Charlottesville

12 Aug 2017

The recent “Unite the Right” event is a testament that racism is still a huge issue that needs to be address. No one should ever be attacked or threatened on the basis of their race.

Here is the flyer for this eveent:

The event was formed to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee Charlottesville Statue. Here’s a good reddit comment I found on the r/TheDonald subreddit which demonstrates why they were so angry about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6t9ot1/realdonaldtrump_we_all_must_be_united_condemn_all/dlj0j33/

I’ve been passively following these alt-right/Donald Trump supporter groups online for the past year through their Discord groups (an anonymous chat platform) and have seen racism and anger towards anyone that is opposed to their views.

I joined the alt right’s biggest Discord group earlier this month to evaluate why they were so passionate about white nationalism. The alt right Discord group only allows white people to join their group according to their rules:

On the other hand, in other right-leaning Discord groups such as the ones that support Donald Trump strongly oppose any racist sentiments and ban any users that racistly attacks others.

Nevertheless, their anger has reached to a high point where they are now organizing protests towards the Google memo issue and the most recent Charlottesville statue issue. This “Unite the Right” event was organized and promoted by the alt-right and Donald Trump groups in anonymous circles:

Why is this happening?

After the most recent presidential election, We’ve seen extremes from both the left and the right such as the Antifa and certain alt-right members physically attack others and promote violence.

I think all this racism and anger stems from the lack of open and civil dialogue from both sides. Media platforms such as CNN and Fox News promulgate sensationalist rhetoric which demonize certain political ideologies and people that follow under those ideologies. Thus, people from both sides are often tricked by these news media platforms and replicate this anger by calling others with labels such as “snowflakes”, “libtard”, “racist”, or “homophobic”.

To solve this issue, people should come face to face, perhaps in a town hall setting and have an open conversation on heated issues like healthcare, nationalism, etc.

Here’s a video about how a black man convinced a KKK member to quit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipuJHdFliBk

How did he convince these people who were vehemently racist towards non-whites to completely flip in his ideologies? He sat at the table with these KKK members and had an open conversation.

Many of these racist or violent people from both ideologies formulate a certain evil image of the other side. Schools, churches, and public policy won’t change a racist and violent person but perhaps an open conversation will.

In closing, I’d like to end this blog post with a quote from Martin Luther King: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”