As someone who spent three years attending law school in the beautiful town of Charlottesville, I'm saddened that it has become ground zero in the latest battle of America's new civil war.
The official narrative is that a bunch of racists and right-wing fanatics descended on the town and brought death and destruction in their wake. The reality is that the marchers -- whatever their beliefs -- had a right to assemble but were confronted by a mob that was hellbent on causing a scene, and who were aided and abetted by the local government. This reality is being drowned out in the media, but it is not being overlooked by growing numbers of people who are disaffected with the status quo.
What happened in Charlottesville is unfortunate, and the fact that more whites are becoming racially conscious and radicalized is also unfortunate. But these things were predictable. You cannot on the one hand encourage every non-white demographic to be racially conscious and to demonize whites, yet on the other hand expect whites never to respond in kind. Either all groups must be blind to race, or all groups will be keenly aware of it. The former never happens, which is why multi-racial societies always degenerate into strife sooner or later.
My hope always has been for America to split up in a peaceful fashion. The people occupying this land today are no longer a nation in any meaningful sense, but rather a hodgepodge with no common set of principles, beliefs, or historical memories. If separation is not in the cards, I fear that Charlottesville will look like a picnic compared to what comes next.
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