is unfortunately not unique to Charlottesville.

Look we recently moved to Tacoma, WA, traditionally a working-class town, more racially diverse than other parts of Washington including Seattle probably, and of course, in the 1980's in particular the scene of some infamous drive-by shootings and drug arrests in the area known as Hilltop. Over the past 30 years as the city has cleaned up its polluting industries like Asarco and moved in some more white collar jobs alongside the dock workers and military guys from nearby JBLM, there has been friction over gentrification of the older neighborhoods. Traditionally, the city is divided along a central street called 6th Avenue (why it isn't 1st or Main is a mystery to me), with the northern part mostly white and affluent and the southern part mostly black, Asian and Hispanic minorities. I found out why, at least in part. After WWII, Tacoma like a lot of other cities, was heavily red-lined. Minorities, especially black people, couldn't get loans to buy houses in the "desirable" areas.

You know what follows. A generational loss of wealth by black Tacomans vs accumulation of it by whites getting their cheap government loans. Higher density housing and lower property values south of 6th. Better schools in the northern part of town. Higher crime rates to the south and of course more policing. It's the same old song, played out in city after city. Despite minor improvements, and honestly some big improvements w/r/t crime, the system is still divided by class and by race. Like Charlottesville, Tacoma also has a black mayor. The community seems to want to try some things; even exploring the implementation of Universal Basic Income. The BLM protests here were peaceful, even though we had a George Floyd-like incident involving Tacoma PD in February. But there's a long way to go.

My point is that Charlottesville is hardly alone in these problems. They're real. As the old saying goes though, the first step to solve a problem is admitting that you have one. Which is why I regard the hand-wringing over negative articles about that town with suspicion. It's a lot easier for us, white liberals included, to make superficial changes or to not recognize it in the first place or even to make the argument about history or loss of white identity (in the extreme case, of course).