#cville tw

[deqdyke]

TW: discussions of Ch*rlottesville

An active part of being antizionist is destabilizing the narrative that Jews need Israel for safety. You do that by supporting and keeping safe diasporic Jewish communities, especially ones that have no direct connection with the settler state. It's so frustrating to me to see white goyim leftists constantly post about Palestine but when confronted they have no idea what BDS is, what the nakba or farhud are, what the term Mizrahi means, what Hamas actually is; they can't name any Zionist thinkers and if pressed they'll name "Bernie Sanders" or Netenyahu. A vocal local antisemitic leftist has a rehearsed call and response that involves calling basically any public Jewish figure they're dismissing a Zionist. It's so disheartening. There's no care for the actual pain and hurt that impacts Palestinians or Jews.

That same leftist constantly claims she can't be an antisemite bc she was at CVille. She talks about it all the time. I had Jewish friends at CVille. One of them got beat by Neo-Nazis who were shouting "Jews will not replace us". They don't organize anymore. I have another friend whose entire family FLED THE COUNTRY because they had to watch Nazis march down their street and could do nothing to stop it. Every time that antisemite brings it up I just want to scream at her that this isn't about her. Part of the conversion process is being taught about the violence you face as a Jew and being asked "Why do you want this? Can you really condemn your children to this? Understand what it is you're facing".

Fucking protect us. Being an antisemite doesn't help Palestinians, it just uses them as a cudgel. Be loud, be vocal, be unapologetically against the Zionist colonial regime. Create a world where basically every Jew doesn't have an escape plan plotted out. Render their propaganda meaningless.

[harpsona]

Sorry for posting something tragic and not harp related, but I just wanted to say that it’s days like today that remind me, and so many other people, that this is reality. That these groups, which I thought of as dead monsters of the past in my history classes, are still live and well today.

This especially hits home for me because, well, Charlottesville was my home for four years. I attended the University of Virginia, the same campus the white supremacists marched through last night with torches. This is where I got my degree in biomedical engineering. This is where I first started to learn how to play harp.

There’s not much I can do about this, and likely, there isn’t much you can do to directly impact these events either. However, if and when you see injustice in your daily life, no matter how small, I want you to take a moment to think and see if you can positively influence the relatively small situation. If you belong to the group of power in the situation, say something. Sometimes these injustices are unintentional, and it often takes someone of a similar group pointing it out to make people realize the effects of their words and actions. In cases like these though, people are fully aware of their impact.

Let’s all strive to make the world a better place than we’ve found it, no matter how incrementally small that bettering is.

[jewish-privilege]

Brenda Brown-Grooms: We are still working together to keep the American Dream alive

I was at the sunrise service at First Baptist Church on Main at 6 a.m. on August 12, with Cornell West, Tracy Blackmon, Osagyefo Sekou and various groups soon to be deployed to our respective stations (mine to First United Methodist Church, a designated safe space, prayer fortress, first aid station, food and water replenishing). We prayed, sang, read Scripture, counseled with those coming in for respite. We were tear gassed (it wafted up from the park across the sidewalk), were locked down more times than I can now remember, and watched Heather Heyer being killled and others injured in real time, via livestream, while hearing a helicopter hovering over our heads.

A little more than a month before the July 2017 gathering of the KKK in Emancipation Park (in protest of the city's approved plan to remove the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee) we all got word of this coming August gathering. Concerned citizens, rightly discerning this to be, above all, an issue of morality and not just policy, called on their faith leaders to lead Charlottesville's response. Indeed, they were crystal clear: if you don't lead, we won't follow.

We mounted prayer vigils, monitored KKK/alt-right social media, tried to work with various police departments in this area, and quickly discovered that they were not listening to us, which later bespoke their unpreparedness for the situation.

After the July protest, those of us in the faith community realized the enormity of the coming situation and sought to prepare ourselves and our congregations as best we could. Our biggest hindrance was the intransigence of the city government, university administrators, and Charlottesville's elite in convincing themselves that something like what did happen would never happen in beautiful, iconic, happy Charlottesville! THIS ISN'T WHO WE ARE!

However, beautiful Charlottesville has an ugly underbelly. If you have enough money, enough power, the right zip code, preferably no Jewish ancestry, and are not a person of color, you may well be able to position yourself, isolate yourself, so that none of what poor, powerless, native Charlottesvillians of color experience. I am an African American native of Charlottesville and a graduate of the University of Virginia. I remember and have always experienced the ugliness of this beautiful place.

To those who stubbornly thought it "couldn't happen here," I say: Are you insane? Of course this is Charlottesville. What planet do you live on? Yes, some Nazis and KKK and alt-righters came from out of town, but a lot more of them than you think live right here.

On August 11, I participated in a glorious worship service at St. Paul's, across the street from the Rotunda at UVA, where the tiki torch gathering happened and Nazis cried, "Jews will not replace us." I, along with about 500 people, was locked down in the church. I had a premonition that something would happen on Friday. They had to announce their presence some way.

Last summer crystallized for me, yet again, that America has yet to live out her creed (that all people are created equal, endowed by our Creator, with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). Everyone ever labeled a "minority" in this country knows America's failure, its original sin. And yet, each generation, we hope and work for the American Dream. The original sin that infects our republic, our religious practices and citizenship in the world is white supremacy. We must admit it. Rout it out. Begin again. We must talk about who benefits and who does not. We must admit that our institutions are shot through with unfairness, injustice and death. We must hear and include the stories that have been and are still being suppressed in order to perpetuate a false, an incomplete narrative--leaving out Native Americans, Asian Americans, South Americans, African Americans, Immigrants, Refugees and those left without homelands and others in any of the myriad ways we humans know to "other."

Since last year's open summer of hate, I have found brothers and sisters of all races, creeds, faith or no faith traditions, who have been willing to sit together, talk together, argue together, cry together, think together, plan together, walk together, to keep the American Dream alive, one more generation. We are working together to raise up another generation to follow us, who will do the same. Shalom.

Brenda Brown-Grooms is a pastor with the New Beginnings Christian Community and part of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective (CCC), a group of clergy and laypeople dedicated to dialogue about the challenge of race relations in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. She is also part of and Congregate Cville, an activist organization which grew out of CCC.

...

Rachel Schmelkin: I learned a lot that day about what it means to truly support and protect each other

On August 12, 2017, I took a few cautious steps out of First United Methodist Church, a designated "safe space" for anti-Nazi demonstrators, to survey the park where Nazis were screaming ugly white supremacist chants. "Jews will not replace us!," still rings in my ear as I recall that dreadful weekend. I'd never seen such hate up close, and for the first time I felt afraid to be a Jew in America.

A few days before the rally, I told my close friends, Reverends Phil and Robert that I was worried that I would be a target, but that it was important to be to be visible and present despite the risks. They promised me that they would watch out for me. They said "We will not let anybody get near you. In fact, we'll stay with you as long as you're out there. We will not leave you alone." I trusted them, and they held to their word.

That day, I continued further out of the door and did my best to project songs of love and peace that might drown out the hate. With my guitar in hand and my brother standing next to me, we sang out "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!"

I learned a lot that day about what it means to truly support and protect each other, and to have others support and protect me. A black friend confided in me that she's felt unsafe in her body her entire life. As a Jew, I felt that same visceral fear that August day in Charlottesville when neo-Nazis threatened to torch the Jews.

Anti-Semitism animates white supremacist ideology and is tightly integrated with its other racist and xenophobic views. Charlottesville's "summer of hate" taught me that alliances across faiths, across race, across all kinds of differences are the best way to combat racism, anti-Semitism, and all types of bigotry and hate.

Since August 12, courageous citizens of Charlottesville have consistently come together to make Charlottesville a miserable place to be a white supremacist; they're not welcome here.

Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin is with Congregation Beth Israel in Charlottesville.

See the full piece at CNN. 

TW: The top of page has a video that autoplays starting on a graphic image of car attack that killed Heather Heyer, Z’’L may her memory be a blessing, and also includes images and video from the white supremacists marching and chanting anti Black and antisemitic slogans.

[frosidon]

I’m seriously considering going to a cville city meeting

Just to be like “Hey my dudes. These people did not come to peacefully assemble. By their actions and their own admission. Maybe don’t let them assemble in public with guns and clubs any more. Also: hate speech and inciting violence are not covered by the first amendment. Maybe arrest people who are screaming threats about raping and killing people. Maybe consider showing these people there are consequences for their actions because it’s your goddamn job.”  UPDATE: I checked and there are already like thirty people signed up to speak about this in 3 minute increments. Maybe I’ll go and shout HEAR HEAR when someone makes a good point.