Two years ago today a Texas man killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso.

In the manifesto he published shortly before the murders he wrote that
he’d come to repel the “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” language that echoed
what former President Donald Trump used to describe immigrants, asylum
seekers and refugees.

A USA Today report found that Trump had used the words "predator,"
"invasion," "alien," "killer," "criminal" and "animal" at his rallies
while discussing immigration more than 500 times.

The newly emboldened white supremacy movement, the extraordinarily easy
access to powerful firearms (the killer’s mother, after discovering that
her son had purchased an AK-47, called the Allen, Texas police department
asking for help. Unfortunately, it is perfectly legal in Texas to buy a
weapon originally designed for war, and so there was nothing they could do
for her, or for the 23 people who would be murdered in El Paso), and the
constant scapegoating of immigrants by President Trump, Texas Governor
Greg Abbott and the modern Republican party made this possible.

And so did everyone who turned a blind eye to what was happening in this
country.

It’s tempting for some to chalk the El Paso killings up to mental illness,
violent video games, or lack of religion (Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan
Patrick blamed them on all three). That would allow us to “move on,” and
absolve us of responsibility.

But it should be clear to us that the Walmart shooting is an example of
the white supremacist terrorism that is more prevalent in this country
today than at any time since the last era of Jim Crow.

We see it in the white, masked gunmen who mass on the steps of state
capitols across the country, seeking to intimidate lawmakers and the
public; we see it in Klansmen and Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace
us” in Charlottesville; we see it in a Michigan militia’s attempt to
kidnap and execute Governor Gretchen Whitmer; we see it in the
insurrectionists carrying Confederate battle flags into the U.S. Capitol
on January 6th, where five people including a capitol police officer were
killed in an attempt to violently overthrow the 2020 presidential
election.

And we see it in the effort to entrench white power in state legislatures
across this country at the expense of minority voters through aggressive
racial gerrymandering and voter suppression laws.

That’s what we’re up against today. That’s what El Paso was up against on
August 3rd, 2019.

And that’s what we’ll be up against for as long as we accept this as our
fate.

But we don’t have to. As long as we’re willing to acknowledge that it is
happening, call it out where we see it, and fight like hell to overcome
it, we have a chance to come through.

Here are some things we can do:

Pass legislation that will significantly reduce access to firearms
intended for use in war, along with universal background checks and
extreme risk protection orders; vigorously pursue prosecution against
white supremacist terrorists and those who fund and encourage them; reject
all language and policies that seek to dehumanize immigrants; and stop the
rollback of voting rights in this country by passing pro-democracy
legislation like the For the People Act.

Today, my thoughts are with the survivors from August 3rd, 2019 and the
family members who lost a loved one on that day. We can only imagine their
grief and the pain that this anniversary brings them.

But to truly honor them, let us devote ourselves to fighting the forces
that brought such unspeakable evil and death to our community and that
continue to threaten the future of this country.

I hope you will continue to join me in this work.

Beto

 


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