A Legacy of Racism: Charlottesville Riot Trial & Critical Race Theory
You should pay attention to the great state of Virginia this week. The state that once was home to the capital of confederacy is where the legacy of racism in the US is to be considered.
The “very fine people” who organized the Unite the Right rally in 2017 in Charlottesville are going to trial via a civil suit based on an 1871 federal law often referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act.
There is also an election in Virginia next week where voters will be asked to choose between moderate Democrat and one-time Governor Terry McAuliffe and Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin.
Battle lines in the Old Dominion are drawn.
A geographic majority of the state’s area is where the legacy of ol’ Dixie exists. Mostly rural and some urban conservative enclaves include citizens with deep roots, bound by tradition to the heritage of the old South. It’s a complicated demographic ruled by shame and anger over having lost the Great War, fond memories of an agrarian society, and every shade of racism you can imagine.
A diverse, liberal, and sometimes progressive majority has settled in the Northern tier of counties, urban centers, and college towns. Many of these citizens are relative newcomers to the state, with the exception of people deeply scarred by a heritage that includes enslavement and segregation who just happen to be Black.
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The “Unite the Right” rally took place over two days to protest the planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a downtown Charlottesville park. More than 600 participants from around the country, drawn by the promise of building a united front against multiculturalism and liberal politics, grabbed the media’s attention as a torch-carrying mob chanting “Jews will not replace us!” awakened the country to a resurgence of far-right extremism.
They brought semi-automatic weapons, pistols, mace, rods, armor, shields, and torches, along with logistical planning incorporating a suggested dress code and meals.
Four plaintiffs (and 19 others) in this lawsuit were injured in the ensuing melee, which culminated with one participant ramming his car into a group of counter protesters, killing 32 year-old Heather Heyer.
Then President Trump amplified the impact of the event by refusing to outright condemn the organizers, saying there were “very fine people on both sides.”
The political unity sought by organizers of the rally never came about, as criminal prosecutions and media attention led to infighting and splintering of the participating groups.
Unfortunately, the aftermath of the Charlottesville riot gave legitimacy to many of the core principles of the organizers with new, often more conventional appearing proponents getting widespread attention.
From the Washington Post:
Words and images that were jolting in 2017 are now ingrained in the conservative mainstream, perhaps most notable being the “Great Replacement Theory,” the conspiratorial idea of an engineered demographic replacement of White Christians. That idea is frequently repeated by right-wing pundits such as Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who has millions of viewers.
“Repugnant, conspiratorial views that seemed bizarre and shocking to most Americans on August 11 and 12, 2017, are absolutely being mainstreamed now every single day,” said Megan Squire, a professor in computer science at Elon University who tracks online far-right organizing, including the planning ahead of the “Unite the Right” rally. “You can add vaccine conspiracies, covid hoax conspiracies, QAnon-type stuff — it’s all completely mainstream on the right at this point.”
The plaintiffs in this case are motivated by what they see as a lack of accountability for the violence of those days where only a handful of participants faced criminal charges.
The plaintiffs and their advocates, including several of the nation’s civil rights groups, argue that the First Amendment does not protect the methodical planning of racial violence.
“If they had simply gone to Charlottesville and stood on the street corner with their swastikas and their flags, and their bigoted, racist, antisemitic chants, that would’ve been protected speech,” said Amy Spitalnick, the executive director of Integrity First for America, a civil rights nonprofit organization backing the lawsuit.
“But that’s not what they did,” Spitalnick said. “They planned violence, and then they went to Charlottesville and engaged in that violence, and they celebrated the violence.”
Criminal cases in federal court on civil rights grounds must go through the often difficult process of submitting evidence of intent. They are worth it to plaintiffs who can meet this threshold because the monetary judgments that come with a guilty verdict can dry up the financial support for extremists.
A $7 million award in a wrongful death suit in Mobile, Ala., against the United Klans of America and an Oregon case with more than $12 million in damages levied against hate guru (and North County resident) Tom Metzger effectively ended their political efforts.
The plaintiffs in this lawsuit hit the jackpot when a group called Unicorn Riot released a leaked trove from the communication platform Discord, where planners messaged about the rally using slurs against Black and Jewish people and sharing violent fantasies of cracking skulls and driving into crowds.
Jury selection in the trial, which is expected to last six weeks, is underway. The wicked and cruel universe inhabited by these far right organizers will be on display for the world to see.
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The Great Replacement Theory at the heart of the Charlottesville riot is also evident in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest.
It’s been repackaged for mass consumption as opposition to Critical Race Theory, a key phrase being used by right wing organizers in school districts (and other settings) around the country.
Those using the term have no idea of what it is they’re talking about. The theory is actually a framework for interpreting law that maintains racism has an undeniable effect on the legal foundation of American society.
CRT would be exclusively confined to law schools if not for Republicans redefining it to mean “stuff that makes white people afraid.”
According to LexisNexis transcripts, Fox News has mentioned “Critical Race Theory” 2,175 times this year. The January 6th commission has been mentioned just 78 times.
https://twitter.com/NewDay/status/1453349065861877766?s=20
A woman who advocated to ban Toni Morrison's "Beloved," a staple of high school English programs, from Virginia schools appeared in a recently released Youngkin ad.
When my son showed me his reading assignment, my heart sunk,” Laura Murphy says in the ad. “It was some of the most explicit material you can imagine.” She recounts how, at her urging, the state legislature passed a bill requiring public schools to give parents the opportunity to reject “sexually explicit” reading assignments, only to have then-Gov. McAuliffe veto it…
That book was Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a novel based on a true story in which a woman who had escaped slavery only to be tracked down and captured killed her own child rather than allow her to be returned to slavery. Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. It was cited a few years later when Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature. It routinely shows up on lists of the greatest American fiction of the 20th century. It makes regular appearances on the AP Literature exam.
Gosh, I wonder why the Youngkin campaign didn’t make sure everyone in Virginia knew which book had upset the face of their ad so much. Beloved is a difficult book, to be sure, because its subject matter—which is a part of U.S. history—was more than difficult. It was monstrous. But the book is a modern classic for a reason.
The anguished mom in the ad is a conservative activist and was the "2016 Virginia Family Foundation Citizen of the Year".
Her son Blake Murphy, who was a senior in high school at the time, apparently wasn’t emotionally scarred too deeply by the assignment. He is now a 27-year-old lawyer working as the associate general counsel for the Washington D.C.-based National Republican Congressional Committee.
What’s the difference between You Will Not Replace Us and the GOP rendition on Critical Race Theory?
Marketing.
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FYI-- Banning books because they don’t fit into GOP cultural orthodoxy isn’t limited to Virginia.
From The Hill:
The chairman of a Texas state House committee tasked with conducting investigations is launching a probe into books that school librarians keep on their shelves in the wake of a measure the legislature passed earlier this year to bar teaching of critical race theory in public schools...
The specific books Krause is looking for, attached in a 16-page list first reported by the Texas Tribune, date back to 1968. Many deal with abortion, teen pregnancy, sex education or the life experience of young LGBT people. Others deal with the Black Lives Matter movement or the concepts of anti-racism.
Also on the list are some more popular works, including:
— The Confessions of Nat Turner, a 1967 novel by William Styron written as a first-person narrative of an 1831 slave revolt in Virginia.
— The Cider House Rules, John Irving’s 1985 novel about a protagonist whose childhood mentor is an obstetrician who performs abortions.
— V for Vendetta, the 1982 graphic novel about a dystopian, post-pandemic England ruled by a fascist regime, written by Alan Moore that became a hit movie in 2005.
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