‘Unite The Right’ White Supremacists Must Pay Millions

White supremacist leaders and organizations involved in the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville now have a new reason to cry about imaginary anti-white oppression in America now that a federal appeals court awarded more than $26 million in damages to people who were injured physically or emotionally during the deadly event.

In October 2021, a federal lawsuit was filed against the tiki-torch-wielding white men who made polo shirts and khakis the new Klan robes and, by the next month, they had been ordered to pay the eight plaintiffs $26 million, $24 million of which was for punitive damages. The defendants were probably breathing sighs of relief when a judge later slashed that amount to $350,000 to be shared between the plaintiffs citing a Virginia law that imposes a $350,000 cap on punitive damages. However, on Monday, the appeals court ruled that cap should be applied to each plaintiff, not split between them, so it restored the more than $2 million each that they were originally awarded. The 4th Circuit panel, which voted 3-0 in favor of the plaintiffs, said in its ruling that the state law’s language was “clear enough to predict how Virginia’s high court would rule.”

“Over two years ago, the jury used its $24 million punitive damages award to send an unmistakable message to the defendants and to the public about the outrageous misconduct that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. While the law compels us to reduce the award, it’s long past time for that message to be delivered,” Chief Judge Albert Diaz wrote.

This is as good a time as any to remind folks that the main reason the Unite the Right protesters were demonstrating was over the city’s plan to remove the Confederate monument of General Robert E. Lee. Imagine having to pay $26 million just for a failed attempt at saving Charlottesville’s ode to intergenerational Black servitude and torture. White supremacy is starting to get kind of pricey, ain’t it?

The appeals court decision comes just under a month after the criminal trial for Jacob Dix, one of the angry and aggrieved white men charged with using flaming torches to intimidate counter-protesters during the rally, ended in a mistrial. Dix is due back in court in August when prosecutors are expected to request a new trial and defense attorneys are expected to seek a full dismissal of the case.

Besides Dix and the defendants who now have to pay out $26 million, fallout from the Unite the Right rally includes a now-former Enid, Oklahoma, city council member, Judd Blevins, who was ousted over his participation in the rally—among other white supremacist offenses—and, of course, James Alex Fields Jr., who is serving a life sentence after driving his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens more. Another participant, Teddy Joseph Von Nukem, died by suicide last year ahead of his drug trafficking trial, which was unrelated to the rally.

So, it’s been a long, hard ride and an even harder fall for the neo-Nazis who chanted “We will not be replaced by Jews” at counter-protesters while they were trying to save the statue of a warrior for the preservation of slavery.

But, there were “very fine people on both sides,” amirite?