It was heart-wrenching to hear and read the news of another mass shooting, this time in Buffalo, NY. Unlike the tragedies of children killed while at their desks in schools, Hispanics at a shopping center, or the religious hatred of people living their faith at Jewish synagogues, this violence focused on Black Americans. Again. Again. Again. We all know the answers to why we are continually reeling from mass shootings –a culture of guns in our nation, online misinformation and hateful rhetoric, and the lack, of some elected leaders, to allow dangerous diatribes by their members that coarsen our dialogue. All of which is taking our democracy to the brink of dissolution.
Our country’s history is rife with incidents of intolerance. The Irish, Jews, and Italians faced discrimination from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (themselves the original immigrants) when they first arrived. But these immigrants were White and gradually they were assimilated. Few WASPS remembered the newcomers’ “otherness” after several generations. These newcomers to America did not have to fear that they would be gunned down while going about the business of just living. Now, sadly, some of us descendants of those recent immigrants have become the oppressors against the newest “others” and remarkably, against the longest-suffering peoples amongst us – Black Americans.
Our country was torn apart during the Civil War when southern states tried to succeed from the Union because they were so wedded to the wealth they received from their slaves. Not only were Blacks slaves, and not immigrants, but then, once freed, subjected to White supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan. The Black population was dehumanized through years of racial terror and systematic oppression.
Have we learned nothing of American history, the most bloody of all wars we have fought?
Robin Hutchins
Claremont
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.