Poll: Black Americans fear an increase in racist attacks after Buffalo shooting

Three-quarters of Black Americans are worried that they or someone they love will be attacked because of their race, according to a nationwide Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted after a gunman killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket, allegedly targeting members of the mostly Black neighborhood.

The Post-Ipsos poll of Black Americans finds most are saddened and angered by the attacks, but just 8 percent say they are “surprised.” Even before the shooting, in earlier poll questioning, Black people saw racism as one of their greatest threats. After the attack, only 10 percent think the problem of racism will improve in their lifetimes, while a 53 percent majority think it will get worse.

Authorities believe the Buffalo shooting suspect published a 180-page diatribe before the massacre, detailing his plans to kill Black people and describing himself as a white supremacist and a terrorist. Of the 13 people shot, 11 were Black. Federal officials have said they are pursuing the case as a racially motivated hate crime.

“This proved my theory that it’s still out there. And it’s not getting better, it’s getting worse,” said Teeyada Cannon, a Buffalo resident who knows the grocery where the shooting took place. She said that, despite the guilty conviction last year of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, she did not have hope that Black people were safe from attack, either by police or other Americans.

Like Cannon, Black Americans overall see the Buffalo mass shooting not as a fringe attack but reflective of broader racism in the country, the PostIpsos poll finds. A 70 percent majority of Black Americans think at least half of white Americans hold white supremacist beliefs, 75 percent of Black Americans say white supremacists are a “major threat” to Black Americans, and 66 percent say white supremacy is a bigger problem today than it was five years ago.

Black Americans’ fears of racially motivated attacks come atop broader disappointments about racial inequality two years after Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.

The poll finds 80 percent of Black people saying that the police in their communities treat Black people less fairly than white people, which grows to 88 percent when asked about police nationally.

The reaction to Floyd’s death initially spurred some optimism that police treatment of Black Americans would improve, and that whites’ concerns about discrimination against Blacks would grow. But now, two years after the May 25, 2020, killing, much of that optimism has disintegrated.

In June 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests one month after Floyd’s death, 54 percent of Black Americans expected police treatment of Black Americans would improve in the coming years, according to a poll then. But today, less than half as many — 19 percent — say it actually did. Another 38 percent say police treatment has improved “a little,” while 41 percent say it has not improved “at all.”

Carl Davidson, 61, of Oakland, Calif., said there have been incremental steps in the right direction. But there has also been a jolt backward. He said criticism of critical race theory, renewed gerrymandering efforts and other culture wars are part of the backlash.

“Pretty quick after ‘Black Lives Matter’ there were knee jerks with ‘Blue lives’ and ‘white lives matter.’ It was a misinterpretation, promulgating a zero-sum perspective, that if Blacks have rights, whites have fewer rights,” said Davidson, a wine industry sales representative. “But we want what everyone wants. And it’s guaranteed by the Constitution.”

In that sense, he said, people seem bolder than ever before in making clear their anti-Black racism.

“The rock has been turned over and the racism is out there, and people feel a lot more free to express it,” he said.

When it came to suffering a racist attack, the source of Johnathon Davis’s greatest fear used to be police. But now, he worries about everyday white people who he thinks could be secretly extremist, racist and armed.

“At least (with) the police you kind of have some idea of the people you’re dealing with, but the neighbor next door? You have no idea what goes on when the door is closed,” Davis, 57, said.

The Post-Ipsos poll finds roughly 1 in 4 Black Americans say they have considered buying a gun to protect themselves after the Buffalo shooting. If all of this group did so, it would double the rate of Black gun ownership.

Davis, an IT program analyst for the state of Alabama, said he is considering arming himself.

“My son went out and just purchased his first gun because of this. And I got rid of all my guns because I have a young child at home, but now I’m thinking maybe I do need to have a gun, because what if they take it to a different level coming into the neighborhood, kicking down doors and shooting people in them?” he said.

But Davis did have a hopeful vision for the future.

“We can learn to live in the same community because at the end of the day we have similar values, we want children to be educated, we want them to go to college and do good in life and we want the same for ourselves. We’re working hard, Black and white, most of us, to provide for our families,” he said.