President Donald Trump on Monday decried the "racist violence" in Virginia and said that the Department of Justice had opened a civil rights investigation into what happened there. "Anyone who acted criminally in this weekend's racist violence, you will be held accountable," Trump said.
The statement helps. But it would have helped more had he not on Saturday ducked the opportunity to condemn the groups behind the "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence" and not added the words "on many sides" in what bestowed a false equivalency to the protests and the counterprotests.
By Monday, Trump was willing to condemn hate groups, including the KKK and white nationalists.
What the president could have also acknowledged is that heartbreak in Charlottesville began long before things turned violent. It began with the hate that brought the white men and women, many of them so young, to the campus in the first place.
Still, despite this pain, it's important to remember that the Friday night protesters with their torches did not speak for America. They did not speak for white people, or for conservatives. Or for the South. They did not even speak for Charlottesville.
This past weekend, we were reminded how far we have to go as a nation. But we must not let it blind us to how far we've come, either.
Editorial on 08/16/2017