Here's a really simplified response that once I say it will probably seem obvious. People can be both stupid and/or insensitive without being racist. In fact, I would argue most people are stupid and insensitive regardless of whether they are racist.
This is my last time I’m going to respond, but feel free to reply again and get the last word.
Being stupid and insensitive is when you complain you’re not sure how to spend your bonus to your cash strapped friend. Protesting with Nazis and the kkk to defend a statue of the leader of the confederate army, is a blatant act of white supremacy. I see there’s a fundamental disagreement here, where you think this act is not racist and I do. I don’t think either of us are going to be convinced by the other ones argument.
To add some more color here anyway. These people marching through Charlottesville were also chanting “Jews will not replace us”, again I don’t see how a very fine person hears people around them chanting that, sees people carrying nazi flags, sees members of the kkk and continues to protest with them. This is not stupid and insensitive, this is white supremacy.
You're over-estimating people. I would bet money that at least a few people at that rally had no idea who Robert E. Lee is, but thought the statue was pretty.
White nationalists do not typically advertise themselves as such. They recruit by gentle indoctrination. If you look at the posters for the event, they seem pretty innocuous if you weren't already woke to the names of the speakers. You're taking information you know after the fact and assuming that everyone there had that information at the time they showed up.
There were more than two groups there. It was a public event. While there were Nazis there, it wasn't advertised as a Nazi event. Nazi flags doesn't make everyone there bad in exactly the same way Hammer and Sickle flags and some Che Guevara shirts don't make everyone at a left wing rally bad.
