Buffalo Common Council member Rasheed N.C. Wyatt is devastated.
He’s devastated for his people, he’s devastated for his community and he’s devastated for humanity. Days after the May 14, race-motivated mass shooting occurred inside a Tops Friendly Market on the East Side, a primarily Black area of Buffalo, Wyatt spoke to rolling out.
How have these past few days been?
It’s really been devastating. Even standing here right now seems real eerie. I’m emotional because I just think about someone who came into our community and took the lives of some people [who] mean a lot to us. I’ve heard the stories of how this person took the life of a grandmother from point-blank range. And I just wonder what kind of animal is that who will come to a community and hurt us as deeply as they did. So that’s how I’m feeling right now. I noticed the community feels the same way. We’ll never be the same. As I learn more about the victims, I definitely won’t be the same. I mean, that could have been my grandmother, that could have been my uncle, my cousin. And that really impacts us.
Seeing all these hugs, seeing all this love, the free food, the cookouts, the music, the DJs — how would you describe the community’s reaction to it?
They’re just trying to cope right now. We cope in a lot of ways through the music. Some people may think that is wrong, but that’s how we have to cope with things. This is how we’ve been affected. It’s not like we deal with this every day, you know, and this happened right in our community, right in our midst. After the pandemic, and all those things, we’re dealing with a whole lot of stuff. So we’re trying to deal with it the best way we can.
I don’t know how we get through this. All I know, is one day at a time. We have to do what we can to cope. I know we have a lot of resources for counseling, which we definitely need. And I encourage those people. I mean, we as Black people sometimes feel like we don’t need counseling … we need that help. There’s so much we’ve been through, and so again, right now, I’m really worried about those families and praying for those families, and hope that we can all wrap our arms around them. Because again, when you affect one of us, you affect all of us.
How do you keep your sanity as an elected official?
Dr. King talked about the 10 days and the cycle of tragedy, and how we become numb to it after the 10 days, but we won’t become numb to this. We will forever remember it because many of those people, although they weren’t my direct relatives, I knew them. I knew someone that knew them.
