Blackbird singing in Charlottesville

Following comments that our new Mayor Nikuyah Walker made on The View recently, there’s been a lot of pushback on the idea that Charlottesville has a race problem, and that our community was “ripe” for what happened on August 12, as Walker said. Some local observers have criticized Walker, have pointed out that most of the white supremacists who came to the rally were from out-of-town, and suggested hers was an unfair characterization of Charlottesville.

But I think we have to remind ourselves that it took 92 years before Charlottesville ever seriously considered removing the Confederate statues from our public parks, the issue that triggered the turmoil we’ve experienced. Remember the Occupy movement in 2011, when people camped out in the park as a protest against economic and social injustice? The Lee statue played no part in the chosen location, and I don’t recall anyone raising any issues about the statue at the time. Why might that have been? Why were we unwilling then to see the …