Opinion: Meet racial violence with anti-racist policies that address systemic issues
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Investigators work the scene of a shooting at a supermarket, in Buffalo, N.Y., Monday, May 16, 2022. AP Photo/Matt Rourke
By K. Bain
We at Community Capacity Development are not shocked, but we are outraged by the wanton mass murder that occurred in Buffalo, N.Y on Saturday. We extend our deepest sympathies to the families, friends and neighbors of the victims of this senseless violence that resulted in the death of 10 people and the wounding of four others.
While the needless loss of any human life is tragic, the racist aspect of this attack against the Black community in Buffalo is especially troubling. We cannot dismiss this as simply a depraved act of a deranged individual.
We call upon the nation's leadership at all levels – and across political, religious, academic, business and community institutions – to immediately confront the historically rooted pattern of racially motivated, systemic violence directed particularly at Black, Brown, Asian and Indigenous people.
Violent events like this must be understood not as random, isolated and unconnected; but rather as different episodes of the same streaming series of brutality, carnage and unmitigated aggression celebrated across all forms of media in the U.S. – from Hollywood to journalism and educational curricula.
Prayers and condolences are not enough. We specifically call for the creation of science-based, data driven policies, preventative programs and a national Human Justice Network in response, to abolish all racial violence. We at CCD will play our part to build a vibrant national, grassroots anti-racist movement for human justice.
We at CCD understand that the historic trauma of racial violence being inflicted upon our communities, dating back to slavery, is tragically being internalized and expressed as senseless gun violence within our marginalized communities. As we address the connection between the violence within our communities, to the ripple effect of a dominant culture based on violence, CCD is building towards our National Safe Summer ‘22 Programing and our co-leadership role in the launching of New York State's first ever, official Gun Violence Awareness month on June 1, 2022.
Our goal is to simultaneously and programmatically reduce and transform the internal community violence we face, while challenging the larger social forces that create the very framework and modeling of violence that Black, Brown, Indigenous and marginalized communities fall victim to.
CCD's urgent call for resources for human justice work acknowledges that this kind of macro-level structural violence manifests itself in particularly harmful, oppressive and destructive ways for all human beings but disproportionately for Black, Brown and Indigenous individuals, families and communities.
K. Bain is the founder and executive director of Community Capacity Development, a Queens-based nonprofit dedicated to the uproot of systemic challenges in historically marginalized communities.
