When Donald Trump defended his remarks about Charlottesville today, this is what I thought

After 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden re-upped President Donald J Trump’s reaction to Charlottesville in his campaign announcement, Trump doubled down on his previous comments about “good people on both sides” today. Given the chance to renounce what he’d said — or claim he used unwise words in the moment — he instead said at a press conference on the White House lawn that “if you look at what I said, you will see that that question was answered perfectly.”

At Charlottesville, where a Unite the Right rally ended in the death of peaceful protester Heather Heyer after a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd deliberately, the hoods were off. No identities were hidden. Everything was out in the open for anyone and everyone to see.

The white supremacists who dared to march for what they perceive as their holy racial cause feared no consequence. These men and women believed they could strut into their workplace on Monday and instill fear in the hearts and minds of their LGBTQ+ coworkers, coworkers of color, and Jewish coworkers.

Charlottesville signified a turning point in America. It proved that we are not “post-racial”; we are not post-anything.

We live in a nation where our leader, President Donald J. Trump, refuses to call these torch-wielding, confederate-idolizing, un-American people what I firmly believe they are: white domestic terrorists. As a black, queer, Jewish woman, it terrifies me that President Trump can’t stand up against that. It terrifies me that there are “good people on both sides” in his narrative. It terrifies me that Robert E. Lee was a “great general”.

There is no longer any fear or shame associated with the ideology of white supremacy. When people are asking how this could happen, they come from a position of privilege. How could this possibly have not happened?

How did you not see this coming when Trayvon Martin died for a hood, an Arizona Iced Tea, and a pack of Skittles? How did you not see this coming when Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old child, was shot for carrying a BB gun in an open carry state?

How did Philando Castille, Freddie Grey, and Sam DuBose not show you this was happening? When a movement called Black Lives Matter exists and the right treats them as a terror group rather than a group with valid concerns about disproportionate black deaths, how can we ask ourselves how this happened?

Two years after Charlottesville, I am still afraid. My identity as a black, Jewish, queer woman in the media is a marker. It makes me a target of racist vitriol.

If white supremacists have the gall to walk around with swastikas and confederate flags, saying I am less than them because of my religion and my ethnic heritage, what happens if this continues? Emboldened by Trump, will they again resort to violence, attacking those who are different? Will we see an American Kristallnacht? Should I be fearful of my fellow Americans? Could we all be Heather Heyer?

I have many questions that no one seems to be able to answer. Where do we go from here? What is there left to do? It seems that after the outrage, there is a lack of action. We have stagnated.

How do we defeat an ideology and not an army? Through education, prevention, and truth. Foster conversations, listen to what people of color, LGBTQ+ and Jewish individuals have to say. Validate their emotions and their logic. Don’t sit at brunch, sipping your mimosa, tweeting about your ‘#allyship’, as if that will absolve you of your lack of action over the last couple of years, as if that eradicates the privilege you hold.

A lack of action is exactly how this happened and we can’t afford that now. Take action for Anne Frank, for Rosa Parks, for Harvey Milk, for Jews, for people of color, for the LGBTQ+ community, for our children, for generations to come. And do it before it’s too late — because one day it will be.