Racism Tourism: Virginia’s small town secret to revitalization.
Part Three: Boycotting The Racist Economy.
This weekend I spent a lot of time and words reflecting on the pattern in practice of many racists whom happen to be business owners in the city of Fredericksburg.
Zooming out of that small town which calls itself a city and spending time in places like Richmond, Charlottesville, Farmsville I realize that at play is something bigger than kitschy offensive figurines and confederate flags for sale and that most all Southern localities, especially ‘Historic’ ones share.
Farmsville is currently experiencing another side of the Racist Economy as they reap the benefits of hosting a for profit immigrant detention center in their counties in which the city itself makes $1 a day per inmate. The racist economy there thrives off the deals made between county, law enforcement offices and these private for profit prisons. Not only does it boost the local government’s economy enough to focus on revitalization efforts that boost the tourist economy, but also it provides the most impoverished residents (usually Black and Brown people) of these mostly rural counties with a secure income by working within the prison that cages other Black and Brown people.
In Richmond, the City is on an ongoing battle to be able to bring down the statues and monuments to white supremacy and with a Democrat led GA, here is to hoping that we finally make way on that front.
We know that the same racists that oppose RVA’s community’s input on the removal of these hideous bastillions of when this city was the capitol of the confederacy are the ones that violently showed up to Charlottesville years ago with a similar battle cry and a motto to unite the right. The fights to allow localities and their community’s input on the appropriate way to handle taking out that trash continue everywhere in Virginia.
Yet they do not ‘play fair’ I have been through one too many city council meetings where out-of-town white supremacists show up to defend monuments or a proposed name changes for local highway or high schools named after their racist leaders. They know how to pack the room and they know how to stick to their a-historical, white washed version of history. Supremacists know how to intimidate people merely going about their downtown business, but specifically people going into these Town Hall Meetings. Once in the room, they take up time and space with their revolting Alex Jones-like hysteria and claims of fake news and heritage, not hate rhetoric. They drown out locals voices while ironically complaining that Northerns and out-of-town students are just trying to further a cultural Marxist agenda (if only!) they target and hurl insults to Black and Brown residents standing against them. And what do they do after? Patronize establishments where their presence is tolerated, accommodated or even celebrated …
Victor H. Green wrote the Green Book to keep people safe of the dangers and hardships that Black folks would encounter on the road during the Jim Crowe era. We now have websites and blogs and yelp reviews to help us know where to go as well information on where to shop Black and Brown.
The resilient ability to provide for ourselves and our communities proved so powerful that massacres occurred often on places where Black and Brown folks set roots, whatever cities and downtown areas were left untouched, these places have succumb to years of socio-economic warfares by the government, both state and local that gave way to gentrification and mass displacement and economic disparities in these areas as we know it today.
You and I plan our out of town trips around music shows, museums, a play. They do that too, around re-enactments, plantation (and plantation weddings) historic house tours, cemetery walks, celebrations around important battles won in a lost war and of course, memorial day. Confederate cemeteries are kept by federal moneys as such they celebrate Memorial and Veteran’s Day and other military and Veteran related celebrations. How ironic that a country so bent on nationalism masked in over patriotic militarism that any opposition or even critique of the Military Industrial Complex (and the way it treats Veterans) is met with “you hate our troops” would pay to take care of the graves of their home-grown enemy and still be allowed to fly their battle flags and swear that they will rise again.
Leave it to white supremacists to culturally appropriate everything though, just like the Green Book is their own books, zines, blogs, calendars, secret groups on social media. They know who to support, where to shop and eat and how much they can get away with in each town they set foot in before they even begin a holiday.
It don’t take an economist to see that there is something to Racism Tourism. Who am but an observer of something that was truly foreign to me when I moved to the US 20 over years ago, someone with discalcula at that! lmao I cant even tell numbers apart but I can see clearly that for white people in the South there is still plenty money to be made on the vestiges of old white supremacy just as much as there is money to be made from the current white supremacist system at play. All of which built on Black pain on stolen Indigenous Land.
This weekend Shiloh Old and New sites, both Historically Black Churches, pillars of the community in FXBG were what the FPD calls ‘vandalized’ the old site is where the Fredericksburg NAACP meet. Leadership of NAACP is tied to this beautiful congregation. Not long after they put out a letter condemning the lawsuit the church’s stain glass windows were shattered and the police is not considering this a hate crime. Right on brand with Fredericksburg. Timeless.
If you can, I invite you to donate to the church directly for repairs.
What’s one to do with all of this information?
- Listen, center and support Black and Indigenous voices in your community and follow their leadership on these matters.
- Repeat number 1 as you work on being an ally. Put your money and time in intentional organizing under that leadership from number one. Don’t expect labor to be done for you, educate yourself and come correct. Don’t expect to be a saviour either, Black and Brown liberation isn’t tethered to you.
- SHOW UP to Town Hall meetings, rallies and other events that are lead by impacted voices and community advocates.
- Bring this up to your locality: How much money is your city or county getting from the federal and state government and how much tax payer’s dollars are being giving away to the upkeep of confederate memorials and cemeteries? The average is $5 for a traitor’s stone. Now the million dollar question that will make every racist business owner in town expose themselves in a letter to the editor in your local paper is to ask: What would it COST your locality if you banned the flying of confederate flags?Ask this and watch another Olde Towne Butcher’s fiasco ensue in your own area.
- Demand change. Participate in rallies, vote, cuss out your relatives.
- Start a Green Book Group or Page in YOUR area, social media is a good way to keep stay anonymous and dish out social justice praxis. This is so important, please make a sock (literally put a picture of a sock and make a fake email and name on private tabs) account when exposing racist business owners in your area. You do not want to end up on a racists watch list, your own business picketed or harassed with negative reviews online, or death threats sent to your home. They will do it, they got the time. Trust me!
- Follow closely and call your representatives to support Northam’s (I know I could vomit just typing these words) proposal to defund the upkeep of confederate cemeteries and instead put that money into African American Burial Grounds Upkeep.
- AND AGAIN, SHOW UP. Here are a couple of great events coming up:
In Richmond, you can come Lobby with Monumental Justice VA on a State Wide level and participate in this Rally during the General Assembly. They have buses leaving for RVA from all over Virginia, come speak to your representatives directly to Take em Down!
In Fredericksburg, Black Community leaders, activists, representatives from organizations like The Poor People’s Campaign and Southerners On New Ground will be holding a candlelight vigil a month after Olde Towne Butcher filed a lawsuit against the city to halt the removal of the Auction Block against the wishes of the community, efforts led by Black leaders.
JOIN ME in listening and helping elevate affected voices in community!
Reverend Doctor Leonina Arismendi Zarkovic crowned Mix Trans Latinx DMV 2020 is Politburo of the Virginia’s Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and Co-Director of Santos en Virginia, they are a language justice expert, award winning writer, poet and artist from Uruguay living in the US South.
Doctor Leo travels across the state teaching about Decolonization and fighting for immigrant justice in the South. If you like what you’re reading, consider donating $1 to ‘set the captives free’ through Santos en Virginia, a state-wide immigrant defense and bail fund (www.thesantos.org)
