Just to be clear...
White nationalists are terrorists.
They want to take this place, this land, YOUR home, and claim it. They were never taught to share. They were never taught to take responsibility for their actions. They were taught to deflect their pain, anxieties, and fears and project them onto others - to find someone else to blame for their problems so they can continue to stuff their shitty feelings down.
It pains me to say, but this is a textbook 'masculine' learning system.
Boys are taught to suck up their feelings instead of voicing them with confidence. Most men are criticized for being sensitive or empathetic. What happens when you HAVE feelings but can't express them?? You put them on other people. This pisses me off. Because WE PERPETUATE this. Women perpetuate it, mothers perpetuate it, men and fathers perpetuate it.
We have a twisted idea that silence = strength. IT DOESN'T.
A strong man is simply a confident man. And confident men OWN THEIR SHIT. When I saw the photos of the men in Charlottesville I saw a sea of weak-minded, little boys trying to enact what THEY HAVE BEEN TAUGHT "STRENGTH" LOOKS LIKE. We say that these men are cowards. But we helped create their fucked up fantasy! Because to them, and the people who support them, they are exhibiting strength. Yes, we should combat the sickening racism we saw yesterday by speaking out against it daily. But another way to rid our country of this infestation is to THINK ABOUT THE MEN IN YOUR LIFE: how do YOU act when they attempt to express their feelings? Do you let them? Can you notice when they're projecting onto others? Can you offer them a safe place to talk about the root of those projections? Do you teach your little boys that expressing feelings often magically reduces their pain? That confidence and ownership of emotions go hand-in-hand? I'm not making excuses for the terrorists in Charlottesville or their bone-chilling racism. But there's a white MALE problem bubbling to the surface here, too, and we might all be a little bit complicit in that. It's worth tossing that into to your "but what can I do?" bucket.