DSA nationally echoes our Charlottesville chapter’s call for solidarity on this anniversary and we urge all of our members to join with organizations working on the ground to stop the Unite the Right rallies planned in Washington and other cities around the country.
One year ago Heather Heyer was murdered and many others were injured and scared by the vicious right-wing attack in Charlottesville. DSA members from Virginia, Maryland, and DC were among those who went to Charlottesville to confront the right, among many other small groups of members, and individuals.
We stand with our chapters who took up the call for solidarity last year, inspired by their memories and bravery.
Since Donald Trump’s election, the fascist movement in our country has grown more bold, drawing energy and support from Trump’s xenophobic comments, but at the core of the Right’s agenda is an old racism. While the South has a special history related to race, we know that racism is rampant throughout the United States and must be confronted everywhere. Racism drives the right, both the alt-right and the 'mainstream' right represented by the GOP in congress. This is no accident. Nixon's Southern strategy has resulted in a GOP populated by racists.
We stand with all people of color, immigrants, and communities attacked by the racist current in our country.
Whether in the streets, by going door-to-door, organizing in the workplace, or even confronting injustice in the home, on this anniversary we urge our members to heed the last words of legendary labor activist Joe Hill --
“Don’t mourn, organize!”
Maria Svart
DSA National Director
The following statement was originally published by Charlottesville DSA on August 9th, 2018.
Last year, Charlottesville became an international “symbol” of far-right extremism. Residents of our city suffered ongoing harassment, violence, and racism over the course of the summer, culminating in the deadly rallies on August 11 at the University of Virginia and August 12 in downtown Charlottesville. Organized by local fascists, white supremacists near and far gathered to directly harm us under the guise of free speech. They did so with impunity. They murdered Heather Heyer. They injured dozens. They scarred hundreds.
A year later and we are still suffering from the fallout of the rallies, while continuing the struggle against white supremacy in Charlottesville. The threats from fascists have continued to endanger us. Constant abuse and harassment of local activists has dramatically harmed their lives. Among this far-right danger, we have had to face an indifferent city government, a court system that sides with white supremacists, an unaccountable police force, a University that refuses to take responsibility, and those who value “civility” over justice.
We must recognize that while the events of Summer 2017 were eye-opening for many, the fight against white supremacy here in Charlottesville has been taking place for decades. This fight has been led by those who are most affected by fascism and white supremacy -- people of color, the LGBTQ community, native peoples, disabled people, and people in working or lower income classes. We must recognize that racism did not “come” to Charlottesville. It has lived and thrived here since the beginning. We must recognize that our Jewish comrades are confronting violent antisemitism perpetuated by Nazis. We must recognize all of our community defenders, such as Corey Long, DeAndre Harris, Donald Blakney, and Emily Gorcenski. We must recognize all of our victims of white supremacy, such as Sage Smith and John Henry James. We stand in solidarity with these people and in acknowledgment of their struggles.
This year, the fascists responsible for our pain will return to Charlottesville. They plan to spread their violent agenda in Washington D.C., in Portland, and in Berkeley. We ask that you join us in solidarity to confront these events and protect our communities, as fascism and racism must not spread unchallenged. If you are unable to be present, we ask that you support our efforts by promoting these principles everyday:
A year later and we are still suffering from the fallout of the rallies, while continuing the struggle against white supremacy in Charlottesville. The threats from fascists have continued to endanger us. Constant abuse and harassment of local activists has dramatically harmed their lives. Among this far-right danger, we have had to face an indifferent city government, a court system that sides with white supremacists, an unaccountable police force, a University that refuses to take responsibility, and those who value “civility” over justice.
We must recognize that while the events of Summer 2017 were eye-opening for many, the fight against white supremacy here in Charlottesville has been taking place for decades. This fight has been led by those who are most affected by fascism and white supremacy -- people of color, the LGBTQ community, native peoples, disabled people, and people in working or lower income classes. We must recognize that racism did not “come” to Charlottesville. It has lived and thrived here since the beginning. We must recognize that our Jewish comrades are confronting violent antisemitism perpetuated by Nazis. We must recognize all of our community defenders, such as Corey Long, DeAndre Harris, Donald Blakney, and Emily Gorcenski. We must recognize all of our victims of white supremacy, such as Sage Smith and John Henry James. We stand in solidarity with these people and in acknowledgment of their struggles.
This year, the fascists responsible for our pain will return to Charlottesville. They plan to spread their violent agenda in Washington D.C., in Portland, and in Berkeley. We ask that you join us in solidarity to confront these events and protect our communities, as fascism and racism must not spread unchallenged. If you are unable to be present, we ask that you support our efforts by promoting these principles everyday:
- Celebrate and center local resistance led by marginalized communities
- Decenter whiteness, and center and protect marginalized peoples
- No platform for white supremacy
- No “both sides” narrative
- The cops and the klan go hand in hand
- Civility is tyranny
We ask that you join us in confronting all forms of white supremacy in your community, however explicit or subtle. Whether it is gentrification, policing, prisons, ICE activity, schooling, environmental injustice, inaccessibility, or capitalism, we must confront the ways racism and fascism intersect and structure our daily lives. As a DSA chapter we believe that building a better, socialist world is not possible without this anti-fascist work. And we specifically ask DSA chapters around the country to do their part in this struggle against white supremacy and fascism.
Charlottesville is not a symbol.
It is a place. It is a community.
It is people who keep each other safe.
Stand with us.
It is a place. It is a community.
It is people who keep each other safe.
Stand with us.
If you would like to provide material support to the anti-fascist efforts in Charlottesville, we ask that you make a donation to the Charlottesville Community Resilience Fund. Please share this link on social media and pass it along to your friends and family.
Signed in Solidarity,
Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America
Signed in Solidarity,
Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America
1 comment:
9/4/18
I would point out that the assertion that Heather Heyer was murdered is false, untrue. At this point in time that should be clear to anyone who cares to know. The case against the 20 year old schiophenic with a Melungeon surname from Appalachian KY, James Fields Jr. has not yet been adjudicated. Heather Heyer was not struck by any vehicle but was pushed back from where she stood on the crowded sidewalk when the car, presumably drriven by Fields, which was under attack by club wielding 'counter demonstrators' smashing it's rear side and rear windows, did plow into the car that was stopped ahead of it. Heather's mother, not long after the event, announced in a press conference that Heather had died of a double heart attack, with the second of the two cardiac arrests occurring while she receiving CPR from an EMT {emergency medical technician] and lying on the sidewalk where she had fallen. It is worth noting that heather Heyer was 'morbidly obese, as was reported in the media; that is a technical term for extreme over-weight conditions; and she was a cigarette smoker, both of which are chrnic stressors for the heart. Also, per the prfessor George Michael lecture from 2016 on C-Span regarding White Supremacists there is no scuh entity extat in teh USA that has any political or otherwise power or influence. I would add to that if I may by observing the too rarely mentioned fact that there is only ONE racial supremaciist power entity manifesting today in the USA and it is jealous of it's dominion over the US Federal government, Congress and Presidency and over Academia and over the entire mass media apparatus and the economy! It is hyper ethnocentric hyper-organized plutocrat topped and prefers not to be named but to function as a Hidden Hand. It is the racial supremacist jewish power entity in the USA. And it is wging a war on White American people and culture though few Americans seem to discern this reality perhaps clearly because the media does not reveal it. The main thrust of the racial supremacist entity is to social engineer White Americans into a minority via massive importation of specifically non White peoples from every corner of the Third World in a scheme that commenced with the jdaic writ 1965 new immigration law. The original target date was 2050 and in 2008 the US Census Bureau moved the date forward to 2043 in a press release which managed to avoid identifying the massive annual over 2 million immigrants annually combined Legal and Illegal for already decades at that point and continues today with near or over 2 million Legal immigrants annually most of whom [80-90%] are specifically non White from Third world countries [per the J-Immigration Law of 1965 when White Americans were 90% of the population and now are perhaps 62%]. Most immigrants have been uneducated, unskilled, and non-English speaking. They have been placed methodically across the country in small and midsized towns and cities and advised to keep their native ethnic-cultural-religious identities as it would be racist to expect them to adopt an alien European culture just because they have moved to the USA; and voting is to be in all languages. Learning English is not dis-couraged. At some point the controlled condensed mass media started to mention what the racial supremacist power entity had planned to replace European traditional America: a Multicultural Society defined as being all minorities and NO MAJORITY. A judaic utopia vision which also included de-industrialization [perhaps to decimate the financial Middle Class and forestall resistance]. Concurrently with 4 decades of massive importation of specifically non White peoples by the millions was the, somewhat forced in many cases, removal of most of the US factory machinery -the US manufacturing capacity- to foreign locations principally China.
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