#Charlottesville

Sound familiar?

Yeah, it's a little long, and nobody who really needs to see it will "get" it.

Tough.

I am a graduate of the University of Virginia, class of 1976.  My wife also attended and graduated from U.Va., albeit at a different time (class of 1983.)  We were married in Charlottesville and spent the first years of our marriage there, saving up for her medical school education, she working in a physician's office and me at the U.Va. undergraduate library.  (This is neither here nor there, but it honestly was the best job I've ever had, and I've always regretted the necessity of leaving it.)  

My point is that because of both our undergraduate experiences and our later residency, the University and the city of Charlottesville hold a very special place in our hearts.  The images of the white nationalists rallying there and carrying flaming torches onto the steps of a building designed by Thomas Jefferson truly broke our hearts.

I tried to come up with words to both express my feelings and ease my heart, but was never entirely successful.  Then I stumbled across an extended Twitter feed by someone who goes by the Twitter handle of "Large Adult Goat" and his words served the purposes of both easing my soul a bit and expressing my frustration at the turn of events and at the festering hatred that I, like so many of us, had no idea ran so deeply through the hearts of so many of my so-called fellow Americans.  Because of the 140 character limitation, it can be hard to follow extended Twitter essays, so I am taking the liberty of reproducing it in its entirety here.  I hope @JuliusGoat will forgive me taking the liberty of doing so.  His Twitter follows:

"Imagine if these people [the Charlottesville white supremacists] ever faced ACTUAL oppression. 

"Nobody is trying to legislate away their right to marry. Nobody is trying to make them buy insurance to pay for 'male health care.' 

"The law never enslaved their great-grandparents, robbed their grandparents, imprisoned their parents, or shot them when unarmed. 

"There is no massive effort at the state and local level to disenfranchise them of the vote.

"There is no history of centuries of bad science devoted to 'proving' their intellectual inferiority. 

"There is no travel ban on them because of their religion. There is no danger for them when they carry dangerous weapons publicly.

"Their churches were never burned. Their lawns were never decorated with burning crosses. Their ancestors never hung from trees. 

"Their mothers aren't being torn away by ICE troopers and sent away forever. They won't be forced to leave the only country they ever knew. 

"The President has not set up a hotline to report crime committed at their hands. 

"They are chanting, 'We will not be replaced.' Replaced as...what? I'll tell you:

"Replaced as the only voice in public discussions. Replaced as the only bodies in the public arena. Replaced as the only life that matters.

"THIS is 'white people oppression' -- We used to be the only voice. Now we hold the only microphone.

"THIS is 'white man oppression" -- We face criticism now. We were free from it, because others feared the consequences.

"THIS is 'oppression' of white Christians in this country -- Christmas used to be the only holiday acknowledged. Now it's not.

"I would so love to see these people get all the oppression they insist they receive, just for a year. Just to see. 

"Give them a world where you ACTUALLY can't say 'Christmas.' A world where the name "Geoff" on a resume puts it in the trash. 

"Give them a world where they get a 20% pay cut, and then 70 women every day tell them to smile more. 

"Give them a world where their polo shirt makes people nervous, so they're kicked off the flight from Pittsburgh to Indianapolis. 

"Give them a world where they inherited nothing but a very real understanding of what oppression really fucking is. 

"Give them a world where if they pulled up on a campus with torches lit and started throwing hands, the cops would punch their eyes out.

"Put THAT in your Tiki torches and light it, you sorry Nazi bitches."