In the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Virginia, race riots, Frontline brings us Documenting Hate: Charlottesville. A.C. Thompson, a journalist, has been following the recent boldness of white supremacists in America for several years now. This documentary is a discovery on several people and groups involved in the Charlottesville marches and riots as well as the preparation, reaction and response of the police surrounding this incident.
The “Unite the Right” march, as it has been called, was the largest public white supremacy gathering in a generation. There have been several smaller protests and gatherings of this nature, some also violent, but Charlottesville was by far the deadliest. This documentary takes us through the events that took place in Charlottesville, the events leading up to it, and what transpired afterwards.
What began as a protest on the removal of a Civil War statue quickly escalated into fights and riots between white supremacist groups and anti-fascist, anti-racist protesters. The apex of the violence occurred when someone drove a car through a crowd of protesters, hospitalizing nearly twenty and killing one woman. Most importantly, the documentary touches on the police response, before, during, and after these events. While we, in this class, have not discussed modern white supremacy to this degree, we have discussed how police practices and procedures have been implemented in racist, discriminatory ways, which is what my analysis will focus on.
This country has been built with the ideology of white supremacy, on the backs of black slaves. In his essay on white supremacy, Brian Stevenson (2018) explains how the criminal justice system was an extension of that ideology, dealing unjustly and unfairly toward black people. Today, our general society does not reflect this ideology, but our criminal justice system has been slower to change. While this documentary is not about violence towards black people, it is about this ideology and the role that police have in perpetuating this ideology and violence on black people. Today, this violence does take the form as an attack on black people by the justice system, as it did a hundred years ago – nor is it to avoid lynchings and please the mob, as Stevenson would explain – but rather an idleness of the police when confronted with this ideology.
Before the Charlottesville protests, the local police were woefully under prepared. State and federal authorities had not notified them on the type of people coming, namely bands of armed white supremacists. During the protests, while people were being attacked and while fights broke out, the police stood by and did not intervene. An example of this is the incident in a parking garage right next to a police station. DeAndre Harris, a black man and anti-racist protester, was savagely beaten by a group of white supremacists. He was battered with poles, metal pipes, and wooden boards, while the police stood by idly.
This example is just one of many that took place during the events that occurred. Marc Mauer (2018) explains that, although less visible than in the days of lynching, criminal justice practitioners still operate on these ideals based in racism, implementing and enforcing policies in racist, discriminatory ways. This can be seen as a lack of intervention for individuals such as Harris and groups such as the anti-racist protesters.
Even afterward, the criminal justice response was insignificant. As a response to the murder of Heather Heyer, the woman that was killed in the car incident that hospitalized twenty people, it took several months to prosecute one individual, James Alex Fields, involved in the event. To this day, only a handful of individuals involved in the riots and fights have been charged or prosecuted with any crime. These individuals have, in general, been charged with hate crimes. To the general public, this is woefully inadequate. To the public eye, it looks as if these people have been allowed to incite and carry out hate crimes against minority individuals and simply walk away. This documentary criticizes the police for their apparent lack of action around the Virginia riots. The lack of response of the police have emboldened these groups to become mainstream, to protest in public and incite this level of violence with impunity and without fear of consequences.
While not discussed directly in this documentary, race plays an important part in understanding the events that transpired. For anyone interested in modern-day white supremacy and the new rise of mainstream antagonists, this documentary is an informative watch. It highlights the part that police play in this conflict, and for an informed person, connects historical white supremacist ideals to modern-day policing.
References
Mauer, M. (2018). The endurance of racial disparity in the criminal justice system. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 31-56). Vintage Books.
Stevenson, B. (2018). A presumption of guilt: the legacy of America’s history of racial injustice. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 3-30). Vintage Books.
Thompson, A.C. (Producer). Rowley, R. (Director). (2018). Documenting Hate: Charlottesville[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/documenting-hate-charlottesville/