President
Joe Biden was uncharacteristically, but appropriately, angry and firm
when he described white supremacy as “poison.” He spoke
from Buffalo days after a putrid young white man, Payton Gendron,
shot thirteen people, killing ten. All but two of those he shot were
Black, and all of those massacred were Black.
This
young man carefully planned his massacre. He went to the Tops grocery
store at least three times, choosing its location because it was in a
zip code that was more than 75 percent Black. He planned more
killings but eventually surrendered to white police officers who
“begged” him to do so. If a Black man had shot up a store
full of white people, he would not have been able to walk out of
there. Instead of bargaining with him, someone would have shot him in
the legs or the head.
Gendron’s
parents bear some responsibility for his heinous act. His father,
Paul Gendron, admitted to purchasing a gun for him. After Payton was
evaluated for Payton mental health issues, his father allowed him to
keep the weapon. Pitbull Attorney, Ben Crump, ought to be filing a
lawsuit against dad Gendron, the FBI, and others who enabled this
lunatic to kill ten Black people, too many of them Black women
community stalwarts who were over sixty years old when they were
massacred.
I
don’t know much about Payton Gendron, but I do know he never
took an Ethnic Studies class. Instead, he was simmering in his
ignorance, trolling the Internet for warped “replacement”
theories. Had he lived in California, where an Ethnic Studies class
is a graduation requirement for community college students and those
attending the twenty-three universities in the California State
system, he might have been exposed to replacement realities. Native
American or American Indian people occupied this land that is now the
United States. They were “replaced” by white barbarians
who stole their land, killed them, isolated them in reservations,
took their children, attempting to indoctrinate them in boarding
schools, and more.
If
young Gendron had gone to a factually accurate page on the Internet,
he might have learned that Black folks were the majority in many
Southern states until the early twentieth century. According to
blackpast.org, an historically accurate website, “enslaved
people and their descendants had become the majority” of South
Carolina’s population by 1708. It remained so until 1920,
except for a brief time between 1790 and 1820. Racism and brutal
treatment allowed white folks to replace them. In particular, attacks
on Black male voters repelled Black folks from a state where we built
its economic foundation. According to blackpast.org, “the 1876
Hamburg Massacre ended a period of Black political participation when
Black elected officials were forcibly removed from their posts.”
Replacement theory? Who was replacing whom?
Gendron
never had the benefit of Ethnic Studies classes. He never ingested
the antidote to the poison he embodies. In his 1905 Niagra Movement
speech, WEB DuBois said, “Either the United States will destroy
ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States.” Looks
like ignorance is winning. The conservative columnist, Max Boot,
wrote that “the Buffalo shooter’s views are mainstream on
the right.” These are the folks who not only have not been
exposed to Ethnic Studies but who actively resist learning about the
truth. The Tucker Carlsons of the world revel in their ability to
incite ignorance, encourage domestic terrorists, and indulge in
hateful views.
The
FBI has always viewed Black activism as a threat to our national
security, targeting Black activists from Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X
to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Black Panther Party with
surveillance and Cointelpro sabotage. In the wake of the 2020
protests that took it to the streets, the so-called intelligence
agency coined the term “Black identity extremists” and
monitored, among others, Black Lives Matter activists. Did they ever
target, monitor, or investigate white supremacist extremists? Payton
Gundron might not have been allowed to purchase the guns that killed
ten Black people if they had.
While
President Biden forcefully described white supremacy as poison and
said that “hate will not prevail,” he only talked in
general terms about the antidote. This massacre provides President
Biden with an opportunity to embrace Ethnic Studies and encourage it
as an antidote to hate. Perhaps he might propose legislation similar
to California’s that would promote Ethnic Studies and require
it in federally funded colleges and universities. It’s time for
our nation, drenched in racist poison, to consider the antidote.
