Sandy Banks: The Buffalo shooting brings back a lifelong question: Why do they hate us so much?
My reaction to news of the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, was more than emotional; my heart raced and my stomach churned. My hands are shaking as I write this nearly a week later.
My first thought, in the moment after I heard about the attack, was the same as it always is after every mass shooting: Dear God, please don't let the shooter be Black. Because in the eyes of white America — consciously or not — the rest of us would be held to account.
The air cleared as the truth came out — a hate-filled young white supremacist, prosecutors say, had meticulously planned to annihilate as many Black people as he could while they shopped for groceries on a Saturday afternoon. Ten people died — all of them Black — and three were hospitalized.
As irrational as it seems, I felt a brief flash of relief; the shooter allegedly was, once again, a white man
