After Buffalo, we must become ambassadors of peace. Our nation depends on it | Opinion

Like you, I am so tired of people killing other people.

Not only is it wrong, but it is so sad… sad for those who must now mourn their deceased loved ones, who were taken from them too soon. And sad for our nation, too, because we can’t seem to get a grip on the hate that is tearing us apart.

The hate I’m speaking of is not just in Buffalo, New York. It is everywhere — in our neighborhoods, where teenagers kill one another; on our highways, where you’re afraid to toot your horn at the driver in front of you who hasn’t noticed the light has changed; in drive-by shootings, where shooters seem never to be caught.

Hate follows us to church, to the synagogue, to school, to the movie theater and to the night club, and even in our homes as we sit watching television.

Hate has such a tight hold on America, that journalists like me can’t even write a simple, celebratory column about graduations, without having someone call me “… a stupid Negro,” because I capitalized the word Black in referring to my race.

Oh, yes, I feel the hate, too. But thank God, I also feel the love. Still, the tight knot of hatred and racism seems to be getting tighter every day.

It saddens me to think that as American citizens, we have fought and won so many battles — from slavery to freedom, come over hills and mountains, and through blood, sweat and tears, to a place where we can continue to grow as the great country that we have become. Now, it seems, we will have to fight the same battles all over again.

But haven’t we been here before? Hasn’t there been enough innocent bloodshed?

What’s the matter, America?

Don’t you want to live peacefully with your fellow citizens? Why do we have to be a country divided? Division benefits none of us.

And why does there have to be a “replacement theory”? There is enough room on this beautiful planet called Earth for all of God’s children. And He has a plan and a place for each of us.

READ MORE: 10 Black people were murdered for merely being. I thought they were the real victims

Looking back to May 14, and the mass shooting at the Buffalo supermarket, I am thinking about what it must have been like for the 10 people shot and killed on their last day on earth.

I imagined that Andre Mackneil, 53, who was in line to pay for a birthday cake for his son’s third birthday, was probably smiling. I can imagine he was thinking of the fun he was looking forward to, surprising his little boy.

I thought of Ruth Whitfield, 86, who had stopped by the supermarket to pick up a few items — probably for her Sunday dinner. She had stopped by the Tops Friendly Market on her way home from visiting with her husband, who is in a nursing home near the store.

I thought about Aaron Salter, 55, a retired Buffalo police officer who was working as a security guard, who died trying to stop the shooter.

And I thought about Heyward Patterson, 67, who loved serving his church and his community, often giving residents rides to the grocery store, and helping them with their groceries once he got them home.

These innocent citizens, along with six others, died while simply living their lives in a non-eventful and peaceful way. But their peace, the peace of the Buffalo community where they lived, and yes, the peace of America was shattered by the crackling sounds of gunfire on May 14, 2022.

In fact, the murders on that day caused the crack in the peace of our entire nation to grow wider and longer. Innocent people died that day, at the hand of the alleged shooter, hate-filled Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white youth, who had to drive nearly 300 miles in what police say was his plan to target Black people in the attack.

Three hundred miles is a long way to drive to kill someone. I would like to know what Gendron was thinking as he drove the miles to the Tops Friendly Market. Did it ever seep into his mind that what he was going to do was wrong? Did he ever think about the pain he would cause other human beings? Did he even care… How did it come to this with him?

The mass killings that have penetrated and spread throughout our country, will be the death of the freedom-loving America that all decent citizens seek, if we are not careful. The fact that any citizen can obtain an assault weapon, seemingly without ever being questioned, is beyond me.

While there has been much said about what Gendron learned about the so-called “replacement theory” and how it affected him, there is much to be said about his upbringing, too. I don’t believe Gendron’s story started with the internet.

There have been reports that his father gifted him with a gun. These are parents who knew their son was mentally ill. So, why give your struggling child a weapon?

There is nothing that I can say here that would change the course that America is on.

But there is something each of us can do to turn this thing around. We can determine, each of us, to be an ambassador of peace. We can practice spreading goodwill, instead of hate.

We can try, America. Our very existence as a free and peace-loving nation depends on it.