I have loved this beautiful town of Charlottesville since 1982 despite its flaws. It's hard to know how it happened that so many hate-filled people came to our town for a well-funded, carefully planned event. I assume they were drawn here by the lure of a fight; did they come here hoping to kill, "own" the town, an angry urge to destroy something, anything? How is it that racism is such a draw? And what is it with the Nazis? They seem like very dangerous children, dressed up to be in a movie. Trump has empowered them from the beginning of his campaign and by his reaction to the events of the day, but I am looking for a deeper reason. Perhaps that's enough.
How did this local man, Jason Kessler, make this happen? If he plans to continue to disrupt our town, we need to find a different way to deal with it. First the political infrastructure (police, city government, court system) needs to reassure us that they do mean to protect us. I have real questions about whether that is the case.
And we must respond more like Martin Luther King and Gandhi. Anger and hate, even when it is so well-deserved, is not our friend. The Buddha said, "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." Only by standing against hate with love can we prevail. Hoping to figure out how to do that.