The Universal Poison of Racial and Religious Hatred

                                            Vigil outside the Tops store in Buffalo New York

Ten innocent people died in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on the weekend, the white murderer an eighteen-year-old whose hatred for Black people led him to this unspeakable act of cowardice. He drove hours to the store which he had researched as a important hub in a predominantly Black neighbourhood. I would describe this as diabolical. 

There were immediate responses from just about everyone, including the US President, decrying what had transpired. In Canada there were some who expressed gratitude that we live in a country which doesn't experience the same level of gun violence and racial hatred. Others pointed out that we have no reason to be smug, that Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour in this country are much more vulnerable, citing incidents of violence aimed at their communities. 

It has been noted that the young, white man who murdered worshippers at a mosque in Quebec City issued a "manfesto" which inspired the gunman in a mass killing at a New Zealand mosque and that his hateful screed was motivation for the garbled nonsense of the Buffalo killer. All three of these murderers were captured by police and observers suggest, probably rightly, that if any of them had been Black they would have been shot dead at the scene. 

Apparently the Buffalo perpetrator ascribed to the "great replacement theory" a bizarre white-supremacist notion that there is a plot to replace whites with non-white immigrants. While this began in Europe it has taken hold in the United States and Canada as the purported plan to rig elections with a flood of non-white newcomers. And it shouldn't surprise you that the conviction is that Jews are behind all this since they are blamed for every real and imagined problem in the world. 

Keep in mind that one of the key organizers of the so-called Freedom Convoy which wreaked havoc in Ottawa openly supports this theory. And let's remember that many of the people who invaded our nation's capital claimed to be Christians, as do plenty of white supremacists in the States. I can't say that those right-wing Christians in Ottawa espoused replacement theory, but why would they have aligned themselves so readily with people who are openly racist? 

To me this is apostasy, using the cover of Christianity, with its message of love and inclusion, to promote hatred and fear. We need to humbly acknowledge that racial and religious hatred exist in Canada and do everything possible to name it and challenge it, including through our communities of faith.