Enough! Racist Rhetoric Will Always Generate Violence and Death

Enough! Racist Rhetoric Will Always Generate Violence and Death

BUFFALO, NEW YORK/ USA – JUNE 4TH, 2020: Demonstration Anti-Racism protest in Buffalo New York in response to George Floyd’s death. Peaceful Protesters take over downtown Buffalo and Allen town. (Shutterstock)

By Maribel Hastings and David Torres, America’s Voice

As unfortunate as Saturday’s deadly shooting was in Buffalo, New York, which claimed the lives of 10 mostly African-Americans at the hands of a deranged white supremacist, the stark reality is that it was to be anticipated.

In fact, it seems that for a good part of American society —the most recalcitrant and supremacist— “solving” social problems is not dialogue, analysis, much less mutual understanding, but simply resorting to armed violence, which has become the sign of the times in this nation.
In fact, it is no surprise that a woefully divided country, particularly since the rise of Trumpism to power, where an Anglo-Saxon sector believes that the growing ethnic minorities want to replace them, is fertile ground for the development of racist fanatics who do not hesitate to take advantage of the other scourge that afflicts this nation: easy access to weapons.

The 21 million firearms , including revolvers, shotguns and automatic rifles that, according to the National Sport Shooting Foundation (NSSF) itself, were sold in the United States in 2020, the worst year of the pandemic, are the most reliable proof that this market It will not cease to bear fruit as long as the trend towards racism persists, which is in turn a breeding ground for that other more than terrifying phenomenon: domestic terrorism, to which young white supremacists, captive clients of the National Rifle Association, are so prone. (NRA, for its acronym in English).

This pernicious influence of weapons is not only domestic, but abroad, which largely explains the warlike nature of this nation: according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 36% of arms exports between 2015 and 2019 corresponded to the United States, with no less than 96 clients, the true dominant country in that area.

And the worst of the case is that it is political and public figures who add fuel to the fire with their incendiary rhetoric, without measuring the consequences that their speech may have on a feverish mind. Therefore, for many minorities the main concern is precisely that white nationalist agenda, which vehemently promotes the theory of the “great replacement,” a historical absurdity that has nothing to do with the world we need today, in this 21st century.

Because let’s not forget that it has been Republican figures, beginning with former President Donald Trump himself, who promote, for example, the idea that the southern border with Mexico is “out of control” and that we are being “invaded” by undocumented immigrants. In fact, the manifesto of Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old individual who perpetrated the massacre in Buffalo, refers to an unprecedented “invasion,” with which he seeks to justify his despicable acts.

In 2019, in El Paso, Texas, another white supremacist, Patrick Crusius, gunned down a Walmart killing 23 people and injuring 23 others, mostly Hispanics. And there have been attacks against synagogues, African-American churches, mosques, etc., because the hatred of these individuals is against any minority.

The theory of the “great replacement” of Anglo-Saxons by minorities has gone from extremist and white supremacist groups to being normalized by conservative television presenters, as is the case with Tucker Carlson, on Fox News, and by Republican politicians who have given its approval to a racist discourse, if that means mobilizing the hosts that put them in power.

Because the sad thing about this situation is that a sector of the population endorses this racist discourse and favors these figures with its vote, as we saw with Trump in his 2016 victory. As we will see in future elections. There is a receptive audience, and the politicians know it. But when someone interprets the rhetoric literally and it culminates in violence, then those same politicians wash their hands of any responsibility. But racist rhetoric, sooner or later, will always generate violence and death. (America’s Voice)

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