Heather Heyer's Cousin:
Racism Will Get Worse Unless We Stop It Now
This
last week has been surreal for my family. We lost one of our own in one
of the most public ways possible. A man in a car ran down my cousin,
Heather Heyer, because she decided to join her fellow Charlottesville
residents against the neo-Nazis and white supremacists on their streets.
Diana Ratcliff
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Heather
Heyer was killed by a speeding car, as it plummeted through the crowd
of those protesting the white nationalists, a car driven by Neo-Nazi
enthusiast James Alex Fields Jr.
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My
family -- we are not the kind of family that is targeted by hate
crimes. We come from a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant background with
Appalachian heritage. We have never had to be afraid that someone would
target us or lynch us because of the color of our skin.
We
never had to worry someone wouldn't hire us because of the way we look.
We never have to worry that our children might become victims of
someone else's prejudice. We've never been told we can't live in a
certain neighborhood or attend a certain school because of the color of
our skin. Until last week, we had no idea what it feels like to lose
someone to hate.
After
the news of Heather's death, I attended a Charlottesville solidarity
vigil in my hometown. I sat anonymously in the middle of the crowd,
silent tears streaming down my face, as speaker after speaker took the
stage. People held up pictures of Heather and signs called her a hero.
But the moment that will forever be burnt in my memory was when a
speaker asked the uncomfortable question. While she hailed Heather's
courage, she asked something to this effect: "Why does a white woman
have to get killed for you all to become outraged?" All I could think
was, "Heather is sitting in heaven right now, shaking her head in
agreement."
Why have we been turning our heads the other way?
Why
is it that the death of a white woman at the hands of a white
supremacist group has finally gotten the attention of white folk? Why
have we been turning our heads the other way for so long? How many black
families, Latino families, Asian families, Native-American families
before us have been left broken from this ugly vein of hatred in our
country? Too many. And to my non-white brothers and sisters, I am so
sorry that many of us weren't paying attention before Charlottesville.
We
need to stop referring to what happened in Charlottesville as a clash
between the "alt-left" and the "alt-right." The majority of the
counterprotesters were concerned residents of Charlottesville, not a
fringe political group. The so-called "alt-right," or the white
nationalists, have no place in America, and they don't deserve a place
on our political spectrum.
There
is no space at the political table for them. There is no common ground,
and there is no compromise. America has fought and won two wars against
fascism and white supremacy already. White nationalists are the KKK
rebranded, and they lost their right to free speech the minute they
tried to use it to intimidate and incite violence. Which, by the way,
was back in 1865. So, stop giving them a voice. There is nothing in our
Constitution protecting hate speech.
If
anyone other than white people had been marching the streets of
Charlottesville wielding tiki torches, carrying semi-automatic rifles,
chanting racist chants, engendering fear at a house of prayer [1], and menacing its residents, we'd call them terrorists.
Less than a week later, a van rammed through a crowded tourist area in Barcelona, Spain [2],
killing 13 and wounding many others. We had no problem quickly calling
that terrorism. Yet, when I say my cousin was killed in the terrorist
attack on Charlottesville, I see people visibly get uncomfortable.
They'll call it murder. They may call it a hate crime, but they struggle
to call it terrorism. That man was fulfilling a call-to-action from
white nationalists. He was committing an act of terror.
White
nationalists are intimidating and threatening the safety and lives of
our friends, colleagues and neighbors. They are not a political party
that we need to compromise with. It's time for the rest of us to stand
up and say, "No, not on our watch."
Yesterday,
my son asked me, "Mommy, what do terrorists look like?" I answered him,
"Baby, they can look and sound like you or me, they can be like any one
of us here." And that is the reality. White nationalists aren't some
uneducated backwater clowns that are going to disappear. They're loan
officers, they're service providers, they're professionals, they're
public servants, they're college students, they're everyday people.
Racism isn't dying out with an aging population. It's found new life,
and it's going to get worse if we don't put a stop to it now.
In shock
We're
all in shock, the whole world is. How did America go from a black
President to white supremacist neo-Nazis marching in the street? That is
the question we need to be asking ourselves. And if we take a long hard
look at ourselves, we'll find out that it's because we went into
denial. We elected a black person, we made friends with some minorities,
and we patted ourselves on our backs, saying, "Well done self, we have
eliminated racism." Clearly, we have not. It's been lurking in the
shadows, waiting in the spaces of the words we say and the words we
don't say. The actions we take and the actions we don't take.
For
example, when someone says, "All lives matter," what they think they're
saying is, "All lives are equally as important." However, they're
failing to acknowledge that racism is still a real problem in America.
"Black lives matter" isn't saying that police lives don't matter. No one
is saying that white lives don't matter. Black folks are simply saying
they are tired of being treated like their lives don't matter.
If
there is one positive I have taken away from the loss of Heather, it is
that it isn't the length of your life that is important, it's what you
do with your life that matters. If you truly believe all lives are
equally important, then make your life matter.
[Editor's
Note: Diana Ratcliff is a cousin of Heather Heyer. A political science
graduate of the University of Michigan, she interned in the US Senate
and worked on Al Gore's presidential campaign staff. She is now studying
nursing. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.]
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