This community and the nation as a whole must have difficult conversations about the historic racial inequities that created the conditions for last year’s racist massacre in Buffalo, a panel of speakers said this morning.
“Racism and hate are part of our American story,” said John B. King Jr., chancellor of the State University of New York system, and it’s important to understand this despite efforts in some other states to avoid teaching this painful part of the nation’s past.
King, a former U.S. secretary of education, spoke at “Beyond Hate: A Panel Discussion,” taking place from 9 a.m. to noon today at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The event was organized by the 5/14 Remembrance Committee. It is the first of a number of events scheduled by the committee to mark the one-year anniversary of the horrific attack at the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue on May 14, 2022.
“It is a somber milestone. Our city is still grieving. Our city is still healing,” Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown said in opening the event.
Another panelist, the Most Rev. Michael Curry, a Buffalo native who is presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, said anger in response to the killings of 10 Black Buffalonians is understandable.
It’s important, he said, to face this anger and transform this anger. “Love begins with truth telling,” Curry said, “and healing begins with truth telling.”
In addition to King, Brown and Curry, the fourth panelist is Spelman College President Helene Gayle, who also is from the area.
“There is something wonderful about the Buffalo community,” Gayle said. “At the same time there are real issues that have not been dealt with.”
The moderator of the discussion is Melissa Harris-Perry, host of National Public Radio’s “The Takeaway.”
The featured speaker, who had not yet made his remarks as of 10 a.m., is the writer, professor and anti-racism activist Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to be an Antiracist.”
This is a…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply