The first snow of the season in early December made my Charlottesville street look brand new, laying a clean white sheet over a city with a dirty history.
The cold bit my cheeks as I scraped ice off my car and thought about making hot chocolate and other warm winter treats. So many of my favorite childhood memories happened in snow, and this weather always fills me with nostalgic comfort. I was still grinning as I started the engine and backed out of my driveway, only for my smile to fade when I saw what was written in the snow on a car parked directly in front of my house.
The word “nigger” was etched in ice on the windshield. And if that wasn’t enough, a penis was drawn above it.
The car it was written on didn’t belong to me or my housemate, but I knew the message was meant for us. We are both Black women and the only two non-white people who live on the street in our Fry’s Spring neighborhood that was formally segregated by racially restrictive covenants.
When my housemate saw the slur, she was visibly shaken. She said it made her feel unwelcome and unsafe. I was mildly annoyed, but unfazed. I have become numb to this particular brand of violence.
Mine was the only brown body at an all-white school until second grade, an oddity in classrooms where kids said they couldn’t play with me because their parents didn’t like that my dad is Black and my mom is white. I later attended Towson University, where boys who idolized Hitler founded a White Student Union in 2012, chalked “White Pride” all over campus, and patrolled school grounds in search of “Black predators.” After graduation, Matt Heimbach, who started the group at Towson, became a key organizer of the 2017 Unite the Right Rally here in Charlottesville. So while I wasn’t happy to see that insult written in the snow, I understand it as an ordinary consequence of being a minority in a predominantly white area.
Everyone whom my housemate and I told about what happened told us to file a police report. They said it’s a hate crime that must be reported. I wasn’t so sure.
I view police in the U.S as a legacy of slave patrols, as the NAACP explains. Police used violence to control Black people and stop freedom rebellions. Today, cops who use excessive force are rarely held accountable — and Charlottesville police officers are no exception.
When former Charlottesville Police Department officer Joseph Wood unlawfully detained LaQuinn Gilmore in 2021 and gave him a concussion, Charlottesville’s top prosecutor Joe Platania didn’t pursue criminal charges. Then Chief RaShall Brakney said in a statement about the officers involved, “Their actions highlight the injustices that permeate the fabric of our society and of a criminal-legal system that is rooted in supremacy and anti-black violence.” A federal lawsuit against the officer was settled in 2022 for an undisclosed sum (subscription required).
ProPublica reported that the same department “stood by” during the 2017 Unite the Right Rally while violence and chaos erupted. On top of that, the Police Civilian Oversight Board, established after that summer to hold the department accountable, has only reviewed one case because the police stopped sharing records with the Board. The oversight body is only now regrouping to try and fulfill its mission.
This is all to say, if I need help, I will exhaust all other options first before calling the police because I do not inherently trust them.
Since everyone we told was hellbent on reporting this to the police, I called a friend of mine who I met while I lived at Yogaville, a Black guy who I trust who works in the Charlottesville Police Department. If we had to deal with cops, I wanted to talk to someone who I knew would take the situation seriously.
Why are we always asked to wait until someone gets physically hurt or property is permanently damaged before anything can be done? Even if something worse were to happen, I have no faith that the institutions responsible to protect us will hold anyone accountable.
—Brianna Patten on facing racist speech
The conversation with my police officer friend went just as I expected. Even though he understood the gravity of the situation, he still works within an institution that was not designed to support minorities. He explained to me that since the car wasn’t mine, the owner (a white woman who lives across the street) would have to be the one who reported the incident. And since it was written in snow and not with something more permanent like spray paint, it was not technically vandalism. There was nothing he could do except write a report so that it’s documented in case something more serious happens in the future.
The official police report describes the incident only as “SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE/PERSON/VEHICLE.”
I was disappointed, but it was the outcome I expected.
Later that day, I went on a walk around town and thought about what the officer told me, that the impermanence of writing in the snow meant the act wasn’t something the police could take action on. It reminded me of my senior year of college at Towson when someone drew a swastika and wrote “nigger” on the whiteboard on my door. University staff told me the same thing then — it’s not permanent so nothing can be done, but call again if something worse happens.
Why are we always asked to wait until someone gets physically hurt or property is permanently damaged before anything can be done? Even if something worse were to happen, I have no faith that the institutions responsible to protect us will hold anyone accountable.
My pessimistic thoughts were interrupted when I turned the corner and saw kids in my neighborhood sledding down a huge hill. Black and white elementary-age children were working diligently to attach their four sleds together. When they finally figured out how to connect them, they all laid on top of each other, sliding down the hill head-first, screaming and laughing the entire way down.
It warmed my heart to see such unbridled childhood joy. But still, after what had happened that morning, it felt like Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream and an American nightmare were happening simultaneously.
I couldn’t help but wonder, when will the harsh realities of this world claim their childhood innocence? How long until the sun melts the clean white snow and reveals the ground beneath?
Editor’s note: Charlottesville Tomorrow reached out to the Charlottesville Police Department about this incident and how they handle racist speech that is not considered vandalism. They did not respond in time for publication.
