Click link below picture

Editors Note:”Diana Ratcliff is a cousin of Heather Heyer. A political science graduate of the University of Michigan, she interned in the US Senate and worked on Al Gore’s presidential campaign staff. She is now studying nursing. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

 

This last week has been surreal for my family. We lost one of our own in one of the most public ways possible. A man in a car ran down my cousin, Heather Heyer, because she decided to join her fellow Charlottesville residents against the neo-Nazis and white supremacists on their streets.

My family — we are not the kind of family that is targeted by hate crimes. We come from a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant background with Appalachian heritage. We have never had to be afraid that someone would target us or lynch us because of the color of our skin.
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We never had to worry someone wouldn’t hire us because of the way we look. We never have to worry that our children might become victims of someone else’s prejudice. We’ve never been told we can’t live in a certain neighborhood or attend a certain school because of the color of our skin. Until last week, we had no idea what it feels like to lose someone to hate.

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University of Virginia holds vigil

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Click link below for article and video:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/19/opinions/heather-heyer-cousin-racism-has-no-place-in-america/index.html

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