President Biden and the first lady stopped in Buffalo Tuesday to grieve with the victims’ families and communities reeling from a mass shooting targeting black people at a supermarket over the weekend. The president tried to comfort those feeling pain, anger, and profound loss.
"The day is going to come it will come, when your loved one brings a smile as you remember him or her. As you remember her, it’s is going to bring a smile to your lip before it brings a tear to your eye. It takes a while for that to happen. It takes a while. It might take more than a season, but our prayer for you is that that time comes sooner or later. But I promise you, it will come."
Biden took time to remember each of the ten people killed by the gunman, including 32-year-old Roberta Drury. She moved from Syracuse to Buffalo several years ago.
"...beloved daughter and sister. Moved back home to help take care of her brother after his bone marrow transplant. She went to buy groceries for dinner. The center of attention who made everyone in the room laugh and smile when she walked in."
The shooter specifically targeted the Tops supermarket on Buffalo's East Side, a neighborhood where the majority of residents are Black. Tyrell Ford is a community organizer with Voice Buffalo. He says state and local leaders need to act now to stop the cycle of racist violence.
"This act of domestic terrorism cannot go unanswered," said Ford. "These extremists are out there and are probably plotting their next target as we speak. So we need to be aware and vigilant that we can no longer allow folks to come into communities and shake them to their core."
State Health Commissioner Doctor Mary Bassett, who is African- American, says mass shootings, racism, and the growth of extremist white supremacist theories all have consequences for public health.
"We in public health have long discussed violence as a public health issue because it takes life, which makes it a concern to people in public health. And, because it has patterns that we can discern at a population level, and we can intervene in a population."
Bassett says the targeting of the predominately black neighborhood stems from decades, and centuries of racism and discrimination in the nation.
"It has a legacy in government policy. In this case, the policy of redlining and other discriminatory practices. When we start peeling back these horrible individual events, and tragic loss of life, we start seeing the many complex threads."
Bassett spoke about the effects of racism on public health with Capital Correspondent Karen Dewitt.
