I have been putting off writing this entry, the idea being that I would take some time to process the information, to work through emotions, and to meditate on where the spire emerges from amongst the sea of it all. The fact of the matter is that I am enabled to ‘put off’ responding to the events in Charlottesville because of my white privilege. The fact that I am (for all intents and purposes) a white, cis gendered, European male means that I can sit back and mull over what I would like to say – I am granted the privilege to sit on the sidelines; I can choose to be as absent from this as I wish.

I have white privilege.

The deeper fact, however, is that I am the grandchild of a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Nazis. I am also the grandchild of a Celtic national minority. These things are relevant because I am a 6’5 blue eyed white grandchild of two ethnic bloodlines that are at odds on the streets of Charlottesville. I also happen to have the same haircut sported by Neo-Nazis and drive the same car as the white supremacist who murdered Heather Hayer, and hurt many more. These things are relevant because I am able to change my haircut, I am able to change my car; I am even able to mask my heritage.

I have white privilege.

It is an obvious thing to condemn the hateful and bigoted actions that occurred in Charlottesville, it is one of those things that we white people don’t generally think we need to condemn – our collective grandparents fought the nazis, and won. We removed them. Though like all cancers can, they came back – but we don’t need to openly condemn them, just like we don’t need to condemn child abuse – everyone knows these things are bad, right? We don’t need to say it.

We have white privilege.

It is an easy thing to condemn the actions that occurred in Charlottesville, but white voices are suspiciously not raised in unison. I approximate that less than half of my ‘friends’ on social media are speaking out against the matter of neo-nazis and white supremacists causing chaos and death on public streets. Some of those people are family members, and some of those people are members of minority groups. Even if I subtract those who do not live in the USA, it is still a quiet feed given the circumstances. That shame runs deep.

We have white privilege.

I have heard apologist commentary and hesitancy, I have read reductionist remarks, and obtuse attempts at rationale over Charlottesville. It should be a very easy thing to reject racist, fascist, and bigoted ideology, a very easy thing. If I think about the people in my life, and fantasized their response to my telling them I had decided to become a Nazi it is very simple to imagine their horror. So why the silence. Why is it so difficult to do what you do each day, to go on social media, and denounce this?

White privilege.

I have watched the videos of the events as they unfolded, I have researched the manifestos of the white supremacist groups, read the rhetoric from the neo-nazis, and I have reeled from the not-so-ignorant you-know-what-you-are-doing comments of the president of the United States. I think of Maya Angelou: when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. I consider the luxury of being able to mask and re-invent yourself.

White privilege.

I have hung my head at the idiocy of those who argue the Black Lives Matter movement is a terrorist organization, that it somehow stalemates the emergence of white supremacists because those commentators lack sufficient comprehension to understand what BLM actually means. I have blinked wide eyed at human beings in 2017 suggesting that being anti-fascist is somehow anti-free speech. Even as I write this I am reeling at the concept. Free speech does not protect the speaker from consequences. The extent to which I witness white people getting upset about fictitious threats to the concept of free speech is almost lobotomizing in and of itself. Consequences for actions does not equate systemic oppression.

White privilege.

I have wondered at the inherent lack of historical understanding when I hear or read white supremacists claim foul at the concept that the ‘white race’ might be reduced, or even replaced – the arrogance and ignorance of a group whose ‘rise to the top’ came at the cost of life and land of all other races and ethnicities it came into contact with. A threaded toxicity being the science fiction propaganda of a ‘master race’. We have already visited this concept, fought this concept, and beat this concept. The literal causation of this perspective is violent and decisive imperialism, giving rise to entitlement and arrogance.

White privilege.

I have considered how to respond to literal fascism walking the streets; staring off into space fantasizing about punching a nazi and somehow waking everyone up in the process. I have thought of how the government might intervene, magically bringing all sides together and birthing a new era of unification. I have flirted with minimizing the impact of a relatively small group of bigots in comparison to the majority of people, hoping that the movement will fracture and fade back into obscurity.

White privilege.

I have come to believe that this horror will not simply fade away, bigotry and fascism is the logical consequence of white privilege, and the only response is to increase awareness, not of the neo-nazis or the white supremacist themselves, but of white privilege – it is the conduit through which this asinine philosophy has made an attempt for power. White privilege is the rot that undermines the foundation of civilized society, it is the termite in the wall of humanity. White privilege is the shame that stops us from actually accepting our part in perpetuating oppression, it is the fear that enacting equality will equate losing. White privilege is a poison, and we are sick from it. We are losing our humanity, and in the process we are losing what legitimacy we have left to advocate for ourselves as a collective people.

We are a collective people though, not white people, human people – all people – but right now this concept that white people somehow means more, that it somehow has more value than any other permutation of homo sapien is a toxic and repugnant shame that we have to face.

The neo-nazis and white supremacists walking the streets are a consequence of our complacency and complicity in white privilege. We stop them by stopping it.
It is as simple as that.