Category: Opinion

Categories
Opinion

This week 10/21: Support local journalism. Become a C-VILLE member.

Support local journalism. You’ve probably heard that recently, likely in conjunction with the phrase “now more than ever,” or “in these times.” Maybe you’ve said it yourself. Well now’s your chance!

C-VILLE is free on newsstands and costs nothing to read online, and that’s not changing. But we’re kicking off a fantastic new membership program for readers who want to support our work directly. Members get a ton of perks, including digital advance editions of the paper, exclusive contest entries, an invitation to our annual Best of C-VILLE party, and even—and this is the really exciting part—a tote bag or T-shirt. Plus, you’ll sleep easier knowing the future of local journalism is secure. 

This community is better with C-VILLE Weekly in it. In recent months, we’ve brought Charlottesville’s past to life, told untold stories, and revealed why the town looks the way it does. Our reporting on the University of Virginia (in libraries, dining halls, bars, the financial aid office, and more), Charlottesville politics (from the police department, to city hall, to the statehouse), and public schools (both here in town and further afield) has held those in power accountable and connected the community with the institutions that shape its daily life.

We’re also Charlottesville’s preeminent local arts, music, food, and living journal. We write about connoisseurs and entrepreneurs, lovers and rockers, foodies and families; we keep you clued in on what’s happening in our lively metropolis. This week, our feature is all about the 33rd Virginia Film Festival.

(And since I’m under no illusions about why some of you pick up the paper each week, I’ll mention that we’ve got horoscopes, sudokus, and crossword puzzles, too.) 

We didn’t dream this up ourselves. In Boston and Durham and Madison and Boulder and beyond, new members have contributed hundreds of thousands of much-needed dollars to support independent alt-weeklies. To put it bluntly, the local news industry is in dire straits, and everyone has had to get creative.

To become a member, head here. And if you have any questions, please reach out to me (editor@c-ville.com) or our excellent publisher Anna Harrison (anna@c-ville.com).

Dozens of you have seen the ads for the program on our website and signed up already—thank you so much. We hope many more of you will join in the coming weeks. C-VILLE is here to serve you, the readers, and we will continue to do that for as long as we possibly can. Seriously: Thank you.—Ben Hitchcock

 

Categories
Opinion

Poem on the Removal of the Statue of Johnny Reb

A crew removes Johnny Reb from his pedestal. PC: Eze Amos

By Gregory Orr

 

I won’t miss the way

Your bronze body

Froze

History into bitterness.

 

That spot you occupied

No longer radiates

Shadows

In every direction

Like a malign sundial

Designed to thwart

The slow

Progress of time.

 

Your absence: a form

Of hope,

a flat

And empty space

Where citizens stand

In a circle

And mark the hours

Of our town’s

Mortal

And peaceful clock.

Categories
Opinion

This week, 7/29

Nelson County mountains. Photo: Jack Looney

Last month, I was lucky to be able to head for the hills with two old friends—we spent a long weekend hiking and camping on the Appalachian Trail in southwest Virginia.

We’re all amateur campers. From the top of a mountain, we marveled at a far-off hailstorm, only for it to sweep over us and soak us to the bone. One evening, we chatted with a grizzled, Gandalf-ish through-hiker named Woodstock, who gently mocked us for packing too much food. At our campsite, we gathered enough twigs to make a small fire, celebrating each delicate flame as evidence of our imperfect survival capabilities.

Mostly, though, we just stared off into the distance. The blue hills on the horizon served as a much-needed reminder that, though our lives have shrunk to the size of our dwellings, the world outside is still huge and full of wonder. 

The pandemic isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and getting outdoors is one of the safest activities available to us these days—so this week’s issue of C-VILLE is outdoors-themed. There’s delightful wilderness to easily and safely explore in the area, even if you can’t slip away for a walk on the AT. There are also plenty of ways to get involved with local outdoors groups. And though the news has been bleak lately, environmental activists in the region scored a huge victory this month with the defeat of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. So get outside!—Ben Hitchcock

Categories
Opinion

This week, 7/15

The main character in the story on page 10 of this week’s paper doesn’t have a name. He doesn’t have a face. 

Shortly after a video of the brutal arrest of Christopher Gonzalez was posted on Instagram July 8, the Charlottesville Police Department released 17 minutes of body camera footage of the incident. Since arriving two years ago, Police Chief RaShall Brackney has touted transparency—releasing the video, the department implied, would help satisfy the community’s demands.

The police weren’t willing to release the officer’s name, however, as the arrest remains subject to an “ongoing investigation.”

So I wrote the story about “the officer” and Christopher Gonzalez.

This identification imbalance—which the police created and which is felt in the prose—is present in the body camera footage, too. The body camera lets us hear a voice; it lets us see a set of hands as they act. But, to an amazing extent, it leaves the wearer out of the picture. 

(Then, of course, the camera falls off at a critical moment—a neat symbolic summation of current police oversight practices as a whole.)

After watching the footage over and over again, I feel like I know Gonzalez. I’d recognize him if I passed him on the Downtown Mall. The same can’t be said for the officer. This is a problem because, again, that man is the pivotal figure in this story. He’s the one who turned this into a newsworthy situation—he’s the one who initiated the violence. The police department, while preaching transparency, has slyly managed to erase him from the narrative.

Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Review Board remains tangled in municipal government purgatory, but this arrest shows how much the community needs strong and vigilant police oversight. A body camera by itself can’t turn and look up at the officer who wears it. As Harold Folley says in the story, “police can’t police themselves.”

 

Categories
Opinion

This week, 7/1

Damani Harrison on the set of the "One for George" video shoot. Image: Jason Lappa

A month ago, George Floyd was murdered by the police. Since then, Damani Harrison has led a group of artists “coming together to speak truth to power” in the multimedia “One for George” project—our cover story this week.

Also in this week’s issue: The Charlottesville police department has been harming Black and brown people for decades, but a new oversight body is fighting for power, and protesters are leaving their mark—literally—on the department. Sexual assault is still prevalent on UVA Grounds, but survivors continue to advocate for reform. A statue of a Confederate soldier stands outside the Albemarle County courthouse, but new laws mean county officials can meet this week to start the process to take the monument down. Our public school history books are stuffed with racist, sexist, false narratives, but teachers are gathering to develop anti-racist curriculum alternatives.  The area’s 5th Congressional District is gerrymandered to hell, but a young Black doctor has the best chance to win of any Democrat in a decade.

Each of these conflicts has its own contours. Still, a loose theme is undeniable: This country was purposefully designed to perpetuate inequity and entrench white supremacy. Our city is full of people who believe long-overdue change is both necessary and possible—people who are working to bring that change to fruition.

Saturday is the Fourth of July. This is not an admirable country, but plenty of admirable people live here. This week’s C-VILLE is about some of those people.

 

Categories
Opinion

This week, 6/24

 

“Coronavirus Could Be the End of Alt-Weeklies,” declared a Mother Jones headline in March. Around the country, venerable snark-slinging rags have dropped employees or shut down entirely, crippled by cratering ad revenue. C-VILLE, unfortunately, has not escaped the crash. Our staff is a lot smaller than it was just a few weeks ago. (The newsroom had no input in these decisions: If you’re upset that your favorite journalist is out of work, believe me, you’re not as upset as we are.)

After these changes, I’ve become this paper’s editor. Though I wish the circumstances were different, I’m thrilled to take the reins.

I’ve lived in Charlottesville for 10 years. I went to Charlottesville High School, and first fell in love with this town while sitting in the bleachers during Friday night football games. My writing career started down the street at the Cavalier Daily, UVA’s student paper. For the last six months, I’ve been a news reporter at C-VILLE, and in that time I’ve been impressed by how much I still don’t know about this city. There’s always another stone to overturn.

Moving forward, C-VILLE will keep doing what we do best. We’ll take every opportunity to lend our platform to those whose stories have been historically ignored. We’ll listen when our readers reach out, and reflect those comments back like only local news can. We’ll give credit to people who go the extra mile to feed, or house, or organize their neighbors. (That’s what this week’s feature story, a heartfelt twist on our annual Power Issue, is all about.) And hopefully, we’ll do it with a sense of humor.

We’re local journalists—we work for the community. Don’t ever hesitate to reach out. My email address is in the masthead every week, but it’s here too: editor@c-ville.com. I look forward to hearing from you.—Ben Hitchcock 

 

Categories
Opinion The Editor's Desk

This week, 6/10

Photo: Eze Amos

“We need equity,” 19-year-old Joshua St. Hill told a crowd of roughly a thousand people Sunday night at the UVA Rotunda. “We can’t take our foot off the gas.”

Keeping their foot on the gas is exactly what protesters in Charlottesville have been doing over the past two weeks, since the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. In a city that, despite the events of 2017, is not noted for its activism, residents here have turned out by the hundreds and thousands to protest racism and police brutality, at massive marches on May 30, June 7, and June 8, and at other smaller demonstrations too.

Nationwide, as protests have continued night after night, and police in many cities have responded with brutal force as damning as Bull Connor’s fire hoses and attack dogs, there’s a feeling that a tipping point has been reached, that things might actually change. In Minneapolis, the City Council has vowed to dismantle the police force. In New York and L.A., mayors have pledged to cut police budgets and move the money to community programs. And in Richmond, leaders are calling for a police civilian review board and a new way of responding to calls involving mental health crises.

In Charlottesville, City Council appointed the final member of our Police Civilian Review Board last week, though it has so far ignored activists’ demands to implement the stricter bylaws an initial board submitted last September. School board members have endorsed pulling cops from our public schools. Council members have been meeting about removing Confederate statues from downtown. And Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley has vowed to continue the progressive criminal justice reforms put in place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, like limiting pretrial detention and supporting alternatives to incarceration.

Whether these and other changes will stick depends, in part, on whether residents will keep paying attention, and keep the pressure on, in the weeks and months ahead.

“We can’t use Black Lives Matter as a hashtag,” PVCC student Tyler Tinsley said on Sunday, at the march he helped organize. “We gotta keep doing it every day.”

Categories
Opinion The Editor's Desk

This week, 6/3

The violent murders of black people by police—and the recent extensive media coverage—has taken a toll on the mental health of black people across the nation.
Protesters gather in downtown Charlottesville. PC: Eze Amos

Over the past few days, videos of the murders of unarmed black people by cops and white “vigilantes,” which sparked nationwide protests, have been replaced by new videos, of cops brutalizing those protesters in cities across the country.

Many police officers have met the legitimate expression of pent-up rage with violence, beating demonstrators and journalists on camera, firing tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets, holding protesters all night without food or water, and, in a sickening echo of Heather Heyer’s murder, plowing their cars into crowds.

As I’m sure someone will write to me to point out, a few agitators have taken advantage of the chaos to loot and destroy businesses, including the office of an alt-weekly in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, where the editor reports their office was set on fire. Obviously, this is reprehensible (not to mention counterproductive). But it’s also no excuse for law enforcement to escalate violence.

Here in Charlottesville, hundreds turned out for a protest on Saturday, and the Black Student Union at Albemarle High School led another demonstration on Sunday. CPD, perhaps finally learning from its heavy-handed approach to past protests, was on hand largely to redirect traffic. Cops did not confront protesters, and the events were nonviolent.   

That’s commendable—though it’s also disturbing that police not attacking nonviolent protesters should be such an anomaly. But the city still has work to do. The Police Civilian Review Board, created in the wake of summer 2017 to promote transparency and build trust, has yet to meet (the final member was appointed by City Council on Monday). And no board exists in Albemarle County, where residents have complained of racial bias by the police, and African Americans are disproportionately arrested, as shown in a report the county declined to fund.

Charlottesville spends $300,000 a year to put police officers in city schools, part of an alarming national trend that has contributed to the school-to-prison pipeline for youth of color. Ending that contract is among the demands put forward by the organizers of Saturday’s march, a list that could serve as a handy map to the steps required for real change.

Demonstrations matter. But supporting the work that follows is even more important.

Categories
Opinion The Editor's Desk

This week, 5/27

Local resident Cat Thrasher transformed her yard into a large urban garden. Photo: John Robinson

Monday was Memorial Day, the unofficial start to summer, but with local lakes, spray grounds, and pools closed (except to those who can afford membership at private clubs), some took to the Downtown Mall in the hopes of another day not exactly the same as the last.

In spite of the Phase One reopening, closed signs still dominate downtown. “Maybe in June” the signs at 2nd Act Books say hopefully. At Citizen Burger Bar, the sight of several tables full of patrons casually having lunch (none of them wearing masks) felt jarringly out of place. At Chaps, customers waited outside the door, a roughly appropriate number of feet apart. “How are you?” one parent on line called across to another. The mom, behind her mask, made a face that seemed part smile, part grimace. “Today’s a good day,” she said. “We had a bike ride, and ice cream, so today’s a good day.” 

That’s pretty much the best any of us can manage, as our strange spring turns into an uneasy summer. Left to find our own ways to salvage the season, many have turned to gardening, so this week we offer some tips, whether you’re just starting out or ready to explore a deeper relationship with nature.

We’re also launching a new series, Checking In, to catch up with familiar faces around town and hear how they’re getting through this time. “We’re trying to make the best of it,” says Ragged Mountain Running’s Mark Lorenzoni, who’s still coaching runners and even organizing socially distant races. “If you go looking for negatives, it’s not hard to find, it’s in our faces all days long,” he says. “But if you go looking for positives, it’s just as easy to find. It’s just more subtle.”

Categories
Opinion The Editor's Desk

This week, 5/20

Cooling off in the city’s splash parks is a thing of the past, thanks to a recent announcement that all Charlottesville pools and spray grounds will be closed this summer. Photo: Ron Paris

Last Saturday, I was in Pen Park for the drive-through version of City Market—a creative adaptation to our social-distancing circumstances that, while not as good as the real thing, at least comes reasonably close. On my right, as I drove in, was Meadowcreek Golf Course, acres of open, rolling green hills marked at the edges with “no trespassing” signs noting the course was closed.

I have zero interest in golf, but the vast emptiness of the public course—where it would be far easier to social distance than in any local grocery store—seemed to drive home the absurdity of the
city’s decision to keep most of its outdoor recreation facilities closed in the name of safety. Last week, the Parks & Recreation department announced that all spray parks and pools—the places where many children survive a Virginia summer—would be closed for the season, and Albemarle County declared its swimming lakes would also be off limits.

According to the CDC, there’s no evidence the virus is transmitted through pools or water play areas, and there is some evidence to suggest that access to public pools prevents drownings elsewhere. The city’s decision seems less a careful weighing of risk and safety than a sign of a lack of imagination.

Under Governor Northam’s reopening plan, outdoor pools are allowed to open for lap swimming, and private clubs like Fry’s Spring and ACAC have already done so. It would be more difficult, but still possible, to limit crowds at the outdoor spray parks. It would take some thoughtfulness, creativity, and effort. But for kids who have been cooped up inside for months, glued to screens, unable to access playgrounds, basketball courts, or ball fields, it seems worth it. 

The pandemic is far from over, and as businesses begin to (cautiously) reopen, it’s important to remember that the risks haven’t gone away, that we can’t go back to normal yet. But it’s also important to recognize that this virus will be with us for a long time, and we need to adapt—to find ways, like those drive-through markets— to meet community needs while staying safe.