White Allyship after Charlottesville
While the entire country was shocked and horrified by the white supremacist terrorist attacks in the downtown mall, my community was reeling. I live in the Charlottesville area, and this was not the first time the KKK attempted to protest the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee — a change the Charlottesville City Council voted for — but it was the first time in recent memory that our sleepy college town had been targeted by out-of-state hate groups, who bussed in violent agitators intending to do harm.
I was out of town when the riots happened, on vacation at a national park out west. I had just finished a 12-mile hike and and when I returned to cell range and switched on my phone, I discovered nearly a dozen messages from friends and family asking if I was OK. Before Heather Heyer was identified, the only details released following the intentional attack when a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of peaceful protestors was that the victim was a white woman in her mid-thirties, like me. After reassuring everyone that I was OK, I checked on my friends who had attended the protests, started obsessively reading the news, and began to mourn.

Quickly, the questions started to pour in: Why were these hate groups so emboldened? Why had they targeted our town? Why were the police told to stand down when the heavily armed agitators started attacking the crowd?
And then the hardest question of all, posed to the white community of Charlottesville: Why are we so surprised that this happened?
My Facebook feed the following week was equal parts shock and outrage (mostly by white friends), and stoic but acerbic comments (mostly by friends from communities of color) asking the rest of us why we were just noticing the threat of white supremacy now, when institutional racism and outright segregation have been a part of our community as long as this community has been a community.
I’ve struggled with this question all week. When Tina Fey’s sheet-caking clip from “Saturday Night Live” landed all over my Facebook feed — cheered by many white progressives and criticized by many progressives of color — I was finally able to articulate the problem. What exactly was the difference between narratives about white supremacist violence coming from white people versus from communities of color?
Urgency.
The urgency that comes from understanding that the threat posed by hate and violence is immediate and personal. For many communities of color, this threat — of discrimination at best, fatal violence at worst — is and has been a part of daily life in America. Many white people only started paying attention when the threat was made emotionally real from the violence of August 12.
In many white communities, the threats of hate, prejudice, and violence have not been real on a personal level — in large part thanks to the overall level of privilege and safety that is an inherent part of the default experience in many white communities. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, many white communities are not even used to thinking of themselves as “white communities.” We accept, without thinking critically, that our communities are just “communities,” even if the majority of our neighbors and the people we interact with on a daily basis are white.
Who gets the qualifying adjective is a subtle but extremely important point in matters of personal and community identity: those who don’t need an adjective to describe themselves are members of the dominant culture, the culture considered to be the default. Everyone else must qualify themselves with descriptive adjectives — and are considered by the dominant culture as outsiders to the dominant culture’s community. This often means that by default, the voices, needs, hardships, and celebrations of so many communities aren’t known or even recognized by the dominant culture. The dominant culture — which in the case of Charlottesville, like in much of America, remains white culture — gets to live in relative but contented isolation and ignorance. Until major tragedies happen that steal our attention.
White people — what can we do in this moment to fight white supremacy?
Here are a few ideas I’ve focused on in recent weeks:
- Understand and internalize that white supremacy threatens all of us. You are never insulated and safe from hate and prejudice and violence; the threat of white supremacy is a threat to everyone, not just the Jewish community, the Black community, communities of color, Muslim communities, the LGBTQI community, or immigrant communities. Emboldened and violent domestic terrorists are not ideologues — they are bullies looking for victims. The line between “us” and “them” for white supremacists and the like is very blurry, and changes all the time.
- Understand the limits of your own cultural filter bubble, and start listening to voices and opinions and experiences of people outside your bubble. In particular, challenge yourself to understand how much of your identity, community, and culture is actually “white” culture, and ask yourself: What are my ideas about what the cultural defaults are, and where did I learn this?
- Read and listen to the many strong Black voices talking about what happened in Charlottesville. When your Black friends on Facebook post that they are offended by Tina Fey’s sheet-caking skit on SNL — don’t be defensive. Don’t explain why you thought it was funny. Just listen carefully.
- Acknowledge how you benefit from white supremacy in the form of privilege and safety. Think about the last time you’ve walked through a retail store and were not followed by a clerk, the last time you were stopped for speeding by the police and did not fear for your life, the last time you were able to speak up in a group without judgement or ridicule, the last time you were welcomed into a new space and treated as if you belonged. Did you notice at the time? Can you imagine what it would feel like to rarely or never have these experiences? Regardless of what your personal intentions are, white supremacy creates a zero-sum game out of the right to safety and autonomy: the more you are given, the less others receive. This is a false dichotomy, but it’s enforced in structural ways across all aspects of American society. The next time you see another person being treated unfairly because of the color of their skin and hesitate to say or do anything, ask yourself: how much of my hesitancy is coming from the luxury of personal safety and the privilege of not being targeted? How much is that safety and privilege actually worth to me, when it breeds injustice?
- Bring hard discussions about racism to white communities. Do you already consider yourself “a good progressive?” Instead of just reposting the words of others condemning the violence in Charlottesville on social media and then calling it a day, or showing up to Black communities asking how you can help — both of which are important, first steps — next, do the harder thing and bring real discussions of racism into your white community. Talk to your neighbor who flies that Confederate flag that everyone pretends to ignore about what Confederate symbols mean to him — and what they signify to you and to others. Talk to your white friends about when they’ve seen evidence of institutional racism in their communities. Talk to your white community about what institutional racism is.
- Bring hard discussions about racism to your workplace. At work, make a point to talk to your coworkers about equitable hiring and leadership development practices. Make a point to actually notice when you’re in a room that is 100% white — and ask yourself what kind of white culture you’re in right now, where it came from, and whether it’s possible that you’re excluding important voices and experiences. Advocate for anti-oppression training at your place of work.
- Know the history of your community. It’s a cliché that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, but this cliché holds true today. Ask yourself: Where did the Confederate statues on campus come from, who put them up, and why? How recently did the University of Virginia allow female students? Students of color? What exactly was Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, and how does this manifest every day on campus? What is the city of Charlottesville’s record and history on civil rights? Ask the same questions of your campus and community.
The threat of hate groups and white supremacist violence is real, and the threat is personal. White supremacists and other bigots are at the core bullies looking for victims. We must stand up to these bullies, strongly condemn their words and actions, take away their resources, and hold them accountable.
I first thought that these attacks meant that Charlottesville would never be the same. But coming home, I opened myself to listen to the calls of justice from leaders of color in this city, and I heard it loud and clear: The city of Charlottesville will continue to be the same, will continue a legacy of white supremacy that bred and fostered last week’s attacks, unless we act now.
What happened last week wasn’t an aberration, it was a continuation. And if we want to truly change things, we need to start listening to communities of color, acknowledging white supremacy, and acting to disrupt and dismantle it.
