The racially-motivated shooting and mass killing in Buffalo, New York, calls attention—yet again—to two disturbing and converging phenomena in the United States: white supremacist violence motivated by conspiracy theories such as “replacement theory” and unabated gun violence propelled by the proliferation and easy availability of weapons.
We at the Kroc Institute mourn the deaths of the victims in this recent act of violence and stand in solidarity with communities of color, from Buffalo, New York, to Dallas, Texas, to Laguna Woods, California, who have been the most recent targets of white supremacist ideologues.
As a peace studies Institute, we are committed to combating racially-motivated violence and white supremacist ideology through our teaching and research on racial injustice in the United States and around the world. We also acknowledge our own shortcomings within the Kroc Institute and the urgent need to strive for racial justice first and foremost within our communities. By exposing the root causes, channels, and systems that allow the proliferation of fear and hatred against communities of color, the Kroc Institute hopes that we—our students, staff, faculty and alumni—can be a small part of the necessary and urgent efforts to name and end this violence.
- Asher Kaufman, John M. Regan, Jr. Director; Professor of History and Peace Studies