A Killer from the Start?

by Ebony Utley
R3 Contributor and author of:
Rap and Religion: Understanding the Gangsta’s God

I’ve been wrecked by the Aurora, Colorado shooting. I don’t know anyone who was murdered or maimed. I don’t know anyone who knew anyone who was killed or injured. I don’t know anything about the killer. I don’t want to know him. But I did read the bios of everyone who died. The entire episode is so epically tragic.

I’ve been walking through my life wondering about all the terrible things that could happen when I go to the grocery store, ride my bike to the pier, think about attending a movie. All of this second-guessing from a woman disconnected from the crime, hundreds of miles away defines how terrorism works. The Aurora, Colorado shooter (I would rather acknowledge the locale than his name) effectively used violence to intimidate and create fear among average Americans. I don’t care that our stereotypical image of a terrorist is a brown Muslim man—white folks have been enacting violence to instill fear in people of color since they murdered Native Americans and dragged stolen Africans in chains to a new continent.
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