UNITED STATES: The tragic incident in Buffalo is not unprecedented in the United States. This type of incident has occurred many times in the country. For decades, black people in America have been under constant attack.
The fact that 8 out of 10 people killed in the Buffalo mass shooting were black makes us wonder if America is ignoring the atrocities committed against black people. Is racism ingrained in America’s DNA?
What happened in Buffalo?
In what authorities described as a “hate crime and racially motivated violent extremism,” a gunman opened fire with a rifle at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing ten people and wounding three others before being apprehended.
According to two law enforcement officials, the suspect was identified as Payton Gendron of Conklin, New York, about 200 miles southeast of Buffalo.
“Eleven of the victims are black, while two are white,” according to officials.
A few miles north of downtown Buffalo, the shooting took place in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
Before being apprehended Saturday afternoon, the gunman wearing military-style clothing and body armour opened fire with a rifle at the supermarket, killing at least ten people.
Investigators also suspected the gunman was streaming the shooting from a camera attached to his helmet.
Racial disparity in America
According to a Pew Research Center poll from 2019, roughly 9 out of 10 Black adults believe black people are treated unfairly compared to white people. Black individuals make up a far larger share of the prison population in the United States than white people. This is the result of more than a century of systemic legal injustices, of which racist policing methods are only one facet.
Black people have little faith in the legal system and do not believe that justice will be served equitably. On the other hand, whites support far more punitive policies because they believe the system is fair and are more likely to hold blacks personally responsible for the crimes for which they are accused.
According to black people, individual instances of prejudice are a bigger concern for white people than institutional racism.
Louisiana has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the country, ranking 47th out of the 48 states studied. However, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, one of the state’s two white male Republican senators, claims that this is only because Louisiana’s statistics include Black women.
“About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear,” Cassidy said in an interview
“Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”
Cassidy’s attitude explains why doctors often dismiss the pain of Black patients, and why Black women are 243 percent more likely than white women to die during childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications.
Talking about the racial disparity Anne, a 16-year-old college student, told Transcontinental Times, “The incident in Buffalo was horrific, and the worst part is that it isn’t the first time it has happened. It will happen again unless we enact stricter legislation. Our so-called woke government has decided to deny us women our human rights, but they are uninterested in putting an end to this kind of attacks. No stricter gun laws, racism, and bullying are all contributing to the country’s downfall.”
What happened in Buffalo cannot be dismissed as a “mental health issue.” It is ‘conditioning.’ If we don’t act now, this will happen again and again. This is one of the many reasons why critical race theory should be taught to our children. So that in the future, a youngster watching the news on TV will not shoot ten innocent people.
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