By Dr. Jessica Johnson
Guest Column
The recent tragic shooting at a Jacksonville, Florida Dollar General store that left three Black people dead brought back harrowing memories of the Tops Friendly Market slayings last year in Buffalo, New York. I remember Erie County Sheriff John Garcia calling the deadly Tops shooting “pure evil,” and there really isn’t a better way to describe the recurrence of the horrific acts of gun violence plaguing the nation.
The Dollar General and Tops locations share the vile category of being hate crimes, as Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said the Dollar General shooter left behind White supremacist writings. Other reports say the gunman, identified as 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter, uttered racial slurs.
The Tops shooter, Payton Gendron, was only 18 at the time of his killing spree and had been indoctrinated to believe his murderous rampage was “for the future of the White race.” At his sentencing in February, Gendron issued an apology to the families who lost loved ones from his shooting massacre, stating that he had believed what he read online and that he hoped no one would be “inspired” by what he did. Gendron is serving a life sentence, and hopefully he is on a sincere path to Godly repentance for his horrendous crimes. The sad reality, unfortunately, is that someone will be motivated to replicate Gendron’s cruel actions. The investigation is still ongoing for the Dollar General shooting, and I would not be surprised if it is found that Palmeter was influenced by the Tops slaughter.
Hate crimes have been on an alarming rise throughout the country. Statistics published by the FBI two years ago revealed that these crimes reached a peak of 7,314 incidents in 2019, up from 5,479 in 2014. The highest number of attacks from 2000 to 2019 were recorded in 2001 at 9,730. The FBI also found that racial bias was the highest motivator of hate crimes, accounting for roughly 58% of these offenses in 2019.
President Joe Biden remarked that the Jacksonville shooting was especially difficult to bear since it took place during the national celebration of the 60th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
In his statement from the White House, Biden lamented that “another American community (was) wounded by an act of gun violence” and declared that “(w)e must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin.” These statements definitely had a Kingsian tone, and it speaks to the intense concern many have in African American communities about the rise of violent extremism. I know that I am more cautious now while out driving and doing simple daily errands. In stores I am more observant of my surroundings, being on alert for anyone or anything that looks suspicious. As I say this, I am not going out crippled by fear, but I want to be wise regarding any potential threats and do as my pastor always advises, “Watch as well as pray.”
Biden called White supremacy a “poison” in another briefing after the Jacksonville killings, and his assessment was similar to what he stated regarding the Tops shootings, where he declared that racial hatred is “a stain on the soul of America.”
I mentioned this quote in my column last year on the heartbreak and suffering of the Buffalo community surrounding the Tops market. I thought about it again when first hearing about Jacksonville because in many of my writings concerning gun violence spurred by racial animosity, I mention the soul. The souls of Gendron and Palmeter were inculcated with abhorrence for Black people, and their rage manifested in murder, with Palmeter killing himself in addition to his three victims. While Biden called this rage and hatred a poison, I liken it more to a prison, a spiritually depraved confinement that entraps the soul in racist ideology. For true deliverance from this corrupt way of thinking, the prayer in Psalm 142:7 comes to mind when King David asked God to bring his soul out of prison, the spiritual stronghold he was battling.
Young White men who are being drawn to supremacist doctrine are struggling against a spiritual stronghold. We’re going to need, as Dr. King would tell us, “(A) heart full of grace and a soul generated by (God’s) love” to fight it.
Dr. Jessica A. Johnson is a lecturer in the English department at The Ohio State University-Lima. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @JjSmojc. Her opinion does not necessarily represent the views of The Lima News or its owner, AIM Media.
