By K. H. Hamilton
The recent 8/26/2023 hate crime committed in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida happened on the same day thousands gathered to honor the March on Washington’s 60th Anniversary where Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior delivered his iconic I Have a Dream speech. This anti-Black murder spree, which took the lives of two innocent Black men and one Black woman at a Dollar Tree store also comes one year after a similar anti-Black mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. Local Jacksonville police confirmed the lone White domestic anti-Black terrorist hated our people. The masked coward had the audacity to stop at Edward Waters University prior to the massacre and also allegedly warned the Federal Government of his plans to commit this anti-Black hate crime.
Anti-Black racial violence, including current mass shootings, incarceration, and school-based anti-Blackness— which has turned into a political spectacle thanks to politicians like Ron De Santis — is out of control.
Speaking of having a dream, De Santis still believes he can be the 47th President of the United States when his all-in attack on Black Americans spews hate that results in anti-Black violence, trauma and death in the state that he governs.
Blood is on his hands and unless the United States Government steps in and counters anti-Black hate with federal legislation and consequences, it will continue to fester all across our Nation.
When CBS Face the Nation asked former Vice President and current Presidential Candidate, Mike Pence about the mass shooting in Jacksonville, Fl. he sent prayerful condolences to the victims’ families. Pence also called for laws to ensure the immediate death penalty for anyone who initiates a mass shooting, whether it’s in Jacksonville, Florida or at a baseball or football game.
As U.S. Presidential candidates continue to kick the can down the road to address hate crimes that are specifically targeted against Black people in America, or fuel anti-Blackness by using terms like “woke” and “thugs” we receive messages of their failure to acknowledge Black human worth.
Right here in San Diego, Black Americans represent the highest amount of hate crimes reported both city and county wide and according to CA Attorney General Rob Bonta’s 2022 Hate Crimes Report, 50 percent of reported statewide hate crimes are targeted at African Americans who only represent 6.5% of the population; which increased by 27 percent.
Anti-Blackness in America occurs at every level. Whether we are running, sleeping, going to school or shopping, no one is safe. It’s exhausting to see that Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” continues to trend as an overall utterly despairing nightmare.
Dr. King’s own granddaughter, 15-year-old Yolanda Renee King called for an end to racial violence that plagues our Nation on the day of this massacre as she stood in the very place her late grandfather did in 1963. My heart pains in hearing Yolanda as a young Black youth call for the same rights for African American equity and protection six decades later.
As harsh as it sounds, I can’t help but wonder: how our acknowledgement of hate crimes against non-Black People of Color and creation of such legislation, including Anti-Asian hate laws signed by the Biden-Harris legislation in 2021, continues to turn a color-blind eye when it comes to laws that specifically call out ANTI-BLACK HATE that often results in death.
America, it is time to confess to the biggest crime of all, which is Anti-Black hate. Call a spade a spade. We were stolen, dehumanized and brutalized. Folks want our votes, then show us that we matter. We need Anti-Black hate legislation now.
