Rashawn Ray Tuesday, May 17, 202
A hate crime occurs nearly every hour in the United States. Saturday afternoon was no different. Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white man, drove to a grocery store in a predominately Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. He then filmed himself shooting 13 people (11 Black and two white), killing 10, including a retired police officer and an 86-year-old woman who had recently visited her husband in a nursing home. During his domestic terrorist act, Gendron even took the time to apologize to a white man for pointing the gun at him.
When we examine who uses guns to commit mass racial violence in the United States, we find that many of these domestic terrorists look and think like Gendron. From 2012 through 2021, nearly three in four murders classified as domestic terrorism were committed by right-wing extremists (most of whom were white nationalists). In 2020, 55% of perpetrators of hate crimes were white, 21% were Black, and 16% were of unknown racial background. Sixty-two percent of hate crimes were about race/ethnicity, nearly 25% were about sexual orientation/gender identity, and 13% were about religion.
Read more HERE.