Many of you read this week of a gathering of White-nationalist, “alt-right” individuals who demonstrated at night with tiki torches in Charlottesville, VA a few days ago, to protest the city’s plan to remove a staute of Robert E. Lee. And generally to be intimidating and hateful. Well, that was their second demonstration of the day. The first was at the nearby Stonewall Jackson statue. Here’s a brief bit of video shot by a man who happened upon the scene, with counter-protesters chanting “All Black Lives Matter,” and the alt-righters chanting “White Lives Matter!” The man filming was apparently wearing a yarmulke, and a woman with the proudly racist group shouted at him:
“Don’t worry, we won’t bite. Come here, ya jew!”
This was all posted on the Charlottesville subreddit, by the man who made the video, to give his fellow townspeople a better look at what was going on than what they could see on the news.
Now, I should emphasize that these alt-righters do not seem to be from the town. This seems to be an organized protest as part of some bigger, outside agenda. We never see or hear anything like this.
But aside from the disturbing protest itself, it was striking to me that some of the protesters made an effort to make their case on the Youtube post as well. Some sample comments:
I disliked because this was uploaded by a filthy Jew.
Jews are disgusting people who move from country to country destroying them one by one. They must either be contained in Palestine or destroyed. You won't be safe forever. Da goyim know.
And some of them involved themselves in the Reddit discussion as well:
How is it anti-Semitic to question that 2% of the population holds so much power? Why isn't that allowed to be discussed? I said what I said to spark serious consideration of this. The Jews have been expelled or had other actions taken against them in history nearly 200 times. If you had a friend who was kicked out of 200 different bars, wouldn't you tell him that he may wish to examine his own behavior and see if, perhaps, he himself was doing anything to precipitate the negative feelings towards him?
I honestly don't care what some Jew thinks here. You'll just move the goal posts again and again.
I’m happy to say that there was lots, and lots, of colorful pushback on the Reddit thread, from people who do live here and don’t want these kinds of folks around (even if some of them agree that they want to keep the statue). But I am aghast at the intensity of the naked, crude anti-Semitism.
A more pleasant thought to finish with: The day after these dimbulbs finished their White Pride display, a much larger demonstration came together in the same place to protest against racism. And I can guarantee you, those were not people brought in by any kind of outside agitators. That’s just the town, the way it really is.
