While Donald Trump is busy firing key members of his administration, visiting California in an attempt to get his ridiculous border wall funded, and ranting on Twitter about the need to arm school teachers, the residents of Austin, Texas, are fearing for their lives. After a series of package bombs were delivered to three different homes over the course of 10 days, Austinites are left worried and wondering if these are incidents are the result of hate crimes or something else.
Three package bombs have exploded at homes in the Texas capital over 10 days -- including two Monday -- killing two people and injuring two others. Investigators say they believe the incidents are related, and residents have responded anxiously in the past day.
Austin police have received 150 calls about suspicious packages, Chief Brian Manley said Tuesday on Twitter, though police haven't indicated any subsequent check revealing anything alarming.
The first package bombs exploded on Friday, March 2. It resulted in the death of Anthony Stephan House, a 39-year-old black man. This was followed by another bomb which exploded on early Monday, March 12. That incident took the life of a 17-year-old black male and seriously injured a woman. The most recent explosion took place on Monday afternoon, and that one critically injured a 75-year-old Latina.
Police are not yet sure if these are hate crimes, though they do believe that all three cases are related. In each instance, residents found a package outside of their home which appeared in regular-sized boxes that were subsequently opened. And according to Austin police chief Brian Manley, the bomber knows exactly what they are doing.
Manley said it took "a level of skill" to construct the three bombs.
The maker or makers put " these bombs together; they're transporting them to their intended location; and then actually ... detonating them," Manley
told KXAN on Tuesday. "So there's a certain level of skill and sophistication that whoever is doing this has, and ... we are hoping to use the evidence we have to track them down based on what we are seeing on all three scenes that seem to be consistent."
This entire series of explosions is incredibly alarming and residents are right to be concerned. And what’s arousing even more suspicion is that two of the victims, the black males who were killed, had relatives who are well-known in the local black community.
Both House and the slain teenager are relatives of prominent members of Austin's African-American community, The Washington Post reported. House was the stepson of Freddie Dixon, a former pastor at a historic black church in Austin, the Post said. Dixon is friends with the grandfather of the teen who was killed Monday, according to the newspaper.
Here’s the latest police press briefing and what they know so far:
We know that police officers require time to find a suspect, do their due diligence to establish motive, and determine whether or not the motive was race-based. But in spite of these unknowns, for people of color, especially blacks, we cannot help but feel a visceral fear when something like this happens. For many of us, these incidents are not experienced separately from the memories of a long history of racial terror and violence that has been enacted upon us in America for centuries. While there are plenty of examples to draw from which took place all across the country, the American South triggers a particular reaction because of the nature of the violence and its prolonged length. Lynchings, sexual assaults, cross burnings, and, of course, bombings were a hallmark of the particular kind of white supremacy characterized by slavery, Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era.
We can be certain now that while an Obama presidency lured some into thinking we are a post-racial society, we have failed to address the deep and insidious racism in our country. And with Donald Trump now in the White House and hate crimes on the rise since he began his political career, it’s hard not to feel targeted for your race in general, never mind when these kind of inexplicable acts of violence occur. Donald Trump is not the cause of white supremacy and racial terror against people of color. But he certainly is a symptom.
Speaking of Donald Trump, are you wondering what’s he had to say about these bombings? If you are guessing nothing, you’d be right. Trump has been too busy spouting nonsense all day and making a joke of our democracy. But imagine if the victims of these incidents were white. How long do you think he would have waited to tweet out another call for a Muslim ban or some other kind of xenophobic, racist garbage? Faster than you can say “terrorism”, no doubt.
So, really, you can’t blame people of color, in particular, for feeling frightened and in danger. Every day in this country is a struggle, but every day that we live under this presidency is filled with terror and dread because we know what we are up against. But this isn’t only about us. Sadly, because Donald Trump cares nothing about anyone except himself and his tiny base, the rest of the country is going to be routinely put through a similar sense of terror and dread every day. And it won’t start to get any better until he’s removed from office for good.