This week, members of the alt-right, self-proclaimed white supremacists and neo-nazis led a march (which eventually turned violent) in Charlottesville, VA.

News of the demonstration was met with horror, outrage, and shock; who were these people that had come from seemingly out of nowhere to display their intolerance and hate?

For my town of Arlington, Virginia, the answer was "our next door neighbors." In fact, the leader of the march, Richard Spencer, was living in Alexandria, Virginia at the time, about a 15-minute drive from my neighborhood. And he hardly came out of nowhere - in fact, just around a month ago, he was suspected to be the person responsible for putting up racist posters and fliers around Del Rey and other parts of Alexandria.

Though this particular person was only the neighbor of those in my area, he very well could have been anyone's neighbor. I feel it is necessary to say this because, as I mentioned last week, I've noticed a tendency to think of racists as poor, backwards hillbillies, which is just extremely uninformed and does nobody any good.

In reality, a lot of the ringleaders of this racist march - Spencer himself as an example - were clean cut, had gone to prestigious schools, and held steady jobs. They did not "look like racists", as some people might say. They weren't treated like racists, either. Despite their radical ideology they were able to still take their place among the rest of society and live relatively normal lives aside from a few disapproving glances and "tut-tut's."

I couldn't help but wonder why these people felt so comfortable with touting an openly hateful ideology. What does their level of comfort say about the status quo in this country?

There were two conclusions that I came to. The more comforting conclusion would be that these people feel safe because of the protections of the First Amendment. The more probable one, in my opinion, is that these people know they will not be held accountable. They may make it on to national news and be met with general distaste, but in the end, they will face no serious consequences. Someone will always be willing to entertain their point of view or willing to make excuses for them. This is probably because we would rather not believe that mentally stable, well-educated can hold these opinions and behave like this. The truth is, perfectly healthy people who have received nothing but the best of what society has to offer can and do hold these opinions, and that should concern people.