United States President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that white supremacism is a poison in the “american body politic” after visiting the “Tops” supermarket in Buffalo where an 18-year-old white supremacist killed a dozen people on Saturday for racist reasons, a massacre that the president described as “national terrorism.”
(Also read: Buffalo shooting: the conspiracy theory that motivated the attacker)
“What happened here is simple and direct: terrorism. national terrorism. I hate that through the media, politics and the internet, angry, alienated, lost and isolated individuals have been radicalized into believing, falsely, that they will be replaced (by other races),” the president noted at a press conference in that city. from upstate New York.
The suspect of having murdered ten people and left three more wounded defined himself as a “fascist and a white supremacist” and traveled more than 300 kilometers to a mostly African-American neighborhood with the aim of killing as many blacks as possible. Of the 13 victims in Saturday’s shooting, 11 were black.
In his press conference, Biden stressed that he will not let this hatred win in his country and that white supremacy will not have the last word.
(Read on: ‘Racially Motivated’ Shooting Leaves 10 Dead at US Supermarket)
In this sense, he said that he will work to control “assault weapons” (capable of firing both in automatic and semi-automatic mode), within other measures proposed in the Democratic Party environment such as not allowing those people with a criminal record or serious mental illness can buy guns.
So far this year there have been nearly 200 shootings in the country and the United States ended 2021 with 693 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Biden also made a special mention of the victims of the massacre and said that one of the victims had gone to that supermarket just to buy strawberries for a recipe and that another was buying a birthday cake for her son.
(Also: Killer Who Broadcast US Shooting Had More Attacks Planned)
The Democratic politician also sent a message of hope to the relatives of the victims and said that time will help them process their grief, citing what happened to him as an example: Biden lost his first wife (30 years) in a car accident. ) and her daughter (13 months) and, 40 years later, her son Joseph ‘Beau’ died at the age of 46 from brain cancer.
During Tuesday’s visit, the president met with the families of the victims, as well as with community leaders and members of the security and emergency forces.
The first stop for the Democratic president, who traveled with his wife, Jill, was the “Tops” supermarket, that from the weekend was transformed into an altar full of candles and flowers, where the first lady deposited a large white bouquet.
In addition, he was accompanied on his tour by the Governor of New York, Democrat Kathy Hochul, the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, and the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer.
The local media that have had access to the 180-page document published by the suspect Payton Gendron – a text that is being studied by the authorities to confirm its authenticity – point out that this “manifesto” is full of racist comments that argue a conspiracy theory known among the far right as the “great replacement” theory.
this theory alleges that white Americans are in danger of being replaced by people of other raceswhile in other latitudes his followers warn that the supposed replacement will be carried out by Islamic immigration.
(You may be interested in: US shootings: what is known about the attacks in Buffalo and Los Angeles?)
The idea of the “great replacement” has been taking hold around the world among far-right groups. Thus, in March 2015, in New Zealand, Brenton Tarrant, who attacked two mosques in the city of Christchurch and killed 51 people, also published another manifesto in which he alluded to this theory.
In August of the same year, but in the United States, Patrick Wood Crusius killed more than twenty people in a shooting at a Texas supermarket and also left behind a document claiming to be inspired by Tarrant.
EFE
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