As everyone has seen, signs supporting white supremacy appeared all over Del Ray this weekend. Here is the story.
LaDonna Sanders, past president of NAACP Alexandria, posted this in response to a FaceBook post about this issue:
“I truly need for ppl to stop acting surprised…and stop blaming these kinds of acts on Richard Spencer’s move into the City or Trump…white supremacists, white supremacy, oppression, and injustice occur in Alexandria City everyday and people turn a blind eye!
Take a look at the disproportionality in suspension rates between students of color and their counterparts….look at how the police department, and neighbors responded during those community meeting after those shootings last year uptown…That darn confederate statute still standing in the middle of S. Washington St despite the trauma it causes for the few black people left living in the City (yes I know City Council voted to have it removed…and neither of our state delegates drafted legislation to have the statue removed)”
Our neighbors have been asking “what should we do?” This response comes from Jonathan Krall of Grassroots Alexandria:
“I’m pretty sure white supremacists would like us to continue to oppress communities of color. Perhaps an appropriate response would be for us to adjust our policies so we are no longer doing that.
Put another way, white supremacists are using our criminal justice system to accomplish their mission. Perhaps we should stop them.
Having said all that, I understand that my neighbors really are shocked. I’m on a learning curve myself. The basic reality is that we are living in a society that withholds opportunity and places barriers in the path of non-white residents. The polite way to say this is ‘white privilege is real,’ but even that makes it sound like everything is basically OK except that white people are getting a little something extra. The reality is that everything is not OK.”