| The gunman seems motivated by a vision of history, pushed by the right, in which American racism never existed and Black people are undeserving takers.  Photograph by Matt Rourke / AP / Shutterstock “Once startling and noteworthy, mass shootings have melded into the background of life in the U.S,” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes, noting that there have been roughly two hundred such shootings recorded in the country so far this year. Yet some events still have the ability to shock. On Saturday afternoon, an eighteen-year-old who allegedly posted a hundred-and-eighty page “manifesto” avowing white-supremacist beliefs opened fire at a grocery store in the primarily Black neighborhood of Masten, in Buffalo, hitting thirteen people and killing ten. Taylor, who was born in Buffalo, writes that the shooting “must be viewed within the context of the growing normalization of racism and political violence in the U.S.” Taylor examines the parallels between the shooter’s manifesto and the rhetoric of conservative figureheads, including Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, and speaks with a local pastor, whose congregants were directly affected by the attack. “Many people were angry,” he says, and notes that the violence seems like a continuation of a broader trend of inequity that Black people in Masten have experienced. As Taylor writes, “For decades, Black life has been seen as disposable.” —Jessie Li, newsletter editor If you like the New Yorker Daily, please share it with a friend. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here. | 
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