Lakewood Students Against the Horrors of Charlottesville


Halina Dreger

On August 12, the world watched as self-proclaimed Alt-Rightists and white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest globalist policies and the removal of Confederate statues. The historic event was named “Unite the Right” by its organizers and caused an eruption of violence between the protesters and counter-protesters, resulting in one death.

Of course, many individuals, including students at Lakewood High School, have constructed their own opinions regarding the incident.

“I think that the police should have controlled it more, and that they should have beaten up all those white supremacists,” says Claire Schuppel, a sophomore.

Another 10th-grader, Jack Wynn, believes that the hatred expressed during the rally was uncalled for.

“I think that anyone in the United States that supports a fascist political party that hasn’t existed since 1945 is pretty stupid. I think anyone in the United States of America who supports an illegitimate nation state the existed solely for the purposes of subjugating the black man and has not existed for 163 years is equally stupid,” says Wynn. “However, I also feel that violence is not the answer to combat these people, and [that] the United States needs more love and understanding as well as the fact that when you say, ‘punch a Nazi,’ a lot of people mean ‘punch someone with vaguely right-winged beliefs, which I don’t think is right…I just think that it’s a very slippery slope that we’ve been riding on for a long time… where we’ve just been sort of destroying things without any actual logic or rhyme or reason, without knowing any actual facts, and without understanding both sides of the issue…[but] I think I can definitely disavow white supremacy without any hesitation.”

Sophomores aren’t the only pupils with strong positions regarding the topic. Jay Tamilio, a senior, says that while “both sides…had the right to be there… [because] both the protests started peacefully,” he also denounced the violence that took place, insisting that he “despise[s] that a church that is centered around love and peace and tolerance [got] attacked, and a guy [ran] over people with a car.”

Clearly, those at Lakewood High condemn the violence that occurred during the Unite the Right rally. Hopefully, with so many intelligent young people in our school and in others, this generation can grow into one that will battle the Nazis and white supremacists that remain in America, and who have no place in a country founded on freedom.