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When "Unite The Right" met the United Right

Yesterday, Unite the Right 2 was held in Washington D. C. For weeks, we had been hearing of the anticipated crowds of white supremacists that would be descending upon D.C. The city itself was in preparations as well, shutting down certain subways and mobilizing its police force. Businesses posted signs in rejection of the even, preparing to drive supremacists away. Even apps like AirBnb, Uber, and Lyft were we allowing their operators within the city limits to deny service to any white supremacists during the event.

"Unite the Right 2" wasn't just gathering in "honor" of last year's Charlottesville Tiki Torch, polo, and khaki pant clad protest of the removal of another Confederate statue. Like with most things in this nation's racial past, I consulted the voices of my elders, who reminded me that this upcoming march was not the first time white supremacists had been so bold as to parade themselves on D.C.'s streets. The last time white supremacists marched on the Nation's Capital on August 8th, 1925 may not be remembered by most, but it was a frightening display of terrorism affirmed by the country as 30,000 hooded men marched those same streets that our country's founding fathers and mothers had done.

Here we are, nearly 100 years since that brazen and gross act of visual terrorism, and Unite The Right's next march threatened to echo that event in number and in terror.

Last year's Charlottesville protest and the counter-protest the following day that led to violent clashes and the brutal murder of Heather Heyer left more of a mark on me than I initially cared to admit. With the generational ingrained terror and violence these groups have inflicted on my own community and others along with the knowledge of that 1925 march added to the violence and harassment inflicted on non-white groups as emboldened by the nations highest seat, I woke Sunday with a high sense of stress. I stayed away from social media for most of the day, fearing to see imagery that would etch its way into my heart the same way that the visuals from that 1925 rally and Charlottesville have implanted themselves.

Then I broke my social media guard and checked Twitter.






Turns out that the "highly anticipated Unite the Right was not only incredibly poorly attended, it was overwhelmed by thousands of counter-protestors. As the Atlantic Reports:
"In the end, though, only about two dozen ‘Unite the Right’ marchers ascended the escalator from the metro platform—all men, except for one bandana-clad woman. It was a dismal showing for a group who, only a few days before, had been expected to turn out in the hundreds. Both the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally and this year’s were organized by Jason Kessler, a 34-year-old who identifies not as a white nationalist but as a “white civil-rights” leader. Kessler had set up Sunday’s event to keep the momentum going for the movement—but after last year’s tragedy, and the ensuing bad publicity, most alt-right groups chose to stay away.
It began to rain in earnest at 5 p.m., and the ‘Unite the Right’ protesters were ushered away quietly by their police escort. They paused to wait for one of their members, who had gotten caught, bewildered, in the throng of reporters. Across the square, behind the fence and the line of police horses, the counter-protesters didn’t even notice they had left."

Seeing this did something for my heart in ways only being there might have done better. It was a reminder that as loud and emboldened as some of those who have adopted or ingrained bigotry, misogyny, and racism, there are indeed more who will rise to not only meet but confront them. Seeing only a handful of white supremacists outnumbered even by the police officers that were assigned to protect them and completely overwhelmed by those who had come from around the corner and across the country to directly oppose their message, from various ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds, educational backgrounds, ages, and life-stages, has warmed my heart and restored my own personal resolve that we, as a country united, can deal the final blow to supremacy of all kinds, and that we can truly begin to see each other not despite our differences, but in acceptance and in celebration of those differences. 

How symbolic that such a defeat to white supremacy would happen in the nation's capital, where Unite the Right was met by a United Right, right in morals and ethics and ideals of this great nation that we all claim to love; where those who would twist the narrative of civil rights were met by those who would seek rights for everyone regardless of orientation, identity, or ethnicity; that those who would withhold the promises made by the forefathers from everyone but themselves would be overtaken by those who truly believe in freedom and justice for all.

This is America.

Prayerfully, this is a sign of things to come. Keep resisting.

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