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Going To The Market While Black
The Deadliest Mass Shooting of the Year
My stomach churned as I read the news, “A White teen traveled from hours away to a predominantly Black area of Buffalo and killed 10 people in a supermarket, authorities say”. The deadliest mass shooting of the year.
Typically, news like this would immediately infuriate me, but I had just returned home from the grocery store in my predominantly Black neighborhood. I was sick to my stomach. People who looked like me, and lived in an area like mine were targeted and killed. I can’t imagine the fear of not only the victims, but of the family members who received the news that there was a shooting at their local market.
It is clear when reading the details, that 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron was intentional in selecting the neighborhood he would terrorize. He live-streamed his racially motivated crimes and has been connected to a 180-page manifesto taking credit in the name of white supremacy. According to the document, he chose Buffalo because it was the city with the highest number of Blacks in his vicinity. He cites “The Great Replacement Theory” as his motivation. This theory is the false idea that a cabal (a secret political clique or faction) is attempting to replace white Americans with non-white people through immigration, interracial marriage, and eventually violence.
