You gave us a national forum
I suppose the one good thing to come out of Heyer's death was this "national forum". People are now speaking about her, her sacrifice, and the problems with racism America must address. This is significant because it gave the events of Charlottesville an even greater platform for discussion. Still, I feel like a lot of people have forgotten about her or are too busy claiming that counter-protesting is "violent" to really absorb anything meaningful from this.
"Heather said, I want to go so badly but I don't want to get shot. I don't want to die,"
This is powerful. It's important to remember that Meyer didn't want to be a martyr--she was a person who wanted to keep fighting for what was right. Although her death started a "national forum", she should never have died. It's also important to remember that White Supremacists/Nazis are responsible for her death--no one else.
we didn't want neo-Nazis and alt-right and racists to come into our city and think they could spread freely their hate, and their bigotry and their racism. We wanted to let them know that we were about love, that we were would overpower them ...
It really gets under my skin when people complain about other people protesting Nazis. I know when I was leaning about the Holocaust, I always imagined what I'd do in a situation that awful and how I'd try to help. I imagine almost everyone has thought of this and then convinces themselves that they would've tried to help Jewish people and stand up against Hitler. But then something like this happens and it becomes so obvious to me that people who claim counter-protesting is "violent" and counter protestors are "just as bad as Nazis" would have done none of the noble things they imagined themselves doing. Claiming that "both sides are at fault" is just a ridiculous way of avoiding an uncomfortable conversation about racism in America.
they "have no place in American public life and in the American debate."
I don't think the KKK's arguments should be given any weight, but I do think that we should be discussing this. Just ignoring them isn't going to solve anything, and it's certainly not going to stop them from being hateful and dangerous. We need to address the underlying and systematic racism that is still prevalent in America today, and we need to discuss hateful groups in an appropriate manner.
"The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi, and all extremists groups.
Oh boy. Trump did a very bad job of condemning the KKK and Nazis. He said that there was "blame on all sides" because he has to appeal to his base of supporters. This was a completely inadequate reaction.