Charlottesville 'Rally' Turned Riot

One dead and 19 injured during a white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12th 2017. The protest was directed towards the removal of confederate monument in the city centre, where the "Unite the Right" group feel pride towards their confederate heritage and the counter-protesters feel, that as liberals, they should leave Virginia's confederate past behind them. A car ran into a crowd of counter-protesters after clashes occurred between the two groups.

CNN have written up a decent update on the situation.

The 20 people that suffered didn't even cover all of the injuries that occurred during this protest, at least another 15 injuries were already documented as a direct result of the protest.

This is also the most violent rally to have occurred within the United States without the involvement of any police-induced injuries. The injury rate is already higher than most protests that occur all around the US and the police were not prepared for this protest because it was predominantly alt-right, KKK and white nationalists participating.

If this protest had been led by Black Lives Matter activists, riot squad and armed police would have been dispatched before the protest would have even started, they would have retaliated to peaceful protest as well, as we are all well aware of since the events of Baltimore over the past two years which you can read more about here.

The police and government are just proving more and more that institutionalised racism is real and prevalent, that black people are still considered dangerous when not oppressed, and that white people are allowed to be violent at the expense of the lives of PoC people.

Everyone needs to be held accountable for their actions and behaviour or equality can never be achieved. That includes all of the people that were photographed, arrested, and are currently being searched for that participated in this bigoted, Nazi-esque rally. Society teaches these white males that they are special even when they are sub-competent or mediocre and it's given them the inflated egos necessary to commit acts of violence that affect the general populous.

This includes rape, like in the case of Brock Turner (more here), defacing/destruction of public property such as the riots in Portland just after the last Presidental Election (more here), and murder such as what happened in Charlottesville days ago.

White supremacy must fall for the sake of all people, not just in America but in nations around the world. America is a global superpower that doesn't know it's own strength and refuses to acknowledge its' own history.

Hopefully now, with an event that the government ignored (and with more on the way) that this Republican government can self-reflect and change their views for the better.

More reading, if you're interested:

Vibe

ABC 7 Chicago

Standard

NY Times