On May 14, an avowed white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo. If that evil act has not precisely been forgotten, it has been all but washed away by the onrushing torrent of the news cycle. For Black people, Buffalo offered one more example of existential terror, one more illustration that Black people in America cannot safely do the most mundane things without facing the danger of racist violence.
The alleged murderer shouted racial slurs while using his AR-15 assault-style rifle to kill Black people while they shopped for groceries. He attempted to livestream the massacre as a kind of white supremacist snuff film. The killer also transformed his assault-style rifle into a totem and fetish object: It was inscribed with the names of other white supremacist terrorists whose deeds he admired and was now imitating.
