightmare has come true. There is no sign of this conflict subsiding in future, at least during the Presidency of Donald Trump. What is at stake is the status of super power of America. A country embroiled in bitter racial conflict will no longer be able to hold on to its military and economic superiority. The Americans will do good to themselves if the senior Republican statesmen, inside or out of American congress, civil society, intelligentsia and media come out to condemn the racial violence and work towards a peaceful America – with, without or inspite of Donald Trump. Otherwise the ‘Great American Dream’ might be lost for ever.
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