Will race motivate more killing?
US grapples with white nationalism, rising political strife and horrific violence
A festival in Gilroy, California. A Walmart in El Paso, Texas. A bustling night spot in Dayton, Ohio.
The shootings followed much of the tragic, familiar pattern: outpouring of grief for the victims, a search for a reason.
Investigators have said the motive in each case remains unclear, but the recent shootings raise new questions about whether victims were targeted — not for random violence or as the object of some perceived grudge — but because of their race or ethnicity.
While police in Gilroy say they still have yet to establish a definitive motive, the shooter is believed to have posted a reference to an 1890 novel that espouses racist ideology. Three people died in that attack, and more than 16 were wounded.
In El Paso, police say they believe the shooter, a white man, posted a hate-filled racist missive online and traveled to largely Hispanic El Paso to target his victims. In Dayton, most of the victims were black.
While the shootings would not be the first to target people for their race, they arrive at a time when the nation grapples with the idea of white nationalism, and with political tensions that have emerged from racist remarks and anti-immigrant rhetoric from the president and others.
El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles, in a post online, summed up the fear succinctly: “This Anglo man came here to kill Hispanics.”
Those conclusions add a layer of shock to the national reaction, as some
wonder whether more people will find themselves amid a shooting not just because of where they are, but who they are.
“As a brown person, a Latino in a mixed-race marriage, you do feel you have a target on your back,” said Jaime Casap, a Phoenix resident and a nationally recognized education consultant in the tech industry.
Similar fears were echoed in El Paso. “The people who want to build a wall, the militia, recent visits from Steve Bannon and Donald Trump Jr. are attracting white supremacists to El Paso who might want to do us harm,” said Cemelli de Aztlan.
Rise of tensions
That America is becoming more diverse is well documented. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that racial and ethnic minorities will outnumber white people in 25 years.
That the tide of white nationalism is on the rise is also well documented. In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center documented 892 hate groups across the nation. In 2018, there were 1,015, a 14% increase in just three years.
Systemic violence against minority groups is ingrained in American history. Black people both during and after slavery were subject to mob justice and widespread violence. In the mostly forgotten “Red Summer” of 1919, historians believe, more than 250 African Americans were killed in at least 25 riots across the U.S. by white mobs that were never punished.
Fears of violence take on a new significance in an era of mass shooters with military-style weapons.
Casap said he is particularly concerned that the levels of rhetoric coming from the White House are emboldening racists.
But that could ultimately have a positive side to it.
“We’ve never taken on race in this country,” Casap said. “If I told you in 2012 I was discriminated against, you’d say, ‘Come on, we have a black president. We’re past race.’ Today, you’d believe me. It’s out there, and now we need to deal with it.”
He said one way of dealing with it is to call it what it is.
“The best news I heard all day is the