VIRGINIA BEACH — For a long time, Susan Bro didn’t buy into the idea of white privilege.
Born into a lower middle-class family, Bro said she struggled for everything she had. Her children didn’t have it much easier. They grew up in a trailer while she worked as a teacher to support them after her marriage to their father fell apart.
Bro had friends outside of her race, but she couldn’t level with the idea that she, as a white woman, might have more societal privilege than them because of the color of her skin.
She said she later changed her mind after several conversations with her African American friends and one of her children, ushering her into a new realm of civil rights — a cause her daughter would ultimately die for.
Bro is the mother of Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal who died in Charlottesville after James Alex Fields Jr. allegedly drove a car into a group of counter-protesters at the “Unite the Right” rally in Emancipation Park on Aug. 12.
The rally drew hundreds of people to the central Virginia city where a heated encounter ensued, in part over a statue of Robert E. Lee erected in Emancipation Park. Some wanted the statue to remain in the area as a reminder of the American Civil War, while others said it was a symbol of the systemic oppression of the enslaved black community that should be removed from the public space.
Although Bro didn’t know her daughter would be at the protest, she wasn’t surprised that Heyer attended. She said her daughter had always been a kind person who stood up for other people.
“Heather’s not the first person to die for the civil rights movement. She’s not even the first white person to die, but she’s the first white person to die in a long time,” Bro said. “A white girl dies and then it’s big news, and that’s kind of sad to me.”
Four months to the day that her daughter died, Bro spoke on a panel of seven people about hate and racial equality at the Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library in Virginia Beach.
Her presence at the forum is one in a series of actions Bro has taken to uphold her daughter’s legacy, including the creation of the Heather Heyer Foundation, which has established a scholarship for other young people who desire to see social change.
The speakers also included licensed psychotherapist Allison Abrams; civil litigator Courtney Fraizer; Dr. Antipas Harris, the founding dean of the Urban Renewal Center in Norfolk; Imam Rachid Khould, a Muslim man who is a member of Hands United Building Bridges; Native American author and activist Vincent Schilling; and Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman of the Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach.
The discussion, titled “The Psychology and Contagion of Hate,” touched on a myriad of topics, including white privilege, race relations during the President Donald Trump administration and how people learn — and unlearn — to hate. Speakers also briefly addressed Confederate monuments like the one Heyer was protesting when she died.
“Statues are part of the struggle for white supremacy,” Harris said. “We need to have a memorial for something that’s meaningful to the future.”
The discussion wasn’t limited to race relations between black and white people, but also delved into the impact hate has on other cultures like the Jewish community. Zoberman, who spent his early years in refugee camps in Austria and Germany after his Jewish parents escaped from Poland, spoke to the resiliency of his family who was able to build normal lives even after witnessing atrocities.
“Humans are resilient,” he said, adding that he believes Adolf Hitler’s mass extermination of Jewish people in Europe during the Holocaust stemmed from the same type of hate rooted in people today — but carried out in a very extreme way.
Schilling spoke about the lingering pain experienced by Native Americans because of the genocide of indigenous people in the United States. He pointed to the flippant use of Native American culture in society — from people who wear native headdresses for fashion, to the debate circling the renaming of the Washington Redskins football team — as causing pain for indigenous people, specifically teenagers.
“The reality of self-hate is devastating to my community,” Schilling said. “I see myself where? It’s not my face, it’s a cartoon face. This self-hate is real.”
Khould said that he tries to take a teacher’s approach when speaking with people about Islam. He said he often meets people who don’t know much about the religion and believes education can help bridge the understanding between the Eastern and Western worldviews.
“You have to reach out to them, shake hands and talk to them,” he said. “I believe in talking to people and educating people.”
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