If there was one thing made clear in the Buffalo Massacre, it is that public officials cannot ignore the reparations conversation. In addition to the n-word being written on the assault rifle of the domestic terrorist responsible for the murder of 10 Black Americans at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in Kingsley, Buffalo, NY, on Saturday, May 14th, 2022, Payton S. Gendron, the gunman, wrote on the buttstock of his weapon, “These are your reparations.”

All across the country from the State of California to New Jersey, units of government and municipalities are accepting bills to develop task forces to adopt reparations proposals in the face of politicians exclaiming that specific legislation and policies cannot be made based on race. However, the United States and each united of government in the U.S. can and has made specific legislation and policies based on race, ethnicity, nationality, and sexual orientation, giving no excuse to why the same cannot be done for African Americans.

In 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order “Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Native Americans and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities.” In 2020, President Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act to protect Asian-American and Pacific Islanders against hate crimes. In 2019, President Trump signed an executive order to make Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act apply to anti-Semitic acts and adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. In 2014, President Obama signed an amends to Executive Order 11246, issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson, to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories in the existing Executive Order covering federal contractors.

Where each of these aforementioned communities have faced many injustices at the hands of government and members of society who have caused harm, these legislative measures of protections are deserved! That said, the same must be true for the “American Negro,” those descendents of enslaved Africans in the United States, right? More than 4,000,000 of their ancestors and antecedents were enslaved in the United States, destroying their peoplehood and culture and denying them the fruits of their own labor. The denial of food, housing, protections of the government, education, health care, employment contracts, schools for children, and fair courts were all sanctioned by the U.S. Government, right? Wouldn’t there be a need to directly address Black Americans through legislative action? What makes Black Americans different, or less deserving than other members of society?

Just like the previously mentioned groups have had public policy in favor of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, there have been injustices that have affected Black Americans that deserve repair… They have survived the Negro Acts of the early colonial period, history of hundreds of Ku Klux Klansmen that have taken political office in the United States both publicly and in secret, Black codes of 1865, the international implications of the Berlin Conference of 1884 and global colonialism, national Sexual Sterilization Acts from 1907 to 1970, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, denial from participation in the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the Highway Act of 1956, sharecropping, convict leasing, Black suffrage, redlining and gerrymandering, displacement and inadequate housing by government housing policies that include discriminatory VA/FHA practices including “Urban Renewal” and a variety of local and federal “affordable” housing programs, gentrification, the War on Poverty in 1964, the War on Drugs in 1971, the Crime Bill of 1984, disproportionate criminalization at the hands of the United States’ criminal justice system, and so much more…

Yet, many legislators say they cannot or simply will not provide plans or proposals exclusively for the Black/African-American community. After it has been done for so many other social and ethnic groups in America and across the globe, it is time that candidates and legislators address the history of the nation stifling Black Americans’ safety, health and well being.

African Americans have directly suffered, and continue to suffer from the United States’
• Pseudoscientific subordination to civility, humanity and society;
• International kidnapping and global human trafficking;
• Physical torture and corporeal exploitation;
• Bondage, sadism and masochism;
• Religious manipulation, spiritual duress, and iconoclasm;
• Ravage adulterating and progenitive bastardization;
• Racial antagonization and ethnic appropriation;
• Psychological torment, cognitive paralyzation and cerebral traumatization;
• Defamation of character to peoplehood and identity theft;
• Standardized eugenics, sterilization, and genocide;
• Compulsory and coercive medical malpractice;
• Illegal and unlawful seizure and destruction of land and property;
• Asset annihilation and capital bankruptcy;
• Economic repression and financial depression;
• Governmentally enforced dislodgement and displacement;
• Environmental toxification and degradation;
• Ecological opiating and inebriation;
• Accredited miseducation and authorized misinformation;
• Endorsed racism and municipally sponsored prejudice;
• Exonerated lynchings and absolved massacres;
• Overt vilification and unjust criminalization;
• Corrupt policing and mass incarceration;
• Excessive convictions and exaggerated sentencing;
• Social inequality and justified incivility;
• Violation of their 4th amendment right pertaining to illegal and unlawful search and seizure;
• Violation of their 5th amendment right of private property not taken for public use without just compensation;
• Violation of their 6th amendment right of no judgements by impartial juries;
• Violation of their 8th amendment right of non-excessive bails and inflictions of cruel and
unusual punishments;
• Violation of their 14th amendment rights sections 1 & 2 for no creation and enforcement of laws to abridge the rights of naturalized citizens of the United States, deprivation of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, and unequal protections of the laws;
• Violation of their 15th amendment right to vote for 94 years.

The Buffalo Massacre is a defining moment in America’s history because the nation’s leaders will have to take a definitive stance on the restitution and redress it will take to remedy the harms caused by Euro-globalism and white supremacy. The Buffalo Massacre is a defining moment in U.S. history because the country’s public officials will have to address the manifesto of a patriot and his case for reparations being made through his bullets before our ballots. The Buffalo Massacre is a defining moment in world history because England, France, Portugal, Spain, the Roman Catholic Church, and The United States of America have yet to atone for their inquisition, crusade, conquest, terrorism, and colonization of African and American lands and the offspring of their imperialism must come to heel for the world to heal. The Buffalo Massacre is a defining moment in White America’s history because it calls on every elected official to get serious about reparations before the impetus of violence at the helm of this kind of racism both implodes and explodes across the Western World. The Buffalo Massacre is a defining moment in Black history because it leaves Black people no choice but to decide if reparations will be defined for Black lives by others, or by Black lives for Black life.

Roberta A. Drury of Buffalo, N.Y. – age 32
Margus D. Morrison of Buffalo, N.Y. – age 52
Andre Mackneil of Auburn, N.Y. – age 53
Aaron Salter of Lockport, N.Y. – age 55
Geraldine Talley of Buffalo, N.Y. – age 62
Celestine Chaney of Buffalo, N.Y. – age 65
Heyward Patterson of Buffalo, N.Y. – age 67
Katherine Massey of Buffalo, N.Y. – age 72
Pearl Young of Buffalo, N.Y. – age 77
Ruth Whitfield of Buffalo, N.Y. – age 86
Rest In Peace,

– Rashaun Williams