Calling Las Vegas Massacre Deadliest Shooting In U.S. History Erases Our Violent Past

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Let’s not negate the events of black history.

By Lilly Workneh

Yet to describe it in such terms is to whitewash history, as it negates more deadly mass shootings and race riots throughout American history that impacted people of color. The shooting, as horrific as it is, also serves as a useful reminder to those in the media to be watchful of the language used to report and share a story. 

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At the time, the Pulse massacre was also described by some in the media as the “deadliest shooting in American history.” Some platforms simply called out this inaccuracy, while others used it to provide a broader discussion of America’s long history of mass gun violence. 

Among the latter were organizations like the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists who jointly issued a statement last year to urge journalists to report the story accurately and refrain from using superlatives altogether “as comparing Sunday’s tragedy to other incidents in history does it no justice,” their statement read. 

“If the decision is made to add a superlative, [the Pulse] shooting would count as the deadliest shooting in recent or modern history,” it continued. The statement cited at least two separate occasions in American history where mass shootings resulted in higher death tolls than that of the Pulse massacre. For one, the East St. Louis Massacre in 1917 led to the killings of more than 100 black Americans who were beaten, shot and lynched. It is estimated that another 60 to 100 black Americans were killed in a similar act of mass racial violence in Colfax, Louisiana in 1873. 

Between 1864 and 1890, three other mass shootings ― the Sand Creek, Clear Lake and Wounded Knee massacres ― cost the lives of hundreds of Native Americans and pioneer settlers by U.S. Army men across the midwest. The Tulsa race riots occurred when a mob of white rioters ransacked a segregated area known as “Black Wall Street” in a shooting and looting rampage that killed close to 300 people. 

Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/calling-las-vegas-massacre-deadliest-shooting-in-us-history-ignores-our-violent-past_us_59d24e68e4b05f005d35ae02?section=us_black-voices

We have a history of violence that dates back more than a century and still we do nothing.