Friday, May 20, 2022

Terrorism begets terror

It really is that simple. Washington Post reporter Clyde McGrady has shared an intimate story of what it feels like to have some random young white weirdo come gunning for your community.  People in the Buffalo Black community are reeling under the trauma of the massacre.
Some struggle to understand the motivations of the killer. Some feel their insides burn with rage. Others pray — for the victims, for the killer, that those contemplating retaliation will turn away from anger.
Tricia Grannum needed to pick up a prescription.
“I’ve never felt like this, going into a store,” she told her mother when she got home. “I’ve never felt scared to get out of a car.”
This is what terrorism does to people who have reason to fear they are not going to find any lasting support. That seems to be Buffalo.

Go read it all.

Also worth reading is Washington Post media correspondent Margaret Sullivan's account of what's so wrong in Buffalo. She knows much. She edited the local paper before becoming a national voice for journalistic integrity.

3 comments:

Bonnie said...

I can't go read it all as I don't subscribe and don't have $40 a year. New York Times was cheaper.

janinsanfran said...

Of course Bonnie -- I was being thoughtless here, not wishing to appropriate too much of Mr McGrady's work. Here's some more:

"As a Black woman, Grannum was on high alert, she later recalled, scanning the lot for anything that seemed out of the ordinary.

"A man parked beside her with a baseball cap pulled suspiciously low over his face. A car slotted in its space haphazardly. These were the ordinary things sparking a hyper-vigilance Grannum had never before experienced.

"She needed to pick up her son’s prescription, but first she needed to give herself a pep talk:

"Deep breath. Okay, we can do this. Five minutes. In and out.

"She walked in and immediately took note of the exits, the backroom and customers who could be left vulnerable to another racist mass shooting. Could she help that elderly Black man if someone opened fire?"

Living immersed in this sort of fear is what one of these guys accomplishes.

Joared said...

We're getting far too many terrorist events. Even one is too many. I wish I could say I believe there will be fewer in our near future but I don't believe that which is very distressing. Will this nation's people ever eliminate all this madness?