A Brief Reflection on 'Charlottesville'

This is an iHeart podcast.

Time for a sofa upgrade?

Visit washable sofas.com and discover AniBay, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices.

With sofas starting at $699, Anibay brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly.

Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anibay is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out.

Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid liquid and stain-resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy.

Liquid simply slides right off.

Designed for custom comfort, our high-resilience foam lets you choose between a sink-in feel or a supportive memory foam blend.

Plus, our pet-friendly stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years.

Don't compromise quality for price.

Visit washable sofas.com to upgrade your living space today with no risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Get up to 60% off plus free shipping and free returns.

Shop now at washable sofas.com.

Authors are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

What does Zinn really give you?

Not just smoke-free nicotine satisfaction, but also real freedom to do more of what you love, when and where you want to do it.

Why bring Zinn along for the ride?

Because America's number one nicotine pouch opens up all the possibilities of right now.

With Zinn, you don't just find freedom.

You keep finding it.

Find your Zen.

Learn more at Zen.com.

Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

What happens when Delta Airlines sends four creators around the world to find out what is the true power of travel?

I love that both trips have very similar mental and social perks.

Very much so.

On both trips, their emotional well-being and social well-being went through the roof.

Find out more about how travel can support well-being on this special episode of the Psychology of your 20s presented by Delta fly and live better listen wherever you get your podcasts Drew and Sue and Eminem's minis

and baking the surprise birthday cake for Lou

and Sue forgetting that her oven doesn't really work and Drew remembering that they don't have flour

and Lou getting home early from work which he never does And Drew and Sue using the rest of the tubes of Eminem's minis as party poppers instead.

I think this is one of those moments where people say, it's the thought that counts.

MMs, it's more fun together.

Callzone Media.

There is a regular episode this week.

A proper second episode for a brand new show.

Something I put a lot of time into to give listeners to the show what I hope is an impressive introduction to it.

It's already recorded and edited and scheduled.

But I realized on Sunday night what the date was, August 11th.

How can I tell you, my new listeners, about the weird little guys trying to ruin America without acknowledging that?

Today, as I'm writing this, it's Monday, August 12th, 2024.

Seven years ago, Charlottesville was invaded by neo-Nazis, Confederates, secessionists, white supremacists, white nationalists, racists, and anti-Semites of all allegiances.

That's what started my obsession.

That's where this show was truly born.

Because I spent the last seven years trying to understand those men.

What brought them here?

What made them that way?

What do they actually believe and what are they just saying out of opportunism or for shock value?

And do they even know the difference anymore?

Weird little guys, this show wouldn't exist but for the years I've spent looking for and then looking at those guys in particular and then trying to track them back in time.

What groups were they in?

Who runs those?

Who founded them?

What ideological lineage do they spring from?

When I look at a photograph of a man beating my neighbors in the streets of my hometown, I wonder not just, who is he?

But how did he get here?

And I don't mean did he fly into the Charlottesville airport and then rent a car?

Did he park in the garage downtown or on some side street?

in front of a house where someone I love is raising their family.

I mean who did he follow?

And how did that man arrive at a place where he could command command strangers from the internet to follow him into battle?

It's like making a family tree, but the fruit is bitter and rotten, and the roots are cracking our foundations.

I think as the show progresses, many of the men who played a role in the Unite the Right rally will earn their own full episode.

A lot of them are incredibly weird little guys, without a doubt.

But it didn't feel right letting this week go by without marking it.

without putting a pin in the state to say, here is where the show was born.

Because over the years, as I accumulated thousands of pages of notes trying to find a source for what happened here, I realized the timeline of one man's crimes doesn't begin with the date of the charged conduct on the affidavit.

It doesn't begin the day he decided ideological violence was an option for him.

It doesn't begin the day he joined an extremist organization or the day he was radicalized or even the day he was born.

The more I dug on any one story, the more I realized you have to reach decades into the past to even begin to understand why you were looking at a photograph of a man with his hands around the throat of a counter protester in full view of an entire police department.

Charlottesville, as people refer to that day, that event in this place, didn't begin when they bought their boarding passes or joined the Discord.

It started before they were born.

And it continues long after the barricades were removed and everyone went home.

That's a very long story, and I hope I can get started on it with this show, but today we can't start at the beginning.

We're still in the middle.

I don't know how much preamble you need.

I don't know if you remember the Unite the Right rally beyond a handful of the same photos every outlet seems to run as shorthand for white supremacist violence.

A few fleeting images.

A close-up photo of men shoulder to shoulder, torches in hands, mouths open, mid-shout, faces contorted with the effort to be heard above the roar, to have their cry of Jews will not replace us be the loudest.

A man's body tossed into the air, bouncing off a Dodge challenger.

You've seen the photo.

I know you have.

But do you know his name?

A photo of a line of men in homemade uniforms and plastic helmets cosplaying as American black shirts plowing through peaceful protesters.

You'd recognize these images if you saw them.

You've seen them.

You'd look at them and say, that's from Charlottesville.

But you wouldn't mean Charlottesville, the place.

The mid-sized college town where people cross the street in that spot every day to get to the public library.

No, you'd mean Charlottesville, the moment in time, Charlottesville, the violence, Charlottesville, the Nazi rally.

And that's not your fault.

That's completely understandable.

That just means it's my responsibility to ground these stories in the places where they happen, to tether these individual men to the context from which they arose.

Today as I write this, I had to get up from my computer to go downtown.

I stopped at 4th Street.

There are always purple ribbons tied around a street sign at the intersection where Heather Heyer was murdered.

Her favorite color.

Today there is a small vigil.

I didn't know Heather, but I stop on that spot often to think of her.

Today I stopped at that spot for a few minutes, and then I walked to the courthouse to sit for hours listening to lawyers argue motions in a case against one of the headline speakers at the rally that killed her.

Seven years to the day, to the hour, to the minute.

even.

And I'm sitting in a tiny upstairs courtroom with a man who never got to give his speech at the rally that day.

A courthouse employee held a door open for me.

I'm there so often, they're used to seeing me in my little notebook.

He told me, I look nice today.

I said, thank you.

Because the alternative was to say that I'm wearing my blue sundress with birds on it because the birds are purple and it was the only thing I could find this morning and purple was Heather's favorite color.

It doesn't matter at all, but when there's nothing you can do, you do things that don't make sense.

I didn't know her.

I don't think she would care if the birds on my dress are purple.

But I woke up this morning on the date that she died, and all I can really do is to keep trying to tell the stories of the men who set a murderer on a collision course with the crowd she marched with that day.

Heather Heyer was a person, a real person with a job, a little dog, and friends, and a family who loved her.

It isn't fair to her memory to reduce her to a martyr, a concept, an idea, to shrink her down to the moment of her death and to use her name as shorthand for lives lost to fascist violence.

She was not the first or the last innocent life lost to right-wing extremism.

But her death is what set me on this path.

And I remember her today, and I hope you will too.

It is perhaps a bit trite to end with a quote from Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

But in his 1963 book, Strength to Love, he wrote, Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Dr.

King may have had the strength to love his enemies.

Your pastor would tell you, Jesus wants you to love your enemies.

I don't know that I have that strength, but I work so hard not to harden my heart.

I am actively working every day to remind myself, I don't do this because I hate my enemies.

I do this because I love everyone else.

I know Dr.

King had something else in mind, but when I say only love can drive out hate, I don't mean we have to love the ones that hate us.

I don't...

think our love can transform the hate in their hearts.

Maybe your pastor can do that.

Maybe you can can do that.

But what I mean is that we have to love each other enough to protect the most vulnerable among us.

We have to love our vision of the world that we want to live in enough to fight for it.

We have to love the idea of a society without them in it enough to throw our bodies down like sandbags against a rising tide of fascism.

And the light driving out the darkness?

That's what I hope to be.

I want to shine a light into these dark corners.

Like laundry hung on the line to bleach the stains, I want to be the hot southern sun on an afternoon in August.

And that's why I'm showing you these weird little guys.

Weird Little Guys is a production of CoolZone Media.

For more from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill, pets shed, and accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washable sofas.com.

Starting at just $699,

our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out.

So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washable sofas.com today and save.

That's washable sofas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Ah, smart water.

Pure, crisp taste, perfectly refreshing.

Wow, that's really good water.

With electrolytes for taste, it's the kind of water that says, I have my life together.

I'm still pretending the laundry on the chair is part of the decor.

Yep, here you are, making excellent hydration choices.

I do feel more sophisticated.

That's called having a taste for taste.

Huh, a taste for taste.

I like that.

Smart water.

For those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime.

My husband said, your dad's been killed.

This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Melgar.

I was just completely in shock.

Liz's father murdered.

And her mother found locked in a closet, her hands and feet bound.

It didn't feel real at all.

More than a decade on, she's still searching for answers.

We're still fighting.

Listen to Hands Tied on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It was an unimaginable crime.

It's four consecutive live terms for Brian Koberger, who killed the four University of Idaho students.

Nearly 30 months of silence.

Until

bombshell development Brian Koberger has agreed to plead guilty.

No trial, no testimony.

The defense are on the sinking ship.

This isn't the justice you wanted, but this is justice.

Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart podcast.