CHARLOTTESVILLE: THE SCANDAL THAT GOES TO SHOW WE LIVE IN A BUBBLE
No, these aren't pictures taken decades ago, it's 2017, and America has never been this divided.
Brexit, Trump getting elected, Charlottesville... All of those events shocked us, and most of us weren't ready.
White supremacists, racists, neo-nazis, they didn't just appear like that. Why are we only hearing about them now?
"Tolerance" is definitely a word that I would've applied to define these last few years. Starting with the acceptance of the LGBTQ, different religions, I thought we were finally sort of close of the end of discrimination, whether it'd be on skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, whatever you want. But of course I was naive and way too optimistic.
How come we're only realizing now that, while half of us are completely accepting differences, and even praising them, and simply don't care about others' skin color, the other half is still not moving forward ?
Beware, I'm not AT ALL trying to explain or justify why those people went out to protest, I'm definitely not here to defend white supremacy and racism. What I'm trying to explain is why are we aware of this rising extremist right wing movement only now? How can we be so divided ?
So let's just briefly recap what happened because most of you are probably already aware:
On Friday night, in Charlottesville Virginia, around a hundred of neo-nazis, white supremacists and white nationalists marched together carrying torches, chanting slogans such as "White lives
matter" and giving the nazi salute.
One of them killed a counter protester with his car.
Charlottesville, a city that had voted in majority for Clinton for the elections, which has a jewish mayor and a black police chief, was chosen because of it's decision to remove the statue of Robert Lee, a "hero of the south" and big supporter of slavery...
White supremacists and neo-nazis didn't just appear like that, they've been here for a long time, but one of the reasons why we're hearing a lot more about them is because of President Trump who legitimated their opinion.
By the way, what did Trump had to say of all of this ?
The thing is the people who marched at this protest were part of the people who voted for Trump. He knew something like this could happen, and knows he has to condemn it, but he's scared of loosing some of his voters now. Therefore Trump tried to condemn both the protestors and the counter protesters, which of course was received with a lot of criticism.
Trump's infamous tweets.. This one is kind of ironic, isn't it ?
This one people were sort of... disturbed. The "So sad!" comment was maybe not the right one to do ?
Anyway, let's get back to what we were asking ourselves first, why are we hearing about all of this lately and not before ?
Another reason, in addition to Trump getting elected, is that we live in a bubble. First, the division of belief in the USA is geographical, the stereotypes would make you want to believe that the protesters are people that come from the middle of the United States, and the counter protesters from the coasts. In our everyday life, we don't get exposed as much to beliefs we don't agree with because we all have similar ones. We live in multicultural cities so obviously we're going to be more open minded about different cultures. Truth is we're hearing all about others' racists beliefs now because we didn't really care about others' beliefs before, we live in the most populated cities and states, when people thought of the USA they thought of NY, California, not the middle of the US. We used to live in a bubble, where the states that mattered the most where the ones on the coasts. But don't be surprised or angry, it's the case in many countries, specially in Europe. Now that we've given attention to the people that have extreme and different beliefs than ours, we've given them a voice, which they're using. Those people protesting thought that now there was hope for them and that they were finally listened, but all of this happening is just reminding us that we have to get this matter in our own hands to finally have one united country, free of discrimination and racism.