Terrorism and Murder in Buffalo

Today the city of Buffalo was traumatized by a white supremacist terrorists and murderer who came to our community from a rural area of southern New York State near the Pennsylvania to specifically target black people while a wearing bullet vest and carrying military grade assault weapons. He went into a Tops Market on Jefferson Avenue where he was confronted by a retired policeman security guard who he then shot and killed. He then went on a shooting spree where ten black people were killed and three other people wounded.

He then surrendered to the police. My first thought was did they take him to McDonalds before going to the police station but perhaps that is unfair. Probably not. If he had been a black man shooting up a supermarket in Amherst he would have surely been shot dead. The shooter was 18 years old and streamed the shooting live on a social media site that catered to white supremacists. He also wrote an online manifesto based on the Fox News' Tucker Carlson white replacement rantings. 

Coincidently I had just finished reading Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents the day before this racists shooting and there was a section of the book where the conspiracy theory of white replacement was discussed. It was shocking to have this incident happen so soon after reading so much about the history of racists violence in this country.

It was also disturbing that Katie, Todd and the kids were here in town visiting us and Todd's family while this was going on. They were downtown during the shooting. I had several friends and family members contact me to make sure we were all OK. The shooting occurred about six blocks from our home and a couple of blocks down the street from the college where I worked for twenty years. All of the people killed while shopping on a Saturday afternoon were the pillars of their community.