They gathered at a Black Lives Matter protest on the concrete steps of a local park, calling on politicians to direct more resources to Buffalo’s black residents living on the largely poor East Side. difficult.
They toss heavy bags of eggs, bread, and water over their shoulders to transport blocks, lamenting that their neighborhood has once again become a food desert while the only full-service supermarket stretches for miles. being surrounded by investigators.
And in the streets outside Tops supermarket, where a gunman targeted Saturday because he knew it served a lot of Blacks, they shouted through bull rockets, denouncing racism ethnic group committed a massacre – but that too had shaped their experience long before that.
A day after a quiet residential area in western New York fell victim to the worst racist attack in the United States in recent years, the afternoon scene like small windows became a collective anguish and anger not derived from gunfire.
Marlene Brown, 58, who is Black, said: “We don’t want to be protected from the truth. For more than a decade, she has lived just a few blocks from the Tops supermarket where 10 people were killed. “We want to be protected and treated like we matter,” she said, “without the need for a white supremacist to attack our community.”
She added: “Time and time again they show no one cares about us here. It’s a pattern. ”
Saturday afternoon’s shooting forced the Masten Park neighborhood of East Buffalo to become the newest location – after El Paso; Christchurch, New Zealand; and CharlestonSC – to grapple with a mass murder driven by white supremacist ideology and the wave of attention following mass shootings.
But for many residents, the experience has angered them at what they see as the hypocrisy of a world that has its eyes set on their neighborhood. only when the racism they had witnessed for years turned violent.
For many Blacks living here, the effects of discrimination go beyond that – and the violence represents a single moment of suffering in a long traumatic history.
“Pain is in our DNA at this point,” said Earlene Patterson, 64, who bought milk and other food from Tops grocery a few days before the attack. “It was at my great-grandfather, my father. That’s at me. ”
Authorities say the shooting suspect, 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, pursued white supremacist ideals in a 180-page document posted online before attack and made it his primary goal to kill as many blacks as possible. Gendron pleaded not guilty on Saturday night.
In the document, he said he would travel several hours to Buffalo from New York’s Southern Tier. And while he wrote that he expected the damage figure to be much larger, the damage caused was immense.
“People will try to make excuses because this person is not from Buffalo – they will say things like ‘This is not who we are,’ ‘J Coley, a Ph. student and instructor in the University at Buffalo Department of Sociology. “I just wanted to make it clear that this is exactly who Buffalo is. It doesn’t matter that we have a Black mayor. This is still the place to be against Black racism.”
Buffalo has been marked by severe discrimination for decades, providing a prime example of the plight suffered by Blacks in many deeply divided urban centers. In 1991, an analysis found the Buffalo-Niagra Falls metro area to be the fourth most isolated in the United States; a study published two decades later found it to rank as the sixth most isolated country.
People say the city is divided into two vastly different worlds, the East and the West. According to a 2018 Report from the Partnership for the Public Interest.
Over the past three decades, living conditions for Black residents by some measures have improved little – and in some cases worse, according to a 2021 report by the organization. University in Buffalo. For example, black residents in Buffalo live an average of five years less than white residents. (Nationally, the gap between white and black lives stretches is 3.6 yearsaccording to a 2018 study.)
Saturday’s violence came amid another conspicuous sign of struggles in the area: About two blocks from the Tops is the Kensington Freeway, built during the nation’s post-World War II recovery. Second World War and cut straight through a Negro neighborhood.
Highways displaced residents, stunted economic development, and destroyed what a 2018 report called one of the city’s “greatest cultural assets”: a tree-lined public space designed by a famous architect.
And so, as a neighborhood begins to handle the racist assault, longtime residents say it’s difficult to separate the recent explosion of extreme violence from the decades-long agony. before. A sign next to the memorial with white candles and a bouquet of flowers seems to encapsulate the emotion: “There are no words for this heartbreak.”
Some residents question whose lives are being protected in Buffalo. Some reflect on aggressive encounters with Buffalo police officers. They said they believed that, unlike Gendron, a Black gunman would not have survived the attack.
Others worry that if a police presence increases in the wake of the shooting, it may only add to the area’s problems.
At rallies throughout Sunday afternoon, where neighbors waved red, black and green liberation flags, many questioned why the local politicians they spoke of before did not. Their regional priorities are suddenly calling for change.
“I’m angry and I’m done; I’m tired of political extravagance,” said Taniqua Simmons, 47, who grew up on the East Side of Buffalo. “We have a lot of people speaking for us. We have a lot of people talking about us. But they didn’t listen. And they don’t give us the legislation we need to thrive. “
She compared the residential area “to an electric barrel ready to explode” to the frustration of residents.
The importance of Tops grocery store to neighbors added to the pain. Charlene Caldwell, 55, picks up food on Sundays from volunteers, who set up a community fridge in the absence of the store.
Some residents say that when Tops on Jefferson Avenue first opened in the neighborhood in 2003, they were disappointed that the grocery store was not owned by Black. However, the market closed a large gap – and when gunfire broke out, that hole immediately opened up again.
On Sunday, supermarket chain said in a statement posted on social media that the store will “remain closed until further notice.” But it added that “we are steadfast in our commitment to serving every corner of our community.”
Many say, however, that the indefinite loss of a neighborhood staple will go viral in the community long after interest in Buffalo fades.
“The fact that it’s happening here is not only a mental blow, but also an economic blow,” said Shango Oya, a resident who has lived in the neighborhood for more than a decade. “We are in the heart of the inner city. This is the heart of black people. And if this doesn’t reopen, it will kill the economy in this community – and the situation here will be even worse. ”
Anushka Patil contribution report.
