Richmond, VA: Despite Heavy Handed Police, Neo-Confederates Shut Down

“We had reports of black people open carrying turned away while white confederates were allowed to freely roam with their guns.”

The morning of September 16th people began to assemble around 9 am. Some folks had been up earlier to work security for a synagogue that the cops apparently didn’t see fit to put effort into protecting. There has been so much hand-wringing from the city government and law enforcement about so-called violence at demonstrations here, that our theory is that S16 got so much hype purely from the police.

Charlottesville is only an hour away from Richmond, so naturally many of us are still reeling from the exhaustion and trauma we experienced out there. All that considered, we decided to give the finger to the city and have a fucking barbecue. Literally, that was our plan. Of course we were prepared to defend ourselves if necessary, but we guessed only a few of those Confederate States of America (CSA) idiots would show up, and we were right.

They stood around for maybe 30 minutes before the cops asked them to leave, giving them a safe escort. Upon returning to their cars, they discovered that their tires has been slashed. They seemed incredibly disturbed by this incident, and even began an online fundraiser for themselves. Rumor has it that as of this writing they are still somewhere in the city, scared out of their minds.

Arrests began around 1:30 pm, starting with a black woman who got into an argument. Literally, she got arrested for yelling. We had reports of black people open carrying turned away while white confederates were allowed to freely roam with their guns. Even though the pigs maintained they wouldn’t be searching people, they obviously did if you were black, or maybe the way you looked at them? Who knows.

All in all, 2 people were snatched for weapons violations, and 4 for violating the mask law which is a felony in VA. Ironic considering the law was originally crafted for the Klan. They threatened many more with arrest, even detaining someone for holding a flag in front of their face while they were being filmed. Many folks felt unsafe with such a heavy police presence, and we had gotten a rumor that more white supremacists were coming. So people took to the street to march near campus and Broad St to gather more people, and keep folks from sitting around in a police pin. Many new chants were heard including, “Kurdistan we got your back”, “STL we got your back,” and “fuck the fascist media” when near fights broke out with ‘journalists’ trying to push into our lines. A highlight moment of course would be when the crowd chanted “Charlottesville we got your back” while several Charlottesville comrades were in the front of the march.

Most people seem to feel as though this was a win against the neo-Confederates, making them look pitiful and foolish, and for us, far more fun. The police repression however was intense in terms of their ability to control what people felt was possible in the moment. It was clear from very early that there wasn’t going to be many uncontrollable moments that day, despite a fairly large crowd.

As stores are looted in St. Louis and cop cars burn at Georgia Tech, we are reminded that every struggle, even if not at first, will always be a struggle against the police.