Protesters outside Long Beach City Hall condemn racially-motivated mass shooting in Buffalo

Around two dozen people gathered on the front steps of the Long Beach Civic Center on Sunday, May 15  to condemn the racially-motivated shooting that occurred at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York the day before.

“White supremacy is that grip around each and every one of our necks, in our lives, as we try to sustain and try to create a better future for ourselves and those around us,” organizer Anthony Bryson said.

A Buffalo native living in Long Beach, Alonzo Eubanks spoke to the crowd about his community.

“That is my neighborhood,” Eubanks said. “I have family, I have friends there. My family home is only five minutes away from that shop. That’s where I shopped at when I was younger.”

According to Eubanks, the Tops Friendly Markets supermarket targeted by the shooter is the only grocery store in the primarily Black neighborhood.

According to an online manifesto allegedly written by the shooter, he described himself as a white supremacist, anti-Semite and fascist who was afraid that people of color will replace the white population of the United States. This racist conspiracy theory is known as “The Great Replacement,” and has roots in French nationalism, as reported by National Public Radio.

“It is our duty, it is our mandate, it is our obligation to say back to that manifesto, ‘[Expletive] you. This is our country, made on the backs of slaves, most of the produce picked by immigrants,” Bryson said.

In the manifesto, the shooter revealed that he had been seriously planning the shooting since January, but was stockpiling ammunition before that.

Long Beach resident David Randalls brought a sign to the Sunday protest reading, “Our Country Is Broken Because The System Is ‘Fixed.’” According to Randalls, he used that same sign during the Occupy Wallstreet movement in 2012, to protest the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

“Why does the same sign work everytime?” Randalls asked the crowd. “I believe a lot of the problem is because it’s the system. It’s a system-wide problem. And what we’re seeing is we’re experiencing symptoms of a great problem, and we’re just treating the symptoms.”