If I were to be asked what an 18-year-old boy would occupy himself with, I would easily go for the usual frivolities like Tik Tok, video gaming, partying, or most of the usual things that the average 18 year old would be preoccupied with. Never in my wildest dream would I think that a young man at the cusp of adulthood would be preoccupied with radical ideas like the "Great replacement theory" and obsessed enough to murder innocent lives.
The shooting that occurred in Buffalo, New York, days ago is one of many, and from the perspective of someone like myself who migrated to this great country, we will always ask why stuff like this keeps happening. Gun violence and gun control is an age-old American conversation that appears to keep going back and forth with no measurable progress. I was still living in Nigeria when I first heard of the Columbine shooting, which at that time, was very big news. But these days, mass shooting just weaves its way in and out of the news, and in most cases, it will be forgotten within a couple of days or replaced by the next shooting.
So, what is so significant about this particular shooting? first of all, this kid is only 18, and he did not just go around shooting because he was trigger happy like the Columbine shooters, but he wanted certain people dead; to be more precise, he wanted to kill a number of black people, and he succeeded. And the reason for this? is that he actually believes that there is some kind of conspiracy to replace his race. And his solution? go out there and shoot them dead? this is concerning!
The first time I became aware of this great replacement theory was after Charlottesville, when the whole world saw a group of white men chanting, "Jews will not replace us!". I will have to mention at this point that there are things one may think that one knows about this country when you view it through the lenses of the news from a different country, but when you live here, it really is a different feeling. I must add that it is shocking from the viewpoint of an immigrant like myself. You feel the hate oozing out of your TV screen in real-time compared to how one may have related to these things watching from your home country. This is because you live here, and there is this strange feeling when you realize that they are talking about you.
I know that many cultural issues are plaguing this country, and there are too many groups of different people with different ideologies all wanting different things. But when I began to understand this whole replacement theory thing, I became concerned; and now, with this shooting, I am alarmed because, according to the manifesto of this shooter, he is worried about people like me. People who buy into this kind of thinking believe that we have come to take their spot. From my understanding, this used to be a fringe idea, but it appears to be mainstream now as we see this idea being touted by politicians on national TV.
I cannot speak for other Immigrants as we all have our own different experiences. Still, for someone like myself who just started living here when Trump was elected president, it appears that I landed here at a time when these culture wars began to escalate. We witnessed Charlottesville and the president's description of having good people on both sides, all the way to George Floyd and the Bible parade. My naive thinking, of course, was that all they needed to do was to vote this president out of power, and all this would go away, but here we are with precipitating homegrown terrorists; as young as 18!
One thing I have found more complicated than even rocket science is this conversation bordering on gun control. Someone is diagnosed with a mental illness and can walk into a gunshop and get a weapon; a AR 15! since an immigrant's perspective of what America should or should not do with their guns will continue to be inconsequential, the common sense angle here is that if these guns were not easily accessible, it would reduce the number of senseless killing. How a solution is more complicated than reducing access to these guns baffles me. I do not know what the NRA has on politicians, but Lord knows that they have something.
Most immigrants like myself have lived in different countries before settling in the US, and you really don't need to live in different countries to realize that hate is something that exists all over the world. Different groups with different ideas are at loggerheads with other groups that have contrary opinions. Even in my home country, some people believe that the country should be divided into different geographical regions, and they are ready to go to war for this. What may be called racism in America can be compared to tribalism in Nigeria. The difference is that everyone in Nigeria is of the black race, and the American racists' strife with people they perceive to be different from them boils down to something as basic as the color of their skin. None of these things are good for society and humanity as a whole. People will always disagree because it is impossible for all of us to have our own utopia without someone else getting offended by it, so I really don't know how hate will ever be fixed. it is a very sad and terrible thing that happened to the people that were shot by this 18-year-old who believes that they are a threat to him, and a huge shame that this replacement theory has become a mainstream debate; every time I hear one new manifesto from a terrorist, I just conclude that people will always have some justification for hate, but if we cannot control hate, we can do something about the guns!
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