Residents Feel Grief, Anger After Another Mass Shooting
Despite a distance of over 500 miles, Falmouth residents are feeling the shock waves of last weekend’s tragedy in Buffalo as if it happened in their own backyard.
A vigil was held on Sunday, May 15, to honor those who lost their lives when an 18-year-old white man entered a Tops Friendly Market on Saturday morning in Buffalo, New York, and opened fire, killing 10 and injuring three. Eleven of the victims were people of color, and an online paper trail from the suspect containing white supremacist rhetoric, such as replacement theory, that has left the impression that this was a targeted act of racism.
About 20 attendees were present for the vigil, including many community faith leaders. The names of the 10 people who were killed were read off, along with a short biography for each of them.
“That way, it’s not just 10 victims or 10 names, but we know something about them, so we can start seeing them as the people they are,” said the Reverend Nell Fields of Waquoit Congregational Church. “I think sometimes we’re so removed from these horrible acts of hatred that it’s just a number to us, but this is not a number. These were people like you and me: they have loves, they have families, they buy strawberries because they like strawberry shortcake. These are our neighbors. I don’t care where they live.”
Linda Deyoung, a member of Racial Justice Falmouth, felt similarly.
“One of the women was in her 80s and was described as a loving grandmother, and I think, ‘I’m a loving grandmother; that could’ve been me,’” she said.
Many attendees found comfort in the vigil, as reliving yet another mass shooting brought forth emotions from past instances of gun violence and racially motivated attacks, such as the Charleston, South Carolina, shooting in 2015 that left nine Black parishioners dead, or the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where the shooter explicitly expressed a hatred for Latinx people.
“At the end [of the vigil] we sang ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ” said Seyana Mawusi, a steering committee member of No Place For Hate Falmouth and a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant. “I remember saying: how long? How many times must we sing ‘We Shall Overcome’? When are we really going to get to the point and to a time when things like this don’t have to plague our community? Yes, somebody gets shot or killed in Buffalo—you feel it. As a Black person, I absolutely feel it.”
Concerned with the lackadaisical approach America has taken to gun laws, Ms. Mawusi believes that citizens must hold elected officials accountable and continue to talk about these kinds of issues.
“This could happen anywhere,” she said. “Everyone is on guard. It makes no difference where you are, because we know the scenario: we’ve walked it, we’ve lived it, we feel it. And each and every time, we have to relive it. But you know what? We’ve got to keep the conversation going because once you stop the conversation, it opens a door for it to happen.”
The Reverend William Mebane of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, a former resident of Buffalo, said his emotions were raw but he was able to find support in the gathering of community leaders on the Village Green.
“I preached about it on Sunday and I lost my composure toward the end of the sermon,” Mr. Mebane said. “I was just so full of sadness and tears and all. But it was good [on] Sunday afternoon to be gathered with people and hear people offering their condolences and their commitment to doing what they can to make sure people understand that Black lives do matter and that we have to do something in this country to stop this proliferation of mass shootings. I left the vigil feeling better than I did before.”
Mr. Mebane and his wife have lived in Buffalo three separate times, for a total of about eight years. During that time, he said, they fell in love with the city and its people, so much so that they visited just last year as part of their summer vacation.
“Buffalo is a city of people that we really love,” he said. “I can’t watch a news report or read a news report without recognizing faces and places and names that are very familiar to me. In fact, my wife said to me yesterday, ‘I know if we were still in Buffalo, you’d be there at the Tops,’ and I said, ‘Oh yeah, I would be. I would be trying to be of help.’”
Being a helpful neighbor is something that Mr. Mebane learned firsthand is a trait of Buffalo residents. One morning during his first winter in the notoriously snowy city, Mr. Mebane went out in the early morning hours to shovel his driveway only to find that his neighbor had already cleared it using his snow blower. When he asked why, the neighbor told Mr. Mebane that he knew his wife had to be at work by 7 AM and, without a snow blower of his own, he knew Mr. Mebane would not have been able to clear it out in time.
“It’s that kind of neighborliness that you find in that city,” he said.
Mr. Mebane has a deep, abiding love for his former city and is still processing his grief about the situation, but he is not just sorrowful—he is angry, too.
“I’m angry that our political leaders will not do what is necessary to stop these types of mass killings and shootings from taking place,” he said. “What I said to the congregation on Sunday is that we can change this. We can get gun safety legislation in this country, but that’s only going to happen if we insist our elected officials do it. So I’m not going to vote for anyone—I don’t care if they’re running for dog catcher or zoning board or select board or school committee or president of the United States—I am not voting for anyone anymore unless they have a commitment to passing gun safety legislation and a plan for accomplishing that. Otherwise, don’t ask for my vote… For me, it has to be an issue that every citizen in this county, especially every elected official, must be committed to.”
Like Mr. Mebane, various community leaders in Falmouth have since committed themselves to helping put a stop to gun violence and racist attacks in America. Ms. Fields, for example, believes it is the responsibility of white people to educate themselves and each other.
“It’s hard to look at, but look at it we must,” she said. “I know we have a horrible gun problem, where we idolize guns, but this is more than that. This is hatred, and it just doesn’t have any place in our world but unfortunately, it’s happening.”
Happy with the local initiatives to educate the community on the how and why of racial injustices, Ms. Deyoung said that the step that comes after education is action.
“There are a lot of groups like No Place For Hate, Racial Justice in Falmouth, and some of the faith-based groups that are reading books and trying to educate themselves and having conversations around this,” she said. “Locally, we’re trying to have some presentations and panel discussions. As soon as terms like replacement theory or critical race theory come up and start to get used in a negative way, we should have sessions to explain what it means and where does it fall in all of this array of racism.”
Talking and learning about these concepts is one of the most important parts of the equation, Ms. Mawusi said.
“We have to change the narrative, we have to change the story,” she said. “We have to make a conscious effort to talk about white supremacy. We have to talk about the effect guns are having in our community. We have to.”