By STACY M. BROWN
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 15, 2022 — Buffalo, New York Mayor Byron Brown called the massacre at a Buffalo supermarket an unimaginable nightmare, while Erie County Sheriff John Garcia framed the onslaught as pure evil.
Put plainly, the deadly shooting by a white 18-year-old whose manifesto revealed his desire to cleanse the country of Black people is another example of America’s lingering murderous racial hatred.
It also shows how hateful rhetoric — spewed over conservative national news outlets and on social media and the dog whistles of rightwing politicians — has usurped some of the progress made in race relations since the Civil Rights Movement advances more than a half-century ago.
“Law enforcement is proceeding with its investigation, but what is clear is that we are seeing an epidemic of hate across our country that has been evidenced by acts of violence and intolerance. We must call it out and condemn it,” Vice President Kamala Harris said.
“Racially-motivated hate crimes or acts of violent extremism are harms against all of us, and we must do everything we can to ensure that our communities are safe from such acts,” she asserted.
Details of the shooter, Payton Gendron’s 180-page manifesto, revealed troubling perceptions the self-avowed white supremacist possessed.
He complained of the dwindling size of the White population and included his fears of ethnic and cultural replacement of White people.
Gendron described himself as a fascist, a White supremacist, and an anti-Semite.
His live-streamed shooting spree has left at least ten dead and several more wounded. But, unlike the multitude of unarmed Black people killed during encounters with law enforcement, the young White racist is alive to plead not guilty or “insanity” in court.
“While past violent white supremacist attacks seem to have factored into this heinous act, we must acknowledge that extremist rhetoric espoused by some media and political leaders on the right promoting theories that vilify or dehumanize segments of our society like ‘the great replacement theory’ is a factor too,” wrote U.S. House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson in a statement.
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. speaking on behalf of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) emphasized, “We are outraged, angered, but we will not be silent again in the wake of more racist murders of Black people in America this time in Buffalo, New York.
“The patterns and rising tide of these White supremacists’ attacks and murders of our people will not go without the unified and amplified voice of the Black Press of America to demand justice and an end to White supremacy in America.”
See complete BLACK PRESS USA article by Stacy M. Brown at https://blackpressusa.com/americas-white-supremacist-murders-of-black-people/?fbclid=IwAR0fkI31PZPOtS8EaBs81GO5rJJfTDRrQFPDgrL7-w7sfX1wMZxKufH8wxs
EDITOR’S NOTE: Stacy M. Brown is the co-author of Blind Faith: The Miraculous Journey of Lula Hardaway and her son, Stevie Wonder (Simon & Schuster) and Michael Jackson: The Man Behind The Mask, An Insider’s Account of the King of Pop (Select Books Publishing, Inc.) His work can often be found in the Washington Informer, Baltimore Times, Philadelphia Tribune, Pocono Record, the New York Post, and Black Press USA.
