I live about 100 miles from Charlottesville, VA, and I've been there several times. It's a gorgeous town with a diverse and welcoming community. I'm appalled at the Nazis coming in to harass blacks and shout antigay chants there.

I was even more appalled at TBMs on FB defending them and attacking the counterprotestors. They called them "rioters" while the Nazis had the "right to peaceable assembly". Some even suggested the terrorist victims deserved it. They cited BLM, which I'd never even seen there, as an excuse to support these Neo-Confederates.

I'd forgotten just how racist Mormons could be. They won't let you forget how much they hate us gays. Their sexism is unabashed, but I mistakenly thought that they'd left the white supremacy back in the 1980s.

mormons showing us their true selves.

Yeah, those pesky "counter-protestors."
Just examples of anti-white, anti-christian hatred.

That's what the guy who drove his car into the crowd and killed/injured people said, anyway. :(

Details, Details, she was a counter-protester (sarcasm intended)

Lets not bicker about who killed who.

Yeah. Just like those intolerant counter protesters that landed on Omaha Beach just itching for a fight. /s

Both sides my arse.

What happened was a tragedy, preceded by hate and violence from extremest on both sides.

You must know some far right TBMs. None of those I know have had a reaction anything like what you mentioned.

One has to stand up physically against Nazis and KKK. If you don't, you become party to fascism.

Two groups, each one trying to yell "We hate you more than you hate us!" louder than the others.

That, and piss-poor policing.

caffiend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Two groups, each one trying to yell "We hate you
> more than you hate us!" louder than the others.

Right. Because people holding signs saying "Love Trumps Hate" are yelling "we hate you!".
Oh, wait, no they're not.
Never mind.

> That, and piss-poor policing.

No question there, absolutely.

Violence-hungry elements mingled with the "peace & love" signs, ready and willing to fight the right-wingers. Somebody said something somebody found offensive, and the melee began. Like the mystery shot on Lexington Green, we'll never know who said what to whom, but both sides were locked and loaded, and too many elements on both sides were spoiling for a fight.

We know who drove a car into a crowd.
And it wasn't "violence-hungry elements mingled with 'peace and love' signs."

:)

One element in an over-all violent event.I hope my remarks aren't interpreted in such a way to assume I support or sympathize with the James Fields, the murderer.

We don't know to what extent he was in contact with the pro-Confederate demonstrators, whether he had any form of encouragement. It has been reported that he was treated for schizophrenia in elementary school, and he had a long-standing fascination with Nazism.

The problem here, Hie, is the appeal of the "what about" argument, a logical fallacy. Whenever these things happen, one group seeks to disassociate the psychopathic nutjob from their side, saying "he acted independently--we have nothing to do with him--it was his psychiatric condition..." The other side says, "No, their rhetoric obviously set him off, and what about...?"

That's what the left said of of Bernie supporter James Hodgekinson who shot Republicans at softball practice. And that's what the rightwingers will say about James Fields, Jr. in Charlottesville.

Happens every time. Maybe we should call it the "IM-moral equivalency" IL-logical fallacy. :>)

I don't think anyone is misinterpreting you.

You're denouncing violence "on many sides, on many sides."

If the KKK comes to my town, I'm going to stand against them.

You put racists traveling crosscountry to protest against blacks, gays, Jews, and uppity women on the same level as townies defending their black, gay, Jewish and feminist communities. That's like saying the Nazis were on the same level as the Poles.

Only one group killed someone and injured 19 people. Only one group shouted FU F...ts in unison. Only one group believes "MAGA" means taking it back from from our first black President.

The other believes that we should all get along. They don't hate Nazis for being white, just for being white supremacists.

But I totally get how you can equate the two, like the mugger and the little old lady are both fought for her person, so you know, the same, In your book, standing up for yourself is a sin just as great as assaulting someone else.

caffiend...drawing some kind of equivalent morality, or even lack of it, between these two groups is a stretch. Nazis and KKK and their ilk are founded on hate and division. There is no morality on their side even if they march peacefully for their evil cause. There is, however, morality in standing up to them. Perhaps if more had done so during the 1930s millions would not have died and a world war might have been averted.

What I'm saying is that the most despicable people have the right to march, demonstrate, air their grievances and proclaim their cause. Example: The ACLU once defended the KKK's right to march in highly Jewish Skokie, Illinois.

Both sides arrived in Charlottesville armed and primed for violence. In this event, it was the left-of-center side that suffered more. In another event, perhaps the Antifa's might beat the sh*t out of the rightwingers, who knows? Would you say, "They're just getting what they deserve," because you regard them as morally vile?

My ire is directed mostly at the police and the politicians who (1) didn't prepare properly and (2) disengaged once the violence started. (I write as a retired cop.)

Something nobody seems to have remarked upon: the Alt-right was carrying firearms (another police failure, there), yet interestigly there were no firearm discharges.

caffiend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What I'm saying is that the most despicable people
> have the right to march, demonstrate, air their
> grievances and proclaim their cause.


One might like to think that still true, but this reads more like China to me:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40935770

A little digital cooperation here, a little digital cooperation there, and pretty soon, your name, address and phone number are subject to the dear leader's opposition to the opposition.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/29/trumps-voter-fraud-commission-wants-to-know-the-voting-history-party-id-and-address-of-every-voter-in-america/

People who hurt other people forsake their "rights," and go beyond "despicable." I don't see murderer, pedophile or thief "marches" or parades. To claim that the KKK or neonazis do not seek to harm people is ludicrous and ignores history. For the ACLU to equate KKK "free [hate] speech" with "peaceable assembly" is an error, for even the ACLU is fallible.

I'll agree with them on the Skokie case as soon as they defend pedophiles' rights to hand out pro-pedophilia materials in school lunchrooms. In Skokie, they failed to differentiate between "free speech" and history of actual crimes against persons.

In Skokie, far from it being "their finest hour" as they lay claim to, the ACLU sided with the majority, and the price of their support is evident in Charlotte. I'm not referring to the "lone gunman" with a car, but to the erosion of freedoms -actual harrms to others - that those with a KKK mindset would impose.

It's real, and they want your name, address and voting record. Am I to hope for you that your wife or daughter (if any, and apologies if needed) did not secretly vote for the other side?

People who seek to oppress and/or harm other people are not supporters of "freedom," a core principle of the"freedom-loving" people who would defend oppresors' rights to march. It was/is not "unpopular," as the ACLU would like to claim, for "their guy" (the KKK claims) is now CIC. The ACLU erroneously defended those who would destroy the constitution, given the opportunity.

https://www.aclu.org/about/aclu-history

I absolutely don't care about a pedophile's "rights" to "air grievances," and I don't care about Nazi's "rights" for the same exact reason.

I believe that this is the type of point that alexdc was trying to make. I think it would behoove all of us to help the ACLU recognize and acknowledge their error.

My only hope is that Eric stop logging IPs, right? Invisible god knows who will want that list tomorrow. Some popular TBM on the CIC staff, maybe.

That, or we all support the next pedophile parade.

You seem to want to the arbitrator on what qualifies for free speech.The constitution protects vile,disgusting,hateful,wrong,and all forms of speech as long as it is speech not action.Violence of course is just that and is offered no protection .I am free speech absolutist .Get a permit for a lawful assembly and carry on.

Right. So did the Axis. They still do. They've always liked parades and marching,

We had hoped that their final one was held at Nuremburg, but with those who defend the brutality of their bible-annointed beliefs to be imposed on others, I guess not.

You do acknowledge that their goals include harming others, don't you? Do you frequent their "distasteful" sites? Do you know - really know - "the enemy?" The would rape, kill and enslave children. Defend them if you like, but you are clueless.

I am defending their right to protest not the content of that protest .Who are you or I to determine what gets said under the First Amendment.Denying them a permit would only make them stronger .I want everyone to see and hear exactly what they are and reject everything about it .

There are several types of speech that the First Amendment does not permit. They include incitement to violence, incitement to actions that will harm others (crying out "fire" in a theater), credible threats of violence, child pornography, defamation, perjury, and others.

I generally agree with you that freedom of speech is useful as a means of dissipating outrage and also to let idiots discredit themselves. But there are limits, and they are generally reasonable.

Having rally's like that of course are 1st amendment rights. Of course there are counter protestors that will appear. The cops ditched their duties for political optics from their leadership and didn't provide protection for those that wanted to spew hate from both sides. ANTIFA groups should be labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

Sure the message is hateful and you can't control the entire group. In edition, few people even agree with those fringe areas of Neo-nazi,white supremist type ideologies.

They just divide people that want to have a powerful economic country, with good jobs, values, and where all people should be equal and treated that way lawfully.


Both sides displayed violence but counter protestors that bring bats, piss bottles / balloons, code cans filled with cement, body armor and helmets, and hide their face etc and not there to yell peacefully.

Sad day for that town to have the cops bail on protecting them and also lead into an area in which ANTIFA could be turned loose to attack and not fear of being arrested.


How many people were attacked others and were arrested separate from the car incident. I can't name anybody that flashed on the local news headlines.

Personally I find the Confederate memorials to be reminders of some disgusting chapters in American history where Slavery was tolerated. Nevertheless I am against censorship and the destruction of history. However I understand that we have plenty of "American" Taliban type of people who are militant/violent.

And just as the Afghanistan Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhist Statutes in 2001 we may yet see the people hell-bent on destroying history in America get their way. I can well imagine that some people in the LDS History department feel the same way about so many of the sermons that many early LDS leaders gave.

Personally I think we need to have a moratorium on destroying any historical artifacts until at least a decade passes so the public and scholars have plenty of time to have a thorough dialogue on the plans to destroy historical artifacts. I'm all for moving the artifacts (particularly to museums where they belong) where it can be done feasibly with those wanting them moved footing the bill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7bprIaDB8w

Is this what America is going to be like this year? The Afghanistan Taliban in 2001?

Goodbye History!! It looks like we're little different from the barbarians who destroyed the records of the pre-historical civilizations :(

Truth is, when you live in the South you can't go 2-3 meters down any street without seeing a "monument" to a "hero" of the war that southerners call "The War of Northern Aggression." You never see a monument to any efforts to defeat the Confederacy or about slavery. Many southerners want it both ways: they want to retain the label of "patriot," while having all the trappings of rebels, and worshiping all the various bronze tschotskis of a rebellion against the United States. Can't have it both ways. If you fly the Confederate battle flag, you do not have the choice to be a "patriot."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2017 08:57AM by cludgie.

Exactly. The first thing AL did when other states were beginning to take them down was pass a law to protect them.

There does not appear to be any interest in putting up information by these monument to explain it was a shameful part of history. These monuments should be hard enough for white people to see every day in their parks, but they are painful and hurtful for the black community members.

These belong in museums, IMO.

I'm not buying the passive aggressive "save history" defense. Put that history in context with honesty in museums. I know how the majority white here really feel about blacks and gays by the way they vote (among other things).

I live in the south too, if you've never lived here you can't possibly understand the culture.

I thought Utah was racist, it's nothing compared to the south. I find it shameful, in the extreme, that we still have these monuments to the Confederate soldiers.

I hear excuses like, these were our brothers, our fathers who fought for the freedom to exercise there rights to hold property.

Not what you hear reported, but then I've been to a wine tasting in Germany where after everyone else was toast the owner sat and talked to me about his uncle who was in the SS and what a hero he was to the German country. That Americans only view them as evil because Germany lost.
In public at least and in their policy they recognize that these views are dangerous and evil.

Here in the south nope no such thing. They still re-enact the battles proudly rooting for their 'team'.

This is our legacy and we refuse to own it. Until we come out and admit that what we have done is wrong and stop perpetuating racism in our culture and institutions it will be a part of who we are.

Anyone who sticks up for this kind of hatred either has a broken brain or is ignorant beyond belief.

I have two or three white co-workers here in Georgia who are married to African Americans. One of them just told me this morning that he and his wife were eating out at a local restaurant, and the white family at the next table loudly asked the server to be re-seated at another table because they didn't want to sit next to a mixed race couple.

"They's miscegenated!"
...Homer Stokes, "O Brother, Where Art Thou"

"Truth is, when you live in the South you can't go 2-3 meters down any street without seeing a "monument" to a "hero" of the war that southerners call "The War of Northern Aggression."'

Thank you cludgie!

I feel that the news is far too politicized on this, and is super focused on the outcome of these events while completely ignoring important facts. The news is doing a poor job of describing the situations building up to these clashes, and the history and feelings in the South. Your post helped provide me with some important background information, since I have never been to the South.

If only the MSM really did cover these issues in depth and from different angles, I feel it would help a lot of people to understand better. Right now the news just divides people more with poorly covered stories.

Why did we end up with these despicable monuments? A lot of it has to do with the end of Reconstruction and the implementation of "Jim Crow" laws. That's why I think such monuments, along with the original language & explanations on them, put in "Post-Reconstruction and Pre-Civil-Rights" exhibits where people can learn about what happened when the Yankee troops were pulled out of the South & the racist suppression that then took place through "Jim Crow" laws. Getting rid of these monuments is going to hide this history and make it easier for such despicable history to repeat again. If we don't learn the lessons of history then we are more likely to repeat the mistakes of history. Not putting in place some proper explanations (which could include moving such monuments to museums) is a continuation of glorifying such despicable historical characters so I'm definitely against the status quo.

In the Church they even have a special ceremony to celebrate the suspension of freedom/rights. It's called Baptism.

slavery past - start with the democrat party, robert byrd memorials, on and on and on.

There is no such thing as a peaceful Nazi or KKK rally.

Someone carrying a Nazi flag is glorifying the murder of 6 million Jews as well as about 6 million others in the Holocaust, not to mention the many millions of other civilians and soldiers who died in WWII. Carrying that flag is a death threat to Jews Gypsies Gays Blacks and anyone else that Nazis target.

Similarly KKK symbols glorify the murders of countless African Americans throughout our sordid history of racial oppression. It is also a direct death threat to Jews Catholics and others who the KKK has historically targeted.

Don't kid yourself. When Nazis and the KKK rally, even if nobody dies, the rallies can never be peaceful. By their very nature, they are an encitement for violence, murder, repression and genocide.

Many Americans have already died at the hands of these groups. It appears we aren't done with that unfortunately.

When I lived in Louisiana in the 80s, I had to go to my office on a Saturday for a half-day of mandatory overtime. When we were turned loose at 1:00 p.m., there were a bunch of KKK types parading around "downtown (about a block, where the only stoplight in town was located).

I had my car window rolled down, because my A/C wasn't working, and got stuck at the stoplight. At just that moment, one of the sheet-draped ones approached my car. I was caught between fear (I couldn't go anywhere, because of the stoplight) and outrage.

I pointed at the guy and hollered, "Get away from my car!" Fortunately, he did. Then the light changed, and I was able to go home. I was shaking.

When I told my now-ex, he turned pale. Not out of worry for my safety, or anything like that. He was afraid that one of the Klansmen might have copied my license plate and traced my car to our house, and we might have burning crosses in our yard.

I was stunned. I asked, "What are you afraid of? You own a pistol and were awarded a medal for marksmanship in the Navy." (I hadn't yet learned how to operate a firearm, myself.) He said something about how stupid I was, to think that one man could face down the whole Klan.

I was still so angry and juiced up on adrenaline that if any of those sheeted jerks had shown up at our house, I would have taken a broom to them. And I was astonished to realize that my husband, who always acted like he was the almighty Studly Hungwell himself, was actually afraid of those people.

Looking back, I guess I was naive. I grew up in California, where people running around in sheets were just something you saw on the news or read about in History class. I didn't take them seriously. But they take themselves seriously, and that can get scary.

I once walked by a protest/counter-protest at the UN in NYC. I didn't have a dog in the fight -- just wanted a glimpse of the arriving official. The police did a great job of keeping the two groups separate. One group was not even within viewing distance of the other group, and I think this is critical. There were peaceful demonstrations on both sides. I think the minimum that can be said about Charlottesville was that there was a failure of policing. Maybe the police were overwhelmed and needed greater numbers.

As for the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, it's coming down. It doesn't matter how much the neo-Nazis and white supremacists protest and carry on. It's coming down anyway. Nothing they can do about it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2017 10:26AM by summer.

I went to a local protest last night to mourn the death and injuries in Charlottesville and to protest Trump's cruel deportation policies that are tearing apart immigrant families. It was utterly peaceful and there were people of all ages, and all races and nationalities. There were families with little kids, and all chants, speeches and signs were peaceful. Yes, there were some "black lives matter" shirts but since I agree with the sentiment, having several black family members by adoption and marriage, that did not bother me. I may get one myself, and I am Polish and Irish and very white.

Yet as an older lady I was a little bit afraid, especially of the motorcycle troupe that roared around the park where we were, and parked by the curb and glared at us for several hours. But they carried no messages and did not say a word and the very respectful and vigilant local police kept a close eye on them. Eventually they left. All of us demonstrating cheered and clapped for the police at the end.

As to giving Nazis free speech, if only the good people of Germany had been more vigilant when Hitler got started, countless lives could have been saved. Agreeing with NeverMo john that Nazi and White racist ideologies are inherently violent and hateful of whole groups of innocent human beings. They must be called out and resisted by the brave and the caring.

I wanted to add some clarifications.

First, it is not true that everyone has a right to express any opinion under the First Amendment. There is a rich body of supreme court law that draws a line at the incitement of violence; you cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater either literally or metaphorically. There are thus forms of political speech, political agitation, that are not constitutionally protected.

Second, a group can get a permit for a demonstration and then violate the terms, explicit or implicit, of that permit by engaging in speech that is illegal. That is precisely what happened here. The rightist protesters lost their constitutional protection the moment they started chanting things about Jews, Blacks, gays, and others that were highly likely to incite violence. At least some of the people in that marching crowd are liable to both criminal and civil charges.

Third, one poster here suggested that it was predominantly the leftists who brought weapons to the demonstrations. On the second day the rightists were a lot better armed than the leftists, as is evident in the video recordings. But the poster also ignores the fact that on the first evening the rightist activists were carrying torches and other objects that were both historical symbols of racism and potential weapons. I'll put this simply: an object can become a weapon, for constitutional and legal purposes, if they are used in a rhetorically and physically menacing manner. To state now that the rightists were not armed on that first night is counterfactual.

Fourth, the actual violence appears to have been disproportionately rightist in nature. That is clear from recordings of the auto attack, the daytime confrontations, and the beating of the isolated Black man. There were people on both sides who acted violently and who should be held accountable, but to assert equivalence is unreasonable.

We are dealing in some of the comments in this thread with impulsive conservatism. It is like the people who several months ago defended United Airlines and the airport security personnel who beat that Vietnamese doctor. They were wrong to defend the airline and the police then, and they are wrong now. The overwhelming imbalance in the rhetoric and the violence will become clear once the police and the courts start to sort this out.

Wait and see.

Mormons breed extremists its a scary religion in that way, they are all cut throats in the end literally.

Well, the Nazis got what they wanted - attention.

The whole country is talking about it, and the news media can't get enough - great for ratings and making money.

Just like they do with mass shootings - reward the shooter with attention.

Anyway, racism will never end because too many people make money from it. If you are a victim you get more benefits.

So we can never just ignore the relatively few nutjobs. Have to make a riot out of it and whip the whole country up into a frenzy.

In the meantime, nine people were murdered over the weekend in Chicago. Where is the news on this?

Anytime people say anything bad and unsubstantiated about Trump anymore it's quite easy for many to claim it's an incitement of violence. If the day comes, and it will if the anti-free-speechers keep fighting so hard to censor and shut up unpopular opinions, that I can't speak my mind about that loud mouthed President then we will be a totalitarian state. Think about that very carefully before you start trying to shut down free speech.

And btw I do live in the Deep South in a community of over 30k people. We do not have any memorials for the confederacy anywhere in our community and if anyone tried to get one proposed then I would oppose it. However if we did have any such monuments then I would exercise my free speech against the iSIS-Taliban minded censors who would want to recklessly take them down. What we need is to do is take a scientific scholarly approach with committees of real historians heavily involved.

Hi WtT,

I understand your point. I also think that when "we," or any group, grow up with monuments and an implicit form of history, we learn to accept those symbols and even to think that they are legitimate. They may, however, be illegitimate.

I don't think it takes a body of scientific researchers or historians to note that there probably is not another country in the world that celebrates traitors by allowing statues of those people to stand. I seriously cannot think of another nation where the organizers of an armed rebellion against the state, the instigators of a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, are commemorated officially. That the US would think such men deserve positive recognition is, if you think about it in a broader context, strange.

I also wonder about the human cost to black people of walking daily by monuments to people who devoted their lives to the perpetuation of slavery. Most of those monuments went up during a period when the KKK was predominant in southern politics; the public displays were the overt manifestation of a movement that was simultaneously lynching innocent citizens of the United States. I can see putting those statues in a museum of southern history, but surely there is no justification for forcing impressionable little African American kids to see them standing in public squares. That's a bit like insisting that the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union should never have torn down the statues of Lenin and Stalin.

My point is that if the southern monuments were not already in place, if a southern state were considering erecting them now, they would not go up. People would evaluate Lee and Davis and the others on the merits and realize that they were traitors who were responsible for an egregious loss of life in an attempt to maintain a horrific social institution.

So if cities or states want to remove those statues, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't. The aberration of KKK predominence in the south in the early 20th century is the only reason those men are publicly commemorated. If democratic processes decide it is time to eliminate that aberration, doing so is entirely appropriate.

The behind-the-scenes wheeling/dealing done to settle the 1876 presidential election was a dark day for civil rights in the USA. For the decade preceding that Election the South was "occupied" by the "Yankees" - i.e. US Army and Reconstruction oversight. Many members of Congress and politicians were African Americans & the African Americans made a lot of progress in their rights & opportunities. But the White political leaders in the South were determined to re-gain home rule, reduce the level of federal oversight, and resume their racism. So a deal was struck between Rutherford Hayes and these leaders for Reconstruction to come to an end. And when it ended the States, counties, and communities in the South became like the rest of the USA where you had a weak federal government with very limited defined list of powers & prohibition via the Bill of Rights on the federal government interfering with the powers reserved for the States/people. This system of federalism is still the law which we saw every member of the US House of Representatives in the year 2017 vote to uphold & that's why they are all obligated to uphold these Rights, including that the federal government will only perform those powers specifically granted to them with the rest reserved to the people/states.

So now that the US army was no longer interfering with State/local governments we saw what happened in the South as racism became strongly institutionalized (i.e. "Jim Crow" laws) and these monuments honoring the Confederate leaders sprung up. We also saw an end to having African-American members of Congress from the southern States and the only ones for a long time who could get elected from those States were strong racists. So that's why we have these monuments :( The political power to decide on monuments & other public construction projects rested was held by those who would've preferred for the South to have won the Civil War.

Nationally, due to how the Electoral College worked and the historical sentiments post-Civil-War, such Southern leaders could never get elected President until a century had passed since Lincoln was elected. And even then perhaps the most famously racist President who did more than any other President to set back Civil Rights had been born in the South and spent his formidable years raised in the South before moving north. See http://www.bing.com/search?q=woodrow%20wilson%20racism for more on this. In fact Wilson was probably attending law school in Charlottesville around the time that some of those statues were being planned which are now being planned for destruction - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson#Education. Fast forward 3 decades and he certainly had an Administration that did so much to turn back the clock on Civil Rights in America.

So what to do about the monuments? Should we whitewash the history? Or should we tell the truth? If we think like the LDS Church does then I guess we need to destroy the monuments so we don't learn the lessons of history and so we can manipulate what people think in the future.

This is a very well-informed post.

As a result of the processes you adumbrate, we are stuck with the monuments. Do we remove them to whitewash history? In my view, absolutely not. What I would like to see is the removal of those monuments from public spaces, where they implicitly enjoy civic approval, and their placement in museums and history centers. I would want all (or all but the least significant) symbols of the confederacy preserved and used to teach accurate history of the United States.

The only change I would like to see is the elimination of the implicit public sanction.

I am unaware of anyone claiming that Trump has incited violence. It may have happened, but I haven't seen it. Can you provide examples?

And again, I don't want to shut down free speech. I am a pretty extreme advocate of free speech.

As a matter of fact, however, there are limits. And most of them make sense. Libel and slander should be illegal. Incitement to riot should be prohibited. So too perjury, witness intimidation and crying "fire" in a crowded theater.

As long as we have this huge wealth gap between the masses.
How many blacks/whites (making over 60K) were there protesting?

I live in Richmond, the capitol of the Confederacy. Home of Monument (that's right) Avenue, arguably one of the most beautiful avenues in the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_Avenue

In the past, I have been against the removal of these monuments. I am not sure how I feel now.

Not all people who believe in memorializing the history of the Confederacy are racists. I believe the majority are not.

I believe it is very unlikely that the removal or maintenance of any or all monuments to the Confederacy would have any impact on racism in America. Practically, that's absurd. This is a racist country and I see virtually no social will to do anything substantial to change the cultural and institutional racism in America.

Dagny: In Richmond, Mayor Stoney and the City Council have been working for the past few months to amend the monuments to put the roles of the generals depicted in historical context. This week, the mayor has changed his position to complete removal of the monuments.

Summer: The monuments are not necessarily coming down. Many of the southern states have passed laws to make it illegal to amend or remove the monuments. This is the reason the Robert E. Lee statue has not yet been removed. And the law that is currently being challenged regarding Lee in Charlottesville has stopped other communities in Virginia from removing their monuments. So to legally remove the monuments, laws would have to be changed first.

I believe the neo-Nazis are responding to the fact that over the past several decades their economic position has eroded and they feel hopeless. Unaware the ultimate reason for the erosion of their economic position is the result of governmental practices that have shifted wealth from the middle class to the upper class, they are looking for an "other" to blame.