Before the shooting, Buffalo’s East Side long faced racism and discrimination

The Los Angeles Times spoke to Henry-Louis Taylor, Jr. in a story on the mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday. Taylor is the lead author of a report, “The Harder We Run, The State of Black Buffalo in 1990 and The Present,” which found that the city's Black population, particularly those living on the east side, were no better off three decades after the first study was conducted. “That distorted development in many of the east side neighborhoods and communities,” Taylor said. “So the city’s actual policies hurt the African American community at the same time racism and other forces continued to isolate them from the best jobs and opportunities within the metropolitan region."