At GRuB, we stand in solidarity with all of the families and community members affected by the mass murder of 10 Black Americans at a grocery store in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo, NY on May 14th, 2022. We echo the sentiment expressed so eloquently by GLAD:

For the families and friends of the 10 people who were shot and killed – parents, family members, a retired police officer, a devoted church parishioner – there is little we can do collectively to ease their suffering and loss, other than to bear witness to their pain and honor those killed.

But for all Americans, and especially Black Americans who have been targeted by racist violence in our country, we can and we must raise our collective voices to drown out the voices of hate. It is our moral responsibility that we are never silent in the face of hate.

Of the nearly 200 mass shootings that have happened so far this year in the United States, Buffalo, NY was the deadliest. Black Americans are leading targets for hate crimes in our country, but we also continue to witness increases in attacks against the Muslim and Jewish communities, as well as violence against the Native, Latinx, Asian, LGBTQ+ communities across the United States, including right here in Olympia. 

This crime, and all hate-based crimes, are the fruit that grows from the legacy of American racism, inequity, and segregation; the same legacy that nurtures patriarchy, wealth exploitation and oppression in our society. We understand these crimes to be symptoms of societal wounds caused by this legacy; wounds occurring both in individuals and collectively.

The U.S. is built on the enslavement and genocide of Black, Indigenous people and communities of color. We are a nation of people traumatized by centuries of pain, as both the victims and the perpetrators of forced migration, forced extraction, and forced exclusion. Our collective pain is one of the root causes of violence in our society.

Standing in solidarity and support is an important part of recognizing and responding to hate crimes. It’s also a place where we must recognize the ways in which each of us are complicit with white supremacy and its heinous acts. White supremacy shows up not only in its more jarring forms- like these hate crimes -but in insidious ways in our everyday lives, such as microaggressions in our schools and workplaces and policies that perpetuate gaps in health, wealth, and opportunity in our governments. 

Where are we ignoring, minimizing experience or oppression or hate? Where are we numb to the grief, marginalization or isolation of others? For GRuB this is a call to deeply examine all aspects of our programming and organization’s community, and for each of us to be accountable to disrupting white supremacy as it shows up in ourselves, our organizational culture, and within our broader political, cultural, social, and economic systems.   

We mourn in solidarity and send our sincere condolences to the entire Buffalo, NY community, and all members of our own community experiencing fear, anger, and grief. 

Consider supporting a food-based organization in Buffalo:  

FEED BUFFALO

Food Future WNY

Buffalo Freedom Gardens

Salud Market Buffalo‍