Normally on Fridays, I’d be posting a list of fun links. Not this week. I’ve been thinking long and hard about how to address the events in Charlottesville, NC. No, thinking isn’t right. I’ve felt an overwhelming need to.
When I started this blog, I decided that it would be a politics-free zone. I wasn’t going to bring up my personal beliefs. I was going to stick to writing and knitting and pictures of my cats.
Then the election of 2016 happened. More or less, I stuck to what I had decided my blog would be, despite my feelings on our elected president. Other than a few comments and likes on Facebook, I kept quiet. I expressed my support in other ways, such as making donations and knitting pussyhats. My friends know my politics and my beliefs, and I thought that was enough.
Then Charlottesville happened. I watched in horror the people marching in the streets with torches, the slogans being shouted, the car being driven into a crowd of peaceful counter-protesters. If it had been in black-and-white, I would have thought it was 1930s Germany, not modern day America. And I realized that what I was doing wasn’t enough.
Now let’s get one thing straight. I don’t want to be talking about Nazis, Neo-Nazis, the Alt-Right, or whatever they are branding themselves this week to normalize themselves. Because this isn’t normal. We fought in wars against what they espouse – racism, genocide, and flat-out hatred of our fellow humans.
But I am going to talk about it. Because silence is equal to consent and agreement in these peoples’s mind. I am not going to be silent.