Charlottesville Mayor: ‘Normalization’ of Racism Goes Right to the ‘Doorstep’ of the W.H.

‘The country is rising up and speaking with one voice about how it’s time to turn the page on this dark chapter in American politics’

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RUSH EXCERPT:

BLITZER: "Let me get your reaction first of all to the president’s statement today, belatedly, but specifically calling out the KKK, neo-nazi, white supremacists, other hate groups for the role — their role in this weekend’s racist violence in your community. What did you think?"
SIGNER: "Well, let me just — I’ve got to first by saying this community is still grieving. This was really a horrible weekend for us all. Three people lost their lives who didn’t need to lose their lives. We are also getting back up on our feet. This is truly one of the, not just one of the greatest cities in the country, one of the greatest cities in the world. We are diverse and Progressive, tolerant, welcoming. A lot of those virtues are what make us also extremely successful. We’re triple a bond rated. We have Virginia’s lowest unemployment. We have a lot of other successes in our economy. The secret to a lot of those things are frequently rated in the top five list of cities to live in. We were rated America’s most charming city recently. In keeping with all those things, we also made a very hard decision about a year and a half ago as a Progressive city but bears the baggage of being a southern city to start telling the full story of race in our city, start telling the truth. And that made us a target for a lot of these forces that you saw converge on us this weekend. It was a really a horrible thing to see Nazis and the KKK out in public. And I publicly made several comments saying that I thought the blame for the normalization of this sort of — these sort of elements in our country went right to the doorstep of the White House. I don’t really want to spend much more time talking about Donald Trump. I think that the silence over the last couple of days speak for itself. I’m glad that he chose today to join the rest of the country in finally saying some of these words. You know, we had I think there were 600 rallies yesterday in support of charlottesville. The country is rising up and speaking with one voice about how it’s time to turn the page on this dark chapter in American politics where the KKK and Nazis literally were invited into the mainstream. You know, I don’t think he probably should have been dragged kicking and screaming to have to do that, but I’m glad that he has joined the rest of us. And I think now the hard work of rebuilding strengthening this democracy after this particular test we’ve been through, it’s going to begin in cities like charlottesville, but it’s going to happen around the rest of the country and I’m glad that the White House will be there. I hope that their actions match their words."

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