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Editorial: Learn To Follow… The Work White People Must Do

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In a time of nation wide protests against racist police violence, RVA Magazine Managing Partner Landon Shroder urges white people to do the work, support Black protesters, and follow their lead in standing against a system of white supremacy.

When I worked in Iraq, I became familiar with the phenomenon known as the “fog of war.” The “fog” was an inability to properly understand events while they were happening around us. In the chaos of the moment, we became emotional, passionate, and zealous creatures — it was only after the fog lifted that we could assess the situation with clarity and purpose. 

America is currently in the fog of war; one part of this is white people who are struggling to make sense of what is happening around them. 

Photo by Christopher Brown III

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery have reminded us (again) of the very worst forms of structural racism in America. And as white people, we must repeatedly acknowledge this to one another. Their deaths were overt, cold-blooded, and malign. Yet as white people who are bestowed with privilege and access by virtue of birth, we can never truly comprehend what this might be like. Each of our assumptions in this regard is well-intentioned at best, villainous at worst. All white people are beneficiaries of systems and structures that have allowed these deaths to continue — then, and now. 

Our never-ending national neurosis originates from this unreconciled, morally bankrupt position, and a four-hundred-year history that is built on subjugation, oppression, and exploitation of Black communities. This is the hard truth that all white Americans must accept before we can move forward as a unified country with a common purpose. 

There has never been a more opportune time for us as white people to do the work. The uprisings in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, and in 70 other towns and cities throughout America prove that there are people out there willing to take risks to advance the cause of human dignity and respect — even if the result looks imperfect on the street and on the news.

For white people who have been caught unawares by the anger, rage, and spontaneity, I will say this: There is no way for us to truly comprehend the emotional and generational trauma that comes from hundreds of years of state directed violence, political and economic exclusion, and social marginalization against Black communities in America. 

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are only the most recent names, joining a centuries-long list of Black people who have been murdered with impunity in America. 

Because of this, silence can no longer be an option. White silence and our deranged ability to explain away the deaths of Black people at the hands of police and vigilantes, our impotence in having awkward but necessary conversation about race, and our inability to even show a modicum of empathy towards communities that have been forever divorced from the core values we claim to cherish as Americans has put us on the collision course we are now experiencing. 

Photo by Christopher Brown III

The intensity of the past week and the feeling of desperation on streets throughout America should not feel misplaced when viewed through this lens. And because our lived experience does not give us the tools to fully grasp this reality as white people, we have to remain self-critical and intellectually vigilant so we can be better: better friends, better colleagues, better Americans, and better human beings. 

Naturally, there will be those who read this and dismiss it straight away. That is emblematic of an America that will never change, lost to a culture war of their own making. But for those of us who want to put in the work, the uprisings this past week have presented an opportunity to grow beyond the limitations of our immediate understanding.

In this fog of war, understand that there is no strategy that will immediately alter the outcome — not today, not tomorrow. This is a long game, built on the longest game in American history. Yet within this complexity there is one strategy that we must all recognize: In this moment, it is our Black friends and colleagues who will take the lead and shape this movement in a way that is best suited to their own community’s needs. 

We do not have to be passive observers in what is happening though. We can be active participants in anti-racism by making space, supplying resources, and amplifying Black voices. 

As white people of a certain age, some of us will inevitably struggle (more than others) to make sense of what is happening on the street, negotiating the meaning behind certain actions: why curfews are being disobeyed, why people are “rioting,” what is acceptable collateral damage, and what relationship you should have with the police. This is ok — you can support this movement and still be uncomfortable with civil disobedience. You can recognize the police, but still understand they have abused their power and lack accountability. You can understand each of these things, while acknowledging that in 2020 things are still not equal in America — the ghastly murder of George Floyd by the police proved this. 

This is putting in the work. And where each of these things connect, the fog of war will be most dense. So hold the course, take direction, and make space, emotionally and intellectually for our Black friends and colleagues. The time has come for us to step up and be effective allies in the fight for the soul of America. 

To all of our Black friends and colleagues — wherever you lead, we will follow. We are right there behind you. 

Landon Shroder
Managing Partner, RVA Magazine

Top Photo by Christopher Brown III

Op-Ed: Bad Faith Broke Us. Only Good Faith Can Fix Us.

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“The soul of this nation is sick because of the bad faith of white supremacy. That bad faith both made us what we are, and continues to break us apart. But there is a cure.“

As 2019 approaches its end, and as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts unveils Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors of War statue (a monument to black power and pride created as a direct response to Richmond’s Confederate monuments), it feels appropriate for us here in Virginia to take one last moment to recall that this year marked an important if ignoble anniversary: 400 years ago, in 1619, Africans were first sold into bondage in the mainland English North American colonies. And it happened right here in Virginia.

Over the course of two centuries, racial slavery became ubiquitous in those colonies that would become the United States, especially here in Virginia and in Richmond. By the onset of the Civil War, about 40 percent of Richmond’s total population was enslaved. In addition to being the capital of both Virginia and the rebel states, Richmond also had the dubious distinction of housing the nation’s second-largest slave market in Shockoe Bottom. Before 1860, our city’s single biggest industry was buying, selling, and trading enslaved human beings.

It is commonplace in many circles nowadays to call racial slavery America’s “original sin.” But it is impossible to understand — and ultimately atone for — the sin of racial slavery without first coming to terms with the mindset and conditions that created it in the first place. In recent years, scholars like Richmond’s own Rev. Ben Campbell have helped us understand that slavery “was a fundamental strategy” of the European conquest of North America, enabling the colonizers to displace and in many cases slaughter this continent’s indigenous populations and exploit its resources. It’s crucial to recognize that underpinning slavery and colonization was a religious doctrine.

It’s hard to untangle whether this theology animated the conquest and plunder of the New World or whether it was simply and cynically used as a justification. But either way, faith was a fundamental element of the European theft of this continent. Animating European exploration and colonization of the New World was something that has been called the “Doctrine of Discovery.” The Doctrine of Discovery held that European Christians were entitled to take as their own any property held by, and conquer any lands controlled by, non-Christians, and that Christians could subjugate, annihilate, or enslave any non-Christian inhabitants of captured territories.

It is important to note that those who advanced this doctrine of Christian supremacy could point to the Bible itself as justification. According to the Book of Deuteronomy, when the Israelites enter the promised land, they are to utterly wipe out the Canaanites who were living there. They are to spare no one — man, woman, or child — and they may seize the Canaanites’ property for themselves.

Within this framework, Christians, who had long regarded themselves as the new Israelites, could view the New World as a new Promised Land. And all non-Christians — like Native Americans — became contemporary Canaanites. In this religious spirit, European Christians asserted that their conquest of the New World was ordained by God Himself in the Bible. 

It is impossible to understate how influential the Doctrine of Discovery was. Eventually, legislators even enshrined it into American law. And it was the implementation of this Doctrine that gave rise to racial slavery in the New World. 

As colonists in Virginia established a tobacco economy on the land they took from the natives, they continually sought to maximize profits by looking for cheaper and more expendable labor. At first, Virginia’s wealthy landowners solved this problem by importing indentured servants from England. But as the tobacco industry boomed, they increasingly turned to African slave labor. 

Whereas a bondservant worked for a prescribed period of time, an enslaved person was presumed to be under the dominion of his master for life. A master could beat a slave as he saw fit. If a slave were to die as a result of his master’s wrath, the master could not be considered guilty of any crime. Additionally, slavery was regarded as a hereditary status — any child born to a slave was automatically to be considered a slave.

The legal distinction between an enslaved person of African descent and a bondservant of English descent came from the same mindset that produced the Doctrine of Discovery; that Christians were superior to non-Christians, and that Christians were commanded to dominate and enslave — or else, kill — inferior nonbelievers. Thus, the earliest slave codes in Virginia distinguished enslaved Africans from the rest of the population, not along racial lines but rather along religious ones: “Christian” was one class of people, non-Christian another, with “Christian” understood to be synonymous with “a person of English descent.” 

It is again important to note that those who advanced this doctrine of Christian supremacy pointed to the Bible as justification. The Hebrew Bible regards Israelite and non-Israelite slaves differently, and non-Israelite slaves could be treated much more harshly. Again, with the simple move of regarding English Christians as the new Israelites and non-Christians — like Africans — as Canaanites, people of English descent justified the slave system they developed and implemented as divinely ordained.

What complicated matters was that some enslaved Africans were themselves Christian. By the 19th century, many Africans practiced Christianity. Others were baptized prior to boarding the slave ships. Still others converted in the New World, some by choice and some by force. So, to maintain a distinction between masters and slaves, legislators quickly transformed slavery from a religious caste system into a racial one.

The fact of this transformation from Christian supremacy to white supremacy — which involved the very invention of “race” as a concept and the racist attitudes and systems that necessarily follow from it — can help us understand why those who perpetuated and defended racial slavery did so with religious zeal.

And it can also help us understand why, almost immediately after Richmond fell to Union forces, Richmond’s elite mobilized against extending legal equality to the newly freed slaves. It can help us understand why, as soon as Reconstruction ended, Virginia’s white leaders instituted a system of legal racial separation and inequality. It can help us see why white southern leaders in the 1950’s advocated “massive resistance” to school integration and desegregation. It can help us see why Richmond is today, sixty-five years after Brown v. Board of Education, more segregated by race than it has ever been in its history, and how the segregated map of the city correlates perfectly to inequities in everything from income to wealth to educational outcomes to access to healthcare to air and water quality to life expectancy.

In other words, there is a through-line from colonialism to racial slavery to Jim Crow and segregation to massive resistance and white flight to the drug war, mass incarceration, and the eviction crisis. That through-line is white supremacy, which is rooted in the Christian supremacist Doctrine of Discovery, which in turn is rooted in a distorted, demented, and dangerous interpretation of Scripture.

The fact that this through-line spans our country’s entire history and continues still today means that, while white supremacy’s roots are religious, it has over time become etched into the entire infrastructure of our country. Thus, whether one is Christian or not, religious or not, avowedly racist or not, we all in one way or another are impacted by or implicated in economic and social systems shaped by the oppressive theology of the colonizers. We will therefore never be able to heal our city, our commonwealth, or our country, without treating the underlying infection. The sickness at the heart of our society is bad faith. And the only thing that can overcome bad faith is good faith.

What might that look like?

In my experience as a faith leader, I have come to understand that the content of one’s faith typically depends on their spiritual and intellectual orientation and their interpretation and application of sacred text and received tradition. Many people assume that it would be the other way around. But that is a mistake. Take, for example, the famous biblical story of the Binding of Isaac (Genesis chapter 22), in which the Hebrew patriarch Abraham attempts to sacrifice his son Isaac.

Though Abraham is typically understood to be following God’s orders, upon close inspection of the original Hebrew, God’s command in the story is not so clear. Abraham could have understood God’s instruction in one of two ways: either God ordered Abraham to bind, slaughter, and burn his son, or God ordered Abraham to take him up to the highest of heights in honor or in homage. Which interpretation to follow depended entirely on Abraham’s spiritual orientation. Does Abraham believe in a God who would order an atrocity, or is Abraham’s God a deity who calls for the bound to be released, for the lowly to be lifted up, and for the broken to be restored?

It is similarly within the power of contemporary believers to choose whether ours is a God of domination or a God of love, whether ours is a God who instructs us to divide and conquer or to unite and uplift. And if we believe in a God who lifts the fallen, heals the broken, and frees the enslaved, then it is not only possible but obligatory to interpret sacred text and religious imperatives in a way that aligns with such a God, and similarly to reject understandings that could never emanate from such a God.

Those of us who don’t believe, or who don’t identify with a particular religious tradition, face a similar, if less supernatural, choice: are our most cherished values power and control, or kindness and equity? Are we guided by a desire for acquisition and dominion, or by an impulse for justice and liberation? And if we cherish the latter virtues over the former, then we must demand of ourselves and others alignment with those values, and that also includes our laws and social systems. 

Reorienting ourselves in these ways is how we repair what those first colonizers broke. Only by exalting love, justice, and peace as prime directives can we undo and utterly root out attitudes, customs, laws, and systems that mock the infinite dignity and equal value of every human being. Only good faith can repair what bad faith has torn asunder. Bad faith broke us. Only good faith will fix us.

Imagine, for a moment, what our city and our commonwealth could look like if our most deeply held belief, if our highest ideal, were affirming that every human being is equally and infinitely valuable, and that we are therefore all of us obligated to lift each other up. 

I imagine we would say that, 65 years after Brown v. Board, and 50 years after the Civil Rights movement, it was past time to dismantle the systems that perpetuate segregation and inequality. I imagine we would stop insisting that statues of Confederate “heroes” deserve prime real estate on Monument Ave. while tens of thousands of human beings in our city, — many of them descendants of the people Lee, Jackson, Davis, and Stewart fought to keep enslaved — don’t have access to adequate and affordable housing. And I imagine that we would demand one’s zip code no longer determine their life expectancy, and that the color of one’s skin no longer determine their prospects for escaping poverty.

As we complete the 400th anniversary of slavery in what would become the United States, white supremacy is ascendant, inequality is more rampant than ever, and our “Capital City of Slavery” remains segregated.

The soul of this nation is sick because of the bad faith of white supremacy. That bad faith both made us what we are, and continues to break us apart. But there is a cure. We can heal ourselves. For though bad faith broke us, good faith can fix us. As we approach a new year, in this city and a new decade — let’s let the healing begin.

Top Image: Painting by Richard C. Moore

RVA Global: Taking on Trump’s Tweet about “White” South Africa

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Last summer, my VCU study-abroad students and I stood in the dim but pretty interior of a little house made of corrugated tin in the Soweto township of Johannesburg, South Africa. With us was Thulani Madondo, a 2012 CNN hero, a vibrant, fast-talking South African who was recognized for founding the Kliptown Youth Program and supporting hundreds of Kliptown students in their efforts to “lift themselves out of poverty through education.” ‘

Kliptown is one of the oldest sections of Soweto, home to more than 40,000 people who live without running water, plumbing, or electricity. Overcoming this type of poverty is nearly impossible in South Africa, yet Madondo could tell story after story about the successful students he has guided through his programs, including the 17 Kliptown Youth Program students who have graduated from university. 

And yet, as we stood there in June of 2017, in the largest township in South Africa where more than 1 million people live in similar conditions, Madondo only wanted to talk about one thing: How we could have voted for [President] Trump when the world watches?  It was the same at every place we visited, and my students were no longer surprised. As soon as our American accents were noticed, South Africans would engage with us in a state of near-constant bewilderment. “This is who you picked to replace Obama? Don’t you know that what you do affects us too?”

This is what makes Trump’s tweet about protecting “white” farms in South Africa so troubling and obviously nefarious for both Americans and South Africans. For those of you who missed it, yesterday the president tweeted, “I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large-scale killing of farmers. ‘South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.'”

Hearing the deep unrest from South Africans about the US election was a curious juxtaposition: Their concern with the US presidency felt like a warning from a people who knew and deeply understood the dangers of a corrupt president, and usually, our conversations ended with that same sense of bewilderment. At the same time, I was having these conversations in South Africa with my students, their highways were lined with political signs pleading with South Africans to rid the government, the country, of their own power-hungry and corrupt president, Jacob Zuma.

Like all townships in South Africa, Soweto is populated almost exclusively by black Africans. This history of townships in the country is intimately tied with South Africa’s apartheid past. As the government codified discrimination and racism into law – apartheid means “separateness” in Afrikaans – people in power enacted laws to move black and other non-white Africans from their homes and restrict their populations to townships like Soweto outside of Johannesburg and The Flats outside of Cape Town. It was a feat of brute force in response to a deep and basal fear: The European explorers who first touched the coast of South Africa in 1498, and colonized Cape Town by 1652, would become the white Afrikaners of today. However, this original Dutch colony and its modern descendants have always been just a small fraction of the overall population.

Photo by Zahra Natalie Govender

The fear that apartheid-era Afrikaners felt about their place in of South Africa and the domination they used to control it became part of their national identity, and shaped the apartheid regime into one that attempted to reduce access to resources and restrict the rights of Africans without white skin. 

The language of apartheid stoked that fear while hammering at what could be lost if whiteness were swamped. D.F. Malan enacted apartheid in 1948, telling other Afrikaners, “Let us stand together, let us preserve our nationality and with our nationality our national character.” In 1964, the Minister for Coloured Affairs, P.W. Botha, told parliament that “I am one of those who believe that there is no permanent home for even a section of the Bantu [black Africans] in the white area of South Africa and the destiny of South Africa depends on this essential point. If the principle of permanent residence for the black man in the area of the white is accepted then it is the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it in this country.”

This is language equating whiteness with being civilized, underlined by the fear of being attacked and overwhelmed by blackness. This kind of racist language has been adopted by white nationalists and supremacists globally – including here in the US.

When neighboring Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, a majority of the white people who had lived there, including Afrikaners, fled. Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe until a coup in 2017, eventually resorted to tactics including violent seizure of lands from white farmers in an attempt to redistribute farms to black Africans. These policies failed for a variety of reasons and plunged the country into economic chaos. Yet the discord in Zimbabwe illustrated for decades everything the apartheid-loving Afrikaners had feared: blackness coming for what white Africans had worked for. As they watched, it was easy for some Afrikaners and other white Africans to fall back on the original sin of apartheid: the idea of baasskap – white supremacy, or white domination, specifically in the face of an unstoppable black population.

So the words of Donald Trump wrote on Twitter stoke old and deep fears used to perpetuate the mythos of white supremacy and are racist at their very core. 

A classic dog-whistle to remind white South Africans – but more importantly, white folks in his fan base in the US, they are vulnerable to uncontrolled people of color. And that people of color must be controlled. As with everything the 45th President of the United States says, it is irrelevant that it is not true: deaths of white farmers in South Africa have dropped each year for decades, and they are but a tiny fraction of the overall murder rate in the country.

Additionally, the government of South Africa has been very clear in their response that no one, in fact, is seizing any land from white farmers. In fact, the South African government has already voiced their concern to the US Embassy. The South African Times has reported, “Dirco also urged the Charge d’Affaires to indicate to Washington that the people of South Africa‚ of all races‚ are working together through Parliament and other legal platforms to find a solution to this historic challenge and that President Trump’s tweet serves only to polarise debate on this sensitive and crucial matter.”

There are some profound similarities between South Africa’s apartheid history and US Jim Crow laws, segregation, and the Indian Removal Act. Trump’s Tweet is yet another call-and-response based on the vein that unites all of these policies: invoke the fears that cocoon the white supremacy of South Africa, and hear it reflected back from his racist fan base in the US. As my students learned, who we elect in the US does matter on the world stage. For both the US and South Africa, we have decades of reckoning left to achieve any type of racial reconciliation after the end of these policies. In the meantime, there are far more pressing concerns for each country than a false narrative about farms being taken. For both countries, the overwhelming concern is a black population in need. In need of clean drinking water, equal access to resources, and, as Madondo in Kliptown might say, opportunities for young people of color to rise out of the cycle of poverty. 

At a time when hate crimes in America are at a five-year high and white supremacists feel free to walk the streets and openly run for political office on essentially baasskap platforms, this Tweet from our President directed at white South Africa isn’t just about South Africa.  It’s about our lingering demons at home and is another aim at stoking the fires of white supremacy that are burning in the US and Europe to spread beyond the local to a global scale. 

White Nationalists Are Still Winning

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One year has gone by since James Fields, Jr. killed Heather Heyer and wounded 30 others at Unite the Right in Charlottesville last August, the largest gathering of white supremacists and fascists in decades. 

Since then, nothing has changed. In fact, things have gotten worse. After the tragedy, there were signs of encouragement that reduced some of the shock. The strong showing of anti-fascists, anti-racists, and the faith-based community in confronting white supremacy on the streets of Charlottesville was heartening, even if many of us believed that this kind of event would be a one-time occurrence. 

Faith Based Community Confronting White Supremacist

Unfortunately, that feeling was short-lived. The next day, President Trump took to the airwaves and proclaimed that “there were some very fine people on both sides.” By good people, he meant those chanting Nazi slogans like “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” And with his statement, he legitimized the fascist ideologies that brought thousands of white supremacists to Charlottesville.

Making synonymous white supremacists, white nationalists, Nazis, and fascists with those who would confront them only served the worst excesses and impulses of the American public. 

Can we really feign outrage that there are now four openly anti-Semitic white nationalists, one of whom is a self-identified Nazi, running on Republican tickets this mid-term? This is not a coincidence or stroke of bad luck; these men have been emboldened and legitimized from the podiums of their party. Their message connects with what they hear from the president and the condemnation they don’t hear from other Republican leaders. It has become legitimate. It has become mainstream.  

A literal Nazi ran unopposed in Illinois’ 3rd District during the Republican primary. After being exposed, he still received over 20,000 votes from people in his district. Why? Because he ran as a Republican and that was good enough. The particulars don’t matter  (#mainstreaming). 

And yet, the mainstreaming of white supremacy since Unite the Right doesn’t stop there. It has seeped into all aspects of our political discourse. One does not have to see a robe and hood or a swastika tattoo to recognize the engine driving this process. In fact, the groups that marched in Charlottesville remain on the fringe and are fractured (for now) even while their views become more publicly accepted. 

The White Supremacist Lines at Unite the Right

The new frontline has become the normalization of xenophobia, allowing sensible people to feel like there is a justification for interning brown children and separating them from their parents. It is the “othering” of Muslims in the form of a ban that is wrapped in the guise of national security; it is referring to African countries as “shit holes,” while praising historically homogeneous white countries like Norway; it is the public shaming of black athletes like Colin Kaepernick and Lebron James as unpatriotic and dumb; it is the fusing of populist resentment from the white working class with the worst kinds of nationalism to create a tribalistic worldview that perceives constant threats, both economic and physical, from grossly misrepresented black and brown communities. This worldview effectively says “you can only be safe when you are around other white people who think like you,” and it has revived the worst kinds of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and convinced 30 percent of America that the “liberal press,” the check on this kind of rampant misinformation, is their enemy. 

This is the mainstreaming of white supremacy and fascism, and we can’t even begin to comprehend the downstream effects of this movement.

America has always grappled with these demons, and it is naive to believe that Trump is the cause. He is merely the effect. Yet policy differences aside, we have always had presidents who could, at the very least, tame these demons and curb their worst excesses. Remember, civility in America always starts at the top. Without this, we are now playing constant defense. We are back to explaining to our friends, relatives, and colleagues why Nazis, white supremacists, and white nationalists do not deserve a right to rally publicly. We are back to rationalizing and bartering with people who feel they can openly discriminate – even if they are ignorant of what they are saying and doing. As one of my colleagues at RVA Mag would say, “they are colonizers.” We are back to defending the very notion of anti-fascism from the same generation whose parents fought to free Europe from the Nazi scourge.

I am back to explaining to my relatives who vote Republican that their candidate this midterm, Corey Stewart, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the very same white supremacists who planned Unite the Right last year. The same people who chanted “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” Nonetheless, they will still vote Republican. Because the mainstreaming process has convinced them they are under threat. Not from the Nazis or white supremacists who hate them, but from immigrants, communities of color, and the liberal media who are trying to silence them. 

Counter-Protestors at Unite the Right

This weekend there will be multiple events in both Charlottesville and Washington, DC. The event in DC will be attended by former KKK Grand Wizard, David Duke and Jason Kessler, the organizer of Unite the Right, upping the potential for violent escalation. From the map of the staging areas the DC police are attempting to keep both sides apart. But as we have seen from recent rallies in Portland and Berkeley, the best-laid security plans are only as good as the willingness of people to follow them. 

While I will be there in my capacity as a journalist, I will also be there in support of anti-fascists, anti-racists, and those who would deny a platform for ideologies rooted in violence and hatred. I have no other choice. We can no longer pretend that sensible moderation and conversation will somehow derail the mainstreaming process of white supremacy and fascism. Those of us who have the ability to raise attention to this must. Those of us in the media must not hide behind the thin veneer of neutrality any longer. To do so will be to our own eventual detriment.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in a new book titled “Fascism: A Warning,” summed up the state of play in modern America. “[Trump] convinced enough voters in the right states that he was a teller of blunt truths, a masterful negotiator, and an effective champion of American interests. That he is none of those things should disturb our sleep, but there is a larger cause for unease. Trump is the first anti-democratic president in modern U.S. history.”

We must rally. We must resist. That is what we must remember one year later.

The One Year Anniversary of Unite the Right is Here. A lot Has Happened

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RVA Tank, Parkland Shooting, Democratic-nominee Spanberger, families separated at the border, KKK effigies, Governor Northam, punching Nazis, getting punched by Nazis.

It’s been a long year.

As we approach the one year anniversary of Unite the Right, the alt-right rally held in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 last year that ended with the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer, it’s hard to ignore the tension in the air. Whether that tension has increased or decreased, or the political dissension within our country is better or worse, Americans are certainly motivated. We’ve seen protest after protest, breaking news stories flying in each day with news of Russia, North Korea, Robert Mueller, Corey Stewart, and Jason Kessler.

The white nationalist movement has not slowed down, nor has it given up. Identity Evropa came to Richmond to pick up trash in hopes of normalizing their cause. The FBI has as many open cases concerning white supremacist propaganda online as they do for ISIS. And Unite the Right is happening again, but this time, its headed to Washington, D.C.

Here is a brief roundup of events from the past year to get you up to speed on the white nationalist movement in Virginia in preparation for this weekend’s latest appearance from our best-known racists (this list may not include every event related to white nationalism in Virginia):

August 2017: Jason Kessler, online blogger, and white nationalist, successfully organizes an alt-right rally called Unite the Right on Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, in the name of protecting the Confederate statues in two local parks. Several physical altercations occurred during the rally, and attendees were armed with bats, guns, or other weapons.

White Supremacists at Unite the Right

James Alex Fields, Jr., a white nationalist, drove his vehicle into a crowd of counter-protesters after the rally was deemed unlawful by police. His attack killed Heather Heyer and injured multiple others. Fields was part of Vanguard America, a white supremacist organization. He was placed in jail and denied bail.

President Trump suggested the blame for the violence rested with “many sides.”

September 2017: The Dreamers, young first-generation immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act, mobilized after Trump’s threat to end the program. Long marches between Charlottesville and Richmond as well as Charlottesville and Washington sprung up as September clung to summer temperatures. DACA was rescinded later that month by Trump, but at least temporarily upheld by the Supreme Court.

An activist group hung Ku Klux Klan effigies in Bryan Park.

The New Confederate States of America planned a rally in Richmond to support Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, claiming to be motivated by the Monument Avenue Historical Commission convened in June by Mayor Levar Stoney and tasked with providing recommendations for what to do with the statues. The rally took place on Sept. 16, attended by over 400 counter-protesters, a heavy police presence, and a small handful of CSA members who arrived in twos and threes. The CSA was severely outnumbered in what RVA Mag called a “win for Richmond,” as the protest ended peacefully.

Counter-Protestors in Richmond

Later that month, the FBI claimed white nationalists are just as dangerous as Islamic terrorists.

October 2017: At the beginning of the month, a circuit court judge in Charlottesville handed down a ruling signaling that the Commonwealth’s laws protecting war memorials could be retroactively applied to Virginia’s Confederate monuments.

The City of Charlottesville and several small businesses in the area filed a novel lawsuit to prevent future militia groups from entering their city again. This lawsuit is ongoing and continues to seek a verdict in August of 2018. Six defendants have settled since May 2018.

White nationalist Richard Spencer held a torch-lit rally in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, glorifying the Robert E. Lee monument and mimicking a similar torch-lit rally held on UVA’s campus the night before Unite the Right. Around two dozen white nationalists were present.

Jason Kessler began a new white nationalist group called New Byzantium following Unite the Right. It’s one of many new alt-right groups that continue to crop up to this day, largely spread through online forums.

November 2017: In a Democratic sweep, Ralph Northam became the new Governor of Virginia, joined by Justin Fairfax as Lt. Governor, and Mark Herring as Attorney General. It was a significant Democratic victory similar to the victory of then-Senator Obama when he won the presidency in 2008. The blue wave was accompanied by a new wave of female representatives in the General Assembly, the largest number of women to be elected to the GA in Virginia’s history. This included the first Latina women, the first Asian-American, and the first transgender woman to win a seat in the GA.

January 2018: Chris Cantwell, the notorious “Crying Nazi,” faced up to 20 years in jail for pepper-spraying counter-protesters at a torch-lit white supremacist rally on UVA’s campus the night before Unite the Right. At the beginning of the month, he attempted to sue anti-fascists, claiming that they discharged the pepper spray against themselves.

Thousands of women come to Richmond for the one-year anniversary of the Women’s March.

March 2018: Deandre Harris, a black man viciously beaten by white nationalists during the Unite the Right, was charged and then acquitted of assault by the District Court in Charlottesville. During Unite the Right, Harris was assaulted by six men with wooden pikes in the Market Street Parking Garage, eventually sustaining a spinal injury and receiving 10 staples in his head.

June 2018: Nathan Larson, a self-confessed pedophile and white supremacist, runs for Congress in Virginia. Previously an accountant in Charlottesville, Larson is running as an independent. Jason Allsup, another white nationalist who attended the Unite the Right rally, was elected as a Republican official in Washington state. This marked the beginning of many white supremacists and anti-Semitic candidates running on the Republican ticket in America ahead of midterm elections. This trend continued with Corey Stewart, Virginia’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. He appeared on CNN and struggled to answer questions about his past ties to white supremacists and anti-semites. He continues to be aggressive online and has not revoked his white nationalist ties.

Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia’s 7th District, wins a huge primary victory and will run against Dave Brat in the fall for the congressional seat.

Abigail Spanberger

President Trump begins his “zero tolerance” immigration policies and enacts legislation that separates immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. National and international outrage sparks protests throughout the Commonwealth, including one outside Dave Brat’s office, who publicly supported Trump’s decision.

The National Parks Service approved an application submitted by Jason Kessler for another alt-right rally to be held in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 11 and 12 this year. This will come to pass this weekend in Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C.

Identity Evropa visited Richmond for a little community service by picking up trash around town in an attempt to normalize their organization and beliefs. In Lexington, local restaurant owner Stephanie Wilkinson refused to service White House Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at her restaurant, The Red Hen. It was followed by five days of protests against and for her restaurant. In one instance, someone threw chicken feces on their storefront window.

July 2018: The Monument Avenue Commission recommended that the Jefferson Davis monument be removed from Monument Avenue, with Mayor Stoney’s approval. Later in August, an unknown individual vandalized the Robert E. Lee monument with red paint, writing “BLM” (Black Lives Matter) on the statue’s base. This is only the latest act of vandalism concerning the statues over the past year.

Chris Cantwell, the aforementioned “crying Nazi,” was barred from entering the Commonwealth for the next five years. He plead guilty to assault and battery for spraying two anti-racist activists with pepper spray the night before Unite the Right.

August 2018:

Now that August approaches, we look to another year that will hopefully not result in death or injury. Jason Kessler will be in D.C. this Sunday, Aug. 12, in Lafayette Square to march and protest in the name of “white civil rights.” Regular faces like Kessler, Spencer and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke are said to appear and speak, although the movement has suffered serious divisions and other prominent white nationalists are disavowing Kessler.

A vigil will be held on Saturday, Aug. 11, in Charlottesville at 5 p.m. for Heather Heyer, in remembrance of her life, as well as an anti-racist march the next day in an attempt to heal from the events of last year.

Stay with RVA Mag on Instagram (@rvamag) and Twitter (@RVAmag)  for updates on these events this coming weekend.

Domestic Terrorism: Inside the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Richmond

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As the one year anniversary of Charlottesville rapidly approaches, the phrase “domestic terrorism” will inevitably be on everyone’s mind. Virginia experienced something deeply traumatic last summer when white supremacist James Fields, Jr., drove his car into a group of anti-fascists, killing Heather Heyer and wounding 30 others. There is a familiarity to the attack that makes it almost routine, as it mirrors similar strikes on the streets of Europe by extremists aligned with the Islamic State.

This article originally appeared in RVA #33 Summer 2018, you can check out the issue here, or pick it up around Richmond now. 

Understanding the incident as an act of domestic terrorism might seem obvious. The phrase is reflective of what happened on Aug. 12, 2017, and the FBI even defines domestic terrorism as an act inspired by individuals or groups who “espouse extremist ideologies of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”

Fields seems to tick all of those boxes. He was, after all, a white supremacist who radicalized and conducted an act of violence based on an extremist ideology. Case closed? Sometimes things are not so obvious, though, not when legal phrases like domestic terrorism are used.

Virginia has recently prosecuted domestic terrorism cases against white supremacists, most of which have been investigated by the FBI. This also includes the events in Charlottesville carried out by Fields. Some of these cases have been visible, while others get investigated and prosecuted behind the scenes. With the anniversary of the Charlottesville tragedy drawing near, RVA Mag wanted to understand what domestic terrorism really is, and how these cases have been investigated in Virginia — both to gain clarity on what happened last August, and to understand how the FBI seeks to prevent future acts of violence.

To do this, we spent time at the FBI field office in Richmond, where agents oversee investigations in 82 of Virginia’s 95 counties. We interviewed the special agent in charge, case agents who closed domestic terrorism cases, and the head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force; all of which led to our participation in a two-month long civilian training academy with agents from the main investigative units.

What became obvious during our time spent with the FBI was the complex legal challenges associated with investigating crimes that might be considered domestic terrorism.

Domestic terrorism is defined in the US criminal code, but is not criminalized in the US criminal code,” said Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Adam Lee, during our first interview to talk about these cases. “It is a thornier issue, probably more than one might immediately suspect.

Put simply: There is no such thing as a domestic terrorist in the US. A person or group can be investigated under the pretense of committing an act of domestic terrorism, but cannot be prosecuted for an act of domestic terrorism. Understanding this strange legal contradiction became the starting point in trying to make sense of the “nexus” – a term we heard frequently at the FBI – of the way domestic terrorism cases are investigated and, ultimately, what crime they get prosecuted for.

A career agent with almost 20 years of field experience, Lee was interviewed by President Trump to succeed James Comey as the FBI Director. But for those under his command, he is simply referred to as “the boss” — a term of respect, but also one of endearment.

Sensing our confusion, but also acknowledging how our own misperceptions overestimate what the FBI’s capabilities actually are, Lee tried to clarify the “thorniness” around the question of domestic terrorism.

“We investigate the hate groups as we would any other group; street gangs or organized crime,” Lee said, adding that the motivations of these groups are secondary to “their plots, plans, and schemes, and if they involved criminal conduct.”  

Special Agent Jim Rudisill investigated one such domestic terrorism case against a hate group out of Chesterfield County that was planning on attacking minority groups.

Rudisill is an operator in the classic sense: serious, but also cool, a former Army veteran who is the resident bomb technician. Speaking with a Southern drawl, he said his case started in an unlikely place. “The information was by way of a contact in Newport News City Jail… of all places.”

Rudisill said one of the inmates approached a guard with information about a group of guys who “wanted to start a race war.” The white supremacists, who referred to themselves as the ominous-sounding “Hammer Bearers,” maintained an ideology that originated with Odin, the principal deity in Norse mythology – a common religious identification for some white supremacists.

Led by a man named Robert Curtis Doyle, the group was comprised of individuals who met in Virginia prisons, breeding grounds for extremism of all stripes. Together, they planned to attack Jewish synagogues and black churches.

Robert Curtis Doyle

Agents that investigate domestic terrorism in Richmond’s field office fall under an inter-agency program called the Joint Terrorism Task Force, referred to as the JTTF. After 9/11, disrupting terrorism became the number one priority for the FBI, which led to the creation of 56 JTTFs nationally, as a partnership between various federal and state agencies.

In Richmond, this is headed by Special Agent Brad Elder. And this is where the investigation into the Hammer Bearers started.

Elder is well known in the bureau. In August 2016 – from a tip originating in Virginia only 60 hours prior – he spearheaded an international investigation against a man inspired by the Islamic State to conduct a suicide attack in Canada. The suspect, Aaron Driver, was eventually killed during the takedown by the Royal Canadian Mounties, while on his way to detonate his explosive vest in downtown Ontario.

Sitting down for interviews on three different occasions, including the interview with Rudisill, Elder walked us through how domestic terrorism cases are initiated; but not before reinforcing the “thorny” issue that Lee talked about, reminding us, “you can’t be a domestic terrorist” in the US.

Initial FBI investigations, called “guardians,” are a heavily-restricted assessment focused on protecting constitutional rights. “This is to protect the population,” Elder said, referring to the internal restrictions. “We start with the least intrusive means possible.”

Given the potential for violence, the investigation against the Hammer Bearers escalated out of the guardian stage quickly. To finance their plan they planned to kidnap, rob, and kill a silver dealer they met over Craigslist; part of the plan included bleeding him out in his own bathtub. “If there is a threat to life, we have to make him aware,” Rudisill said of the potential victim. “Very little time transpired before we knocked on his door and let him know what was going on.”

Seeing an opportunity in this development, the agents started introducing ways to place their own undercover assets in the vicinity of the white supremacists.

While Rudisill couldn’t talk about undercover tradecraft, he acknowledged part of the process was to create “separation between the real silver dealer and Doyle,” the leader of the Hammer Bearers, to minimize danger to the dealer. “I seized on the opportunity to put one of us in harm’s way, as opposed to the real [dealer].”

Elder described the situation as one that might have led to a “catastrophic event,” which even the case agents were not prepared for. “A lot of office resources [were used] on this case, because it was moving so fast,” Elder said. “They already had firearms and ammunition, body armor, and some incendiary devices. At that point, we had to move in and make the arrest.”

When asked how worried he was that the Hammer Bearers would actually be able to carry out a complex plan that included kidnapping, murder, precious metals, and attacking synagogues and black churches, Rudisill responded, deadpan, “Very worried.”

He recalled a chilling quote from Doyle. “Doyle said that he wanted to do something bigger than Charleston,” referring to the killing of eight black churchgoers by Dylann Roof in 2015, just a few months before the Hammer Bearers investigation began.

When the JTTF decides to pursue an investigation as an act of domestic terrorism, they work off of a metric that takes into account three factors: federal law violations, the chance of violence, and the social and political goals which link these things together.

Bringing this around to the Hammer Bearers, Elder pointed out, “They were going to kill people, which is a federal violation.” He continued, “They were targeting synagogues and black churches and using violence of force… the three prongs met there.”

This is where the case of the Hammer Bearers diverges from the incident by Fields in Charlottesville. While he was a white supremacist, his actions were not premeditated, as they were not part of a network that was engaged in a larger conspiracy to target groups based on an ideology.

The ambiguity between being an effective investigator and protecting constitutional rights is a perpetual struggle, and the FBI runs an international division dedicated to assessing the potential for civil rights violations within their investigations.

Said another way: Fields was an asshole who, in the heat of the moment, committed a series of crimes, one of which was murder. He also denied the anti-fascists and counter-protesters their civil rights, a charge that can often be used in cases like these. It was announced in June that Fields Jr. will be indicted with a federal hate crime in the killing of Heather Heyer, racially motivated violent interference with a federally protected activity, and 28 other counts of hate crime acts.

This is the “thorny” issue. Regardless of their seniority, every special agent interviewed was conscious of the danger of overstepping when investigating domestic terrorism.

The ambiguity between being an effective investigator and protecting constitutional rights is a perpetual struggle, and the FBI runs an international division dedicated to assessing the potential for civil rights violations within their investigations.

This past January, Delegate Marcia Price from Newport News, supported by Attorney General Mark Herring, introduced legislation that would give Virginia the ability to prosecute suspects for terrorism – including domestic terrorism – independent of the FBI. At the time, Herring told RVA Mag the bill was intended to combat the threat from violent white supremacy after Charlottesville.

The legislation faced strong opposition, and ultimately failed. In a statement, the Virginia ACLU cited a history of overreach and politicization of terrorism, concluding, “We, therefore, have serious concerns about the First Amendment risks that come from government branding groups with unpopular beliefs as terrorist and criminal.”

It’s not hard to imagine what form overreach could take. The FBI has a sordid history of running counter-intelligence operations against activists during the civil rights era, including attempts to disrupt and discredit the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., under a program called COINTELPRO that ran for 15 years.

Mary McCord, the senior litigator for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection and at Georgetown University Law Center, referred to this and other abuses when speaking to RVA Mag about the “thorny issue” of prosecuting domestic terrorism.

“The designation of domestic terrorist groups could lead to increased use of legal authorities to target certain people for ideological or political reasons,” McCord said. She explained that labeling individuals as domestic terrorists could violate constitutional protections.

Lee, deeply aware of the potential, commented dryly, “Those are issues our agency grapples with.”

The Hammer Bearers investigation was brought to completion in around three months; investigative warp speed by FBI standards. Doyle eventually pled guilty to charges that included conspiracy to “affect commerce by robbery” and “unlawful possession” of a firearm. The charge carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. While his group was investigated by the JTTF, he was ultimately charged for crimes associated with his conspiracy, not domestic terrorism, since no such charge exists. Nonetheless, the punishment was appropriate to the act.

The phrase “domestic terrorism” is an easy term to use in post-Charlottesville America, where the threat from white supremacy is being mainstreamed. But one person’s terrorist is another person’s hero, and the only difference between the two for law enforcement may be where you are standing at the time.

The FBI is far from perfect. They’ve made mistakes – even launched investigations against activists that have turned up flat – but they’ve also taken down the Hammer Bearers, saving the lives of black church-goers and Jewish worshippers. Regardless, they don’t want the power to label Americans as “terrorists,” and human rights and privacy groups agree with them.

At the end of our final interview, we asked Rudisill what he’d say to young people about the FBI’s domestic terrorism investigations in Virginia. No-nonsense as always, he said, “We are seeking to disrupt people that would do others harm, regardless of what their ideology is. This case, [Hammer Bearers] and how we advanced it and prosecuted it, is a good example of how demographics make no difference to us. What interests us is the active threat of violence. I don’t care what you look like or what you are yammering on about.”

And the fight continues.

Top Photo: Adam Lee, Special Agent in Charge of the Richmond Field Office. Photo By Landon Shroder