The Atlantic

Black Charlottesville Has Seen This All Before

The return of violent white-supremacist rallies to the city is a special threat to its African American community, but not a new one.
Source: Jim Bourg / Reuters

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.—For the black community, life goes on. On Monday morning, painted-over swastikas and anti-fascist signs still decorated corners on the main streets. News vans still zipped around town, and stragglers still ventured to visit the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park and the street corner a few blocks away, where 32-year-old Heather Heyer was struck and killed by a car allegedly driven by white-nationalist James Fields. But when I walked into the Cherry Avenue Barber Shop, nobody was talking about the return of the Klan or the violence that had just rocked the city and the country.

“Yo, did you watch Power?” One patron, who only identified himself as Brandon, was busy leading a dialogue about the Starz television show, the latest episode of which was released just hours after President Trump’s first ill-conceived comments on Heyer’s death. The conversation turned, as barbershop conversations often do, on the show and on bits of culture. What the hell is Tasha doing? Why is Tariq always in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Master barber Dedric Cooke was quiet, until he wasn’t.

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