Augmented Reality: The Skewed View Of Race From America’s Priveleged‘In 2017’,
America is exposed both nationally, globally as the monster it has always been said to be.
Following the August 12th protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, the U.S. unintentionally took an international stage displaying its ugliest side, and its unapologetic for the values of history’s losing sides.
Charlottesville, Virginia has gained a lot of recognition. It isn’t just the small Virginian town tucked off just slightly South of the Appalachian Mountains anymore. It’s not just a small college town anymore, home of about 22,000 proud Cavaliers. As the Fall semester begins, unfortunately, those days are long gone. Charlottesville now represents much more just in its name. As history should continue to tell it, it is the site of a long and silent tension in the U.S. that not only spilled over into violence, but the death of 3 Americans on American soil, at the hands of American terrorists.
You Would Have Thought America Just Peeped Its Racist Habits.
The images seen on the evening of August 11th, and the afternoon of August 12th were not only terrifying, but very eye-opening for many Americans. Bearing tiki torches in hand, almost ten thousand White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, and members of the KKK rallied on UVA’s campus to rally around the statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of that old Confederacy. That Confederacy, whose flag is ‘about heritage’ and ‘family history’; that heritage that ‘deserves a place’ in history, as well as in our national parks and in front of our state capitols and court houses. But the rally that Friday night wasn’t about the Jefferson Davis statue, it was to send a message, just as all terrorism is supposed to do.
It’s nothing short of coincidence that just days before the rally on the campus of UVA, that reports from publications and sources like NowThis and Vocativ, began reporting that more than 11 White Supremacist groups were putting their differences aside to unite for one message. First, what differences do they possibly have? And second, everyone pointed to this rise of visibility among hate groups as being “Trump’s America”. Well, not Trump’s America, but “just Trump’s America”. And that was the problem.
“You had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest — because I don’t know if you know, they had a permit,” — Pres. Trump
If you travel back 3 years to the streets of Ferguson, Missouri on August 12th, 2014, the image of a peaceful protest was being described as a riot. There was no admittance of non-violence, and the media had swarmed into the city to capture every inch and ounce of raw emotion following the execution and bodily mishandling of the late young Michael Brown. His body laid in the street for 4 hours, unattended, while his parents begged to identify the body as it laid on the hot summer concrete. It was that day that the phrase and idea “Black Lives Matter” was born. From the first time it was uttered on social media, it became a phrase — as well as a organization — cast aside as bearing anti-white sentiment, and representing a terrorist group. Often scrutinized as young extremists willing to do anything to wash away law and order at the first chance they had. That’s how the media ran with it.
The handling of the Ferguson protests was different. There was riot police, there were tanks, there were endless nights of tear gas, bean bag guns, and a constant overly-aggressive presence of police and national guard that only agitated the already emotional residents of the Ferguson neighborhoods. Outsiders swarmed the city to agitate more violence, and worst of all, Darren Wilson was placed on administrative leave, received millions of dollars of donations, and was never charged for shooting Michael Brown on August 9th, 2014.
Not to mention that as more black and brown bodies swallowed bullets and laid on concrete, politicians defended the actions of their districts and officers. Fearful of tension in the very communities they police, we saw law enforcement counteract with “Blue Lives Matter”, which disproportionately victimized and protected the police (with exceptions, of course).
A similar happening occured in 2015, when Sandra Bland was found dead in her jail cell in a Texas prison. Her turn signal — and we can’t forget her attitude — were her demise. In 2016, it was Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and Terance Crutcher. Not to mention the massacre which took place at Pulse night club in Orlando, Florida. It almost appears that America has been looking at its problems from a different pair of lenses, or even, through an augmented reality filter. America has enjoyed life through a Snapchat-like filter that has kept it completely blind to what minorities have been presenting for years.
The protesting of the death of Alton Sterling was met with a police force so intense and militarized, they looked like they were preparing to take on ISIS, yet almost ten thousand White Supremacists from all over the country were able to march in single-filed line on UVA’s campus bearing tiki torches shouting “you will not replace us”. No tanks, no armor, no special task force robot with the explosives attached? Well, you might justify that there was no violence as of yet to warrant all of that.
Let’s back track, though, and really discuss Trump’s America.
Everyone from politicians, to celebrities, and every day citizens are now pulling their support together to denounce the values and message of White Supremacists and even Trump himself. Unfortunately, it’s far too late. With 53% of college-educated women voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Elections, they’ve already highly endorsed this message. The KKK made an extremely public and notable endorsement of Donald Trump, remember that?
Trump made the NRA extremely comfortable following their endorsement of him, even encouraging them to “shoot their shot” at Hillary Clinton had she won. That wasn’t too far, or too extreme, or reminiscent of White Supremacists.
And perhaps we can get just a montage or B-roll of how many minorities were kicked out of Trump’s rallies during his campaigns — and I mean physically kicked, or punched.
Sadly, anything that resembled or even looked Black enough to represent Black Lives Matter required denouncing, and was quickly and comfortably labeled as terrorism. White Supremacy required 4 dead, and a city to be completely turned upside down before any politician denounced it. Anyone who voted for Donald Trump placed their stamp of approval on White Supremacy and their message because he was endorsed highly and favorably by these groups. Where White Supremacy rested its boots, someone was able to title it “Nationalist” or refer to that person as a “Patriot”. So, if Patriotism is to hate/racism, then sadly the system is as broken as we’ve always said it was.
Meanwhile, minorities have been pointing out the covert discrimination and the presence of these hate groups for years now. Where lone wolves pulled triggers, we pointed fingers to let everyone know that there was a bigger picture. When Dylan Roof was taken to Burger King for a treat, we pointed out the disparity in that treatment versus the brutal paddy wagon death of Freddie Grey. No one listened. It fell on death ears and met with “Black-on-Black crime” rebuttals.
On August 12th, 2017, the entire world watched as White Supremacy was enabled by the lack of police force, and by political back from the President of the Free World. A flustered and unburped President stood at a podium, only to give “best regards” to victims, and to send stale condolences to the family of American, Heather Heyer, who honestly and truly believe in equality and freedom.
And lastly, the mother of James A. Fields, the terrorist who murdered Heather Heyer. A perfect example of what it’s like to live with the American augmented reality lens on. In her brief interview, she revealed that she didn’t know enough of his intentions and his political views, but that he was going to a Trump rally. Yet, it doesn’t click in for The Silent Ones, that with Trump already being president, he requires no further rallies for his supporters.
Fields’ mother and many other knew of his attachment to Neo-Nazism, and never could quite put their tongue to call him a White Supremacist. And that is where The Silent Ones play their complicit role in empowering these groups and therefore pushing the agenda. It wasn’t enough to denounce the endorsement of Trump by David Duke, nor was it too callous withdraw their vote at the polls; it wasn’t troublesome to witness the appointment of Jeff Sessions (who has long been deemed a racist). Perhaps it was far too uncomfortable to constantly see Trump change the media’s attention to something “more critical” whenever the Russia investigations got too tight. The zenith of discomfort of America has finally come when, more than 200 days into his presidency, Donald Trump laid out all the cards to say very obviously that he would not denounced White Supremacists, Confederacy, Neo-Nazis, and Domestic Terrorism.
So, to those asking “Is This Us”, there is a collective “It’s been Ya’ll” from the minority groups of the United States. To the celebrities (like Lebron James, whose house was vandalized with the N-word earlier this Summer), please remove your AR goggles and understand that this has been going on for a long time — far too long. The truth is that there is a lot of work ahead, and it is now officially the responsibility of every able-bodied and vocal American to not only speak out, but be a presence in the fight against the KKK and Nazis.
The question now rests in the hands of the many members of Congress who are openly denouncing Trump. It is in their hands now to not only cease the interruptions members like Maxine Waters and Kamala Harris, but also commit to more progressive thinking and planning, and allow for the 25th Amendment to be applied vehemently to Trump’s disastrous presidency.
Alex Auguste, best known as Mistah Marvel on GoodKnocking Radio, is a host of Marvel&Friends and TrailMixAM. At the University of South Florida, he studied English-Creative Writing with a focus in short story fiction. Since 2010, he has spear-headed the GoodKnocking brand, and has published a number of widely popular Opinion pieces since GK’s inception. He currently blogs personally via his website, Written By Mistah Marvel.
