“On Saturday, an 18-year-old white supremacist carried out a premeditated fatal attack on a Black community in Buffalo, killing ten and injuring many more. Today, we mourn the ten unique and precious lives of the people murdered in Buffalo – church elders, civil rights activists, grandmothers, parents of small children. We grieve with this community as they reel from this violence and collective trauma.
Tops supermarket is more than a grocery store – it is a space that the community created to meet essential needs. The shooter’s plan was specifically designed to target the beating heart of the Black community, taking aim at a nexus of community care, resources, and resiliency.
Given the persistent white supremacist attacks in our nation’s history, it is dishonest and irresponsible to call these “isolated incidents.” We will not cause further harm by calling this a mental health issue. We must refuse the complacency of accepting that this is simply a gun reform issue. This is the expected consequence of a nation that has yet to confront an ideology that proclaims whiteness is superior and treats blackness as less valuable or a threat. Shootings like these are not an affront to America’s deepest values; they are the embodiment of them….
We must keep telling the truth, keep fighting, keep building a shared story and collective power because in our bones–we know another world is possible. As Black movement builder and Director of the Working Families Party Moe Mitchell said this morning, “If you don’t think change is possible, organizing is not your ministry.” We begin with truth-telling and moving together in that truth. Another world is possible if we build it together.”
(Full statement can be found here) https://sidewithlove.org/ourstories/2022/5/16/buffalo-statement
Together, let us be part of creating a different world. With care, and in faith~