Charlottesville

Michael Eric Dyson, writing in The New York Times about “Charlottesville and the Bigotocracy”:

It is depressing to explain to our children that what we confronted as children may be the legacy they bequeath to their children as well.

It is more dispiriting still to realize that the government of our land, at least in the present administration, has shown little empathy toward victims of white bigotry, and indeed, has helped to spread the paralyzing virus of hatred, by turning a blind eye to what is done in their name.

Now is the time for every decent white American to prove he or she loves this country by actively speaking out against the scourge this bigotocracy represents. If such heinous behavior is met by white silence, it will only cement the perception that as long as most white folk are not immediately at risk, then all is relatively well. Yet nothing could be further from the truth, and nothing could more clearly declare the moral bankruptcy of our country.

All is not well at all. The horror of the events in Charlottesville is compounded by the response of our president, whose words, tweeted and spoken, reveal his inability to grasp that horror (“So sad!”) and his absolute lack of moral clarity (“on many sides, on many sides”).

Here, via Cameron Glover, are six organizations in Charlottesville deserving of support: Beloved Community Charlottesville, Charlottesville NAACP, Charlottesville Pride, Charlottesville Solidarity Legal Fund, Legal Aid Justice.