The mayor of Charlottesville despises her own city
Fear and loathing.
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The mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, really, really hates Charlottesville, Virginia.
Good luck trying to figure that one out.
Mayor Nikuyah Walker turned heads Wednesday after she posted a brief “poem” (it seems we’re using that term very loosely these days) to social media condemning her own city as a hotbed of racism and bigotry.
“Charlottesville: The beautiful-ugly it is,” she writes. “It rapes you, comforts you in its [soiled] sheet and tells you to keep its secrets.”
Good Lord. If you’re having a rough day at the office, go to the local bar and blow off some steam like everyone else. There’s no need to go on a public, wild-eyed rant about the place that employs you, comparing it to a rapist. There’s certainly no good reason to do it on social media.
Amazingly, this is not all. Walker, who became Charlottesville’s first black mayor in 2017, posted a lengthier, more fleshed-out version of her “poem” later Wednesday afternoon, committing fully to the rapist imagery.
“Charlottesville: The beautiful-ugly it is,” she writes, failing again to come up with a word to capture the idea that something can be both beautiful and ugly at the same time (try “tragic” next time). “It lynched you, hung the noose at city hall and pressed the souvenir that was once your finger against its lips. It covers your death with its good intentions. It is a place where white women with Black kids collects signature for a white man who questions whether a black woman understands white supremacy.”
The “poem” continues, claiming Charlottesville is “destructively world class. White people say that it is a place where gentrification started with the election of a Black women in 2017 and because of white power, a lie becomes #facts.”
She continues, at length.
“Its daily practice is that of separating you from your soul,” the mayor writes. “Charlottesville is void of a moral compass. It’s as if good ole [Thomas Jefferson] is still cleverly using his whip to whip the current inhabitants into submissiveness.”
“Current inhabitants” is a weird way to spell “constituents.” Speaking of which, Walker's rant represents some pretty wild constituent service.
“Charlottesville rapes you of your breaths,” Walker writes. “It suffocates your hopes and dreams. It liberates you by conveniently redefining liberation. It progressively chants while conservatively acts. Charlottesville is anchored in white supremacy and rooted in racism. Charlottesville rapes you and covers you in sullied sheets.”
Mercifully, this is where her “poem” ends. Honestly, it’s tough to tell which is worse: that Walker clearly despises the city that honored her with its greatest leadership role or that she actually considers her weird, rape-obsessed ramblings a form of "poetry."
Look, poetry doesn't have to adhere to a basic rhyme and meter scheme. But if a “poem” is merely a jumbled paragraph of random grievances, one that flows in no discernible way, that’s not really a “poem.” That’s called a manifesto. And if you find yourself scribbling a manifesto detailing all the ways in which you hate your place of employment, perhaps it’s time to find another job.