After yet another mass shooting targeting the Black community, a sole conviction is not enough.
May 18th, 2022
The Institute for Educational Leadership joins the many other organizations and communities sharing their grief and anger after the premeditated murder of ten Black community members and the injury of three others, by a white supremacist gunman, at Tops supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York last week. This most recent act of terror and violence targeting a community of color is yet another one of many on a growing list of similar racially motivated hate crimes. The time is over for empty resolutions and statements with no pathway to collective action to address the negative consequences of historic and systemic racism.
“Whether it is grocery shopping while Black, attending school, or visiting your place of worship, we ALL deserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without fear. This sickening and senseless act of violence is made all the worse by the deafening silence from and lack of courage of those who call themselves leaders in this country. We need leadership that stands tall against racism and oppression of any kind,” said IEL Board Chair Dr. Karen Mapp.
These types of terroristic acts, and the online streaming and cheering of them, has a clear link to our country’s history of veneration of Black pain and vigilante “justice.” Whether it is Birth of a Nation in 1915, that represented a perfect distillation of white fear, or replacement theory, propagated through explicit, and coded anti-immigrant rhetoric – the end result is the same – enabling white supremacy. Ironically, the massive undergoing or truth and reconciliation of our country’s past, post-George Floyd, has been met with an equal resistance of attacking the telling of our history by the threat of erasure in states – a refusal to learn and heal from our nation’s atrocities.
We must forever lift up the names of those who are victims and venerate them in this fight for justice:
- Roberta A. Drury
- Margus D. Morrison
- Andre Mackneil
- Aaron Salter
- Geraldine Talley
- Celestine Chaney
- Heyward Patterson
- Katherine Massey
- Pearl Young
- Ruth Whitfield
- And the injured: Zaire Goodman, Jennifer Warrington, and Christopher Braden
“Black people in our communities are continuously targeted for simply existing. Those who serve as agents, normalizing hate, propagating our deepest prejudices for political points, and for engagement ratings are just as culpable. Disturbingly, we continue to see attacks on brave truth-telling about our history and the present at state houses across the country,” said IEL President Eddie Koen.
As we’ve seen before, the shooter in this situation traveled a significant distance to carry out his heinous crimes, going well out of his way to kill Black people. “Our communities are strong,” added Koen. “In homes, schools, and neighborhoods across the country, people will come together to support and care for one another in the aftermath of this horrific crime, and bolster our collective advocacy work to act against crimes perpetrated against all targeted communities.”
Protecting our community relies on all of us. With almost 200 mass shootings in 2022, responsibility for these actions, both civilly and criminally, must go upstream to those who embolden these actors – whether it’s those who indoctrinate or those who knowingly put weapons in the hands of those who will cause harm.
IEL stands in solidarity with local communities nationwide impacted by racially motivated domestic terrorism and will take action by continuing our work to tear down systems of oppression, advance equity in our schools, and carry out our mission to partner with communities to create and support conditions for children to learn and thrive. Only through culturally responsive teaching and curriculum, mental health supports, dismantling white supremacy and deconstructing our historic mistakes and wrongdoings that continue to perpetuate systemic racism, will our communities begin to break cycles, and prepare future generations to speak truth to power rather than spreading hate.