Kamala Harris: After Charlottesville, don’t let extremism define us

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is calling for Americans not to let “extremists define us” after the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

Harris wrote in a lengthy Facebook post Sunday that there were not “many sides” to the violence at the rally, as President Trump said during his comments Saturday. One person was killed and more than a dozen others injured after a man plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters.

Trump has since faced criticism for refusing to call out far-right groups by name.

“‘Many sides’ is what kept children in this country at separate schools and adults at separate lunch counters for decades. ‘Many sides’ is what turned a blind eye when Emmett Till was lynched and stood silent when marchers were beat in Selma for ‘disturbing the peace,’” Harris wrote.

{mosads}She noted that the rally was held to protest the removal of a Confederate statue that “celebrated men who fought for an America that kept human beings enslaved. That’s an America in which I’d never be allowed to vote, much less be elected a U.S. Senator.”

Harris said white supremacists were protesting “attacks on their self perceived racial superiority” and questioned how the group would feel if they had faced the same restrictions oppressed groups in America have dealt with for decades.

She called for fellow lawmakers to continue fighting discrimination in Congress by passing laws against acts of hate.

“It’s easy to tweet that hate has no place in America. But no legislator should be allowed to be horrified on a Saturday and then vote to drag America backward on a Monday,” Harris wrote.

“We don’t have to let extremists define us. Opportunities to do right are right in front of us. We just have to seize them,” she said.