As a female minority journalist, I know US media didn't create white supremacists – those who stood by quietly did

I've largely stayed away from expressing my personal thoughts on the violence that erupted over the weekend in Charlottesville, mostly because I was reporting on it as the story broke.

I had to make a conscious effort to take a step back to keep whatever shred of sanity I have left intact as a politics reporter in this day and age in America.

In the nearly two years since Donald Trump came on to the political stage, this has become a daily effort for female immigrant journalists like myself.

First, I want to express my deepest sympathies to Heather Heyer, who was killed when a car ploughed into a crowd and Berke Bates and H Jay Cullen, the police officers who died when their helicopter crashed. My heart goes out to their relatives and to all those who were injured.

And I want to address one particular issue: the blaming of “the media” – as if it is some singular entity – for creating the events in Charlottesville.

On Monday, co-hosts of the Fox & Friends programme on Fox News questioned the criticism of Trump’s initial statements on Charlottesville in which he said “many sides” were responsible for the violence. I thought we had agreed, as a society, that Nazism was the line we would never cross. We don't have many of those lines as a planet, but I did think that the Second World War added Nazis to that shortlist.

I found it personally offensive that the network decided to blame the media for Charlottesville.

Let's get one thing straight: no mainstream news outlet created this past weekend – not even Fox News. There is simply one group at fault for the tragic events: racists, neo-Nazis, white supremacists.

Why is it that a neo-Nazi who was driven to scream and beat African American protesters in Charlottesville is seen as a product of cable news rather than a product of politicians in Washington ignoring his needs and concerns or, simply put, a product of racism and colonial history?

This is absolutely not to say our industry as a whole cannot do a better job of covering the President and social issues, particularly where minority groups and race relations are concerned. But to blame us for this chaos is dangerous and wrong.

Journalism is largely dominated by white men, but I am part of it too. And I assure you I had nothing to do with creating a white supremacist, much less a group of them. I simply tell you they exist.

Silence is not an option for people who look like me but it should not be an option for anyone after Charlottesville who has any semblance of humanity.

So I have a personal message to the overt and covert Trump supporters. You’re a fiscal conservative; you appreciate that Trump is “business savvy” and want to save the federal government money. You wanted a person in office that was not tainted by the Washington stink of lobbyists and political dealmaking.

You hated Hillary Clinton for not being “softer” or for pushing healthcare and foreign aid policies that appeared wasteful, while failing to prioritise national security.

In the election-that-would-never-end, you grew sick of the wall-to-wall coverage and with every day grew angrier at the “hypocritical leftist media” in their mocking coverage of Trump.

You hated Barack Obama for his aloofness and professorial qualities, the latter of which Trump certainly has not exhibited.

OK, fine.

You saw that picture of a young black man with a spray-can of fire in Charlottesville, a now iconic image of this watershed moment.

But what you didn’t realise was that he was attempting to protect the old white man to his right in the picture, who said he felt unsafe protesting the oncoming, angry mob of white nationalists that can clearly be seen approaching.

Don’t let all this cloud your judgement on something as base and vile as torch-wielding Hitler Youth who are intent on defending something that wasn't theirs to begin with – a white, “untarnished” America.

Don’t bother thinking too hard about what it means to want to keep a statue of Civil War Confederate General Robert E Lee in place, knowing the history of the bloodiest war in American history and the hundreds of years of brutal slavery which he fought to preserve.

It is a monument even Lee opposed because he felt it was leaving the wounds of war open.

Did we, the media, “sensationalise” President Trump's initial statement on Charlottesville?

You could argue that – but why should one of the most diverse societies in the world, a beacon for the immigrant dream, accept anything less than an unequivocal denouncement of racist hate and violent xenophobic prejudice?

The New York Post tabloid pages may have “created” the persona of Donald Trump in the 1980s, but in 2017 he is an adult – and a President – expected to take responsibility for the country and for his own actions.

There is no option to remain silent in light of such audacious comments from the leader of the free world. Not for me, at least.