Over the weekend, an 18-year-old, a self-proclaimed white supremacist walked into a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, with a semi-automatic rifle with the N-word painted on it. He shot thirteen people with that rifle. Eleven of those people were black. And ultimately, ten people lost their lives from this senseless racist violence. Donned in full body armor, the gunman live-streamed the killings for the world to see. Yet somehow, he made it out of the supermarket alive and well. Those of us with a darker complexion know that we wouldn’t have fared so well in the same situation.
As the headlines rolled in, each one illustrated how difficult the media finds it to simply label situations like this as the racist, terroristic attacks that they are. They use words like “racially charged” or insist that we wait for all more facts. And this happens even when the killer writes an almost 200-page manifesto and refers to himself as a white supremacist. He traveled four hours to carry this out in a predominately black area. He vowed to “kill as many black people as possible.” The deliberate choice to avoid the truth speaks to America’s ongoing issue with blatant racism and how there’s always an attempt to cover it up.
What happened in Buffalo brings back dark memories of June 2015. Another racist white male, Dylann Roof, walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. The churchgoers exemplified the warm, loving nature of God-fearing black people. Even though he looked like he didn’t belong there, they welcomed him with open arms to worship God with them. He repaid them by murdering nine of them in the sanctuary just because they were black. When black people see displays of violence against us like those carried out in Buffalo and Charleston, they remind us how our black lives seem to mean less in this country.
Whenever black people speak up about racism, gaslighting usually occurs. We are labeled “too sensitive” or said to be “pulling the race card.” Sometimes, black people even say these absurd things to each other to not look “bothered” or insecure. We should be bothered, though. We should be furious. Racism runs rampant in our country and severely affects our quality of life. Black people have to worry about things daily that the majority do not. We walk through stores afraid to put our hands in our pockets or purses for fear of looking like we’re stealing. We have to be extra careful not to look like we’re a threat to undertrained trigger-happy cops. We feel pressured to code switch at work or in professional settings, even though everyone copies our slang and dialects. We struggle with internal issues like colorism that stem from the days of slavery. And we have to raise our kids to understand the unfortunate disadvantage they will have, even though they’ve done nothing to deserve it. The weight on our shoulders is heavy, and it honestly seems like there is a concerted effort to make sure it stays that way.
The US media allows talking heads like Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump to spew hateful rhetoric that awakens and fuels the underbelly of America. The manifesto written by the gunman in Buffalo spoke of the white replacement theory or “The Great Replacement” that Tucker Carlson speaks of often on Fox News. Radical right-wing Americans have spread the idea that there is a plot to remove white people and their influence. This ludicrous idea enrages the people who thoroughly enjoy their inherent privilege and use it to step on the necks and backs of the people they feel superior to. And as we’ve seen over the years, they resort to violence when they feel threatened. January 6th at the Capitol, anyone?
Even after these utterly disgusting acts of violence, our leaders and media still find it hard to take a strong stance against white supremacy. And we all know it’s simply because most of them benefit from its existence. Their inability to act swiftly and harshly in these situations is why ten families are saying goodbye to their relatives after this weekend. The lack of action is also why we must accept that innocent grandmas and grandpas can be murdered while buying groceries on a Saturday afternoon, and nothing will be done about it. They’ll send their thoughts and prayers, then go back to their lives knowing that they’ll never feel hunted and perceived as less than because of their skin color. And yes, I know, we’ve had other mass shootings that didn’t only involve black people. That is true. However, if twenty-six white children being murdered at school didn’t move them enough, how much less do you think they care about ten black people in Buffalo, New York?
There’s a huge possibility that even these gruesome killings won’t spark necessary change in America. The conversations that need to be had are uncomfortable and oftentimes avoided for that very reason. It requires privileged people to check their privilege and call out instances of white supremacy when they see them. It means they can no longer turn a blind eye to what is so evident in our country every single day. It means sacrificing some of their privilege to help protect those who have none. All of this is a huge mountain to climb. And after all of the years of fighting, we still aren’t even halfway to the summit.