Complex Numbers

Tourist Trap

I get the impression that today's prompt is meant to inspire fiction. I'm certainly not above writing fiction, but this hits a little too close to home.

PROMPT November 3^rd

You live in a tourist town. There's always an 'interesting' mix of visitors. But this year they are especially... different. In what way?

A few years ago, my city decided to remove one of the Confederate participation trophies that stood in a prominent location, taunting, among others, descendants of the people freed after the Civil War. This decision pissed off all the right people (pun intended), who descended upon my town from other parts of the country (including, amusingly, the North) and protested.

If it had stayed in the realm of protest, fine. One major founding principle of the US, promoted by someone who lived just outside of town at the time, is the guarantee of freedom of speech. I'm a fan. As much as I disagree with the ideologies of the protestors, they have the right to express their opinions and, in fact, I want them to speak up so I know who to avoid.

But of course, it got violent, several people were injured, and three died.

I'm sure you heard about the event, even if you're not in the US. It made my town a household word the world over, a representation of the beginnings of the New Civil War: Charlottesville.

What doesn't get mentioned enough is that almost everyone involved in being a racist asshole back then was from out of town. Tourists.

Thing is, I'm usually inclined to consider all sides (there are always more than just two) of any issue, but in this case, one side wants people to try to get along, while another side would like to see me and others dead or, at the very least, marginalized..

Oh, sure, I can pass as one of them, but if they got to know me, they would know I am the Enemy. "Jews will not replace us," they chanted, tiki torches held high as they marched on the grounds of UVA. Then they have the chutzpah to accuse me of intolerance for condemning them for racism.

That kind of rhetoric is alarming, but how much more dread was felt, every freaking day, by descendants of slaves walking by a statue honoring Robert E. Lee? "You don't matter," said the statue, its lips resolutely mute. "I worked in life to own your ancestors, and behold, people put me on a pedestal." It'd be like putting up a heroic statue of Heinrich Himmler.

The carpetbaggers called for the preservation of the statue in its prominent location, saying, among other things, that to remove it is to erase history. Erase history? Hardly. History is still in books -- oh, wait, I forgot, a lot of them don't bother to read. Okay, it's still in videos online. If anything, removing it is one step in erasing the worship of the losers on the wrong side of history.

I live in a country that's weirdly prudish. All it usually takes is one complaint, if it's from the right person, and a book is banned, a statue is draped to cover its stony genitals, or an art exhibit is closed because a child might see a *gasp* female nipple. But if you have a problem with seeing a statue of someone who fought for the ability of people of one race to own people of another race? Oh, suck it up, that was in the past.

And the war was indeed about slavery. Oh, I've heard the bullshit about "it was over states' rights." Yeah, states' rights to enable slavery.

Four years after the protests, war drums still echo.

This year, the statue finally came down, quietly and without further bloodshed. I have no idea what happened to it, and honestly, I don't give a shit. Someone posted a meme of a picture of it getting hauled away, with the caption: "Virgil, quick come see, there goes Robert E. Lee."

If you don't get the reference, look it up. I'm not in the mood to post music right now.

So yeah, come see lovely Charlottesville sometime. We like an interesting mix of visitors. Just leave your bigotry at home.