Vice's video about white supremacists in Charlottesville

Kottke says: “This is perhaps the best on-the-ground view of what went down in Charlottesville over the weekend. It’s graphic in spots. Prepare to get angry and sad and frustrated and scared.”

On Saturday hundreds of white nationalists, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia to participate in the “Unite the Right” rally. By Saturday evening three people were dead — one protester, and two police officers — and many more injured.

“VICE News Tonight” correspondent Elle Reeve went behind the scenes with white nationalist leaders, including Christopher Cantwell, Robert Ray, David Duke, and Matthew Heimbach — as well as counter-protesters. VICE News Tonight also spoke with residents of Charlottesville, members of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Charlottesville Police.

From the neo-Nazi protests at Emancipation Park to Cantwell’s hideaway outside of Virginia, “VICE News Tonight” provides viewers with exclusive, up close and personal access inside the unrest.

UPDATE 8/15/2017:Independent documentary photographer Daniel Hosterman wrote: “I think the Vice piece did a reasonable job showing on very small slice of what happened in Charlottesville and in the typical Vice, sensationalist style. It definitely showed a lot of the extremist language and ideology of the white supremacist contingent and showed how they can be terrifying. Those of us on the ground — who have been to events like these before — already knew that.

What the Vice video did not show was the nature of the folks resisting these white supremacists, the utter disregard of law enforcement for the safety of the citizens of Charlottesville, and the really powerful displays of bravery I witnessed over those couple of days.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts on a series of photographs at my Instagram account (@dhosterman), and many more I’m still trying to process now that I’m home. I really appreciate your reporting and just want to be sure this Vice piece doesn’t become your canonical view of the events in Charlottesville.

So, a quick observation I made during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA: There was a lot of bravado and drama from various "patriot", III%, and other militia groups regarding their involvement in the rally. Some of the drama emerged from dicussions about whether it makes sense for patriots to support the domestic organizing of Nazis, but that's not particularly interesting. Any rational person understands that's an untenable position to hold. The interesting part is that despite this drama, there was 1) a small contingent of these "patriots" present, providing "security" for the Nazis, 2) they were very visible, armed, and active when the anti-Nazi contingent was primarily singing clergy, and 3) they were conspicuously absent when actual skirmishes occured between more militant protesters and the white supremacists.

A post shared by Daniel Hosterman (@dhosterman) on Aug 13, 2017 at 12:30am PDT

On June 10, 2017, in Raleigh, NC, 250+ protesters from various local groups including Muslims for Social Justice, Movement to End Racism and Islamophobia, North Carolina Asian Americans Together, IWW, and Redneck Revolt gathered to oppose the anti-Muslim protests organized by ACT for America, a group that has been categorized as an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. . . . After the rally, the protesters marched to the capitol building to confront ACT for America face-to-face. Despite the presence of police, militia, and militant white supremacists groups such as Identity Evropa, these protesters took the streets, outnumbering the anti-Muslim 3-to-1. . . . #photojournalism #documentary #documentaryphotography #monochrome #blackandwhite #bnw #bw #blackandwhitephotography #fuji #fujifilm #CounterACTHate #NCCounterACT #protest

A post shared by Daniel Hosterman (@dhosterman) on Jun 10, 2017 at 6:25pm PDT

No fear in the face of fascism, racism, and white supremacy.

A post shared by Daniel Hosterman (@dhosterman) on Aug 14, 2017 at 2:32pm PDT