RACISM + POLITICS

The Great Replacement Theory is at The Heart of Modern White Supremacy

There are no two sides to Payton Gendron’s attack on Black Americans

Yesterday, Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old self-proclaimed White Supremacist, killed ten people, injuring three more in a Buffalo, New York— all of them were Black. Gendron live-streamed himself while pursuing and shooting unarmed civilians inside Tops Friendly Market. And while Gendron was the only shooter on the premises calling him a lone wolf is misleading. After all, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and other prominent conservatives deliberately rekindled the “The Great Replacement Theory,” injecting white supremacist talking points into the mainstream political arena. As we’ve seen, spreading hateful rhetoric can have dire consequences, but so does the bothsiderism that seems to overshadow this nation’s moral compass.

Defending hate speech as “free speech” or a “difference of opinion” endangered Black lives. And even as anti-Black hate crimes continue to rise at a neck-break pace, the country finds itself marred in a debate about whether it’s divisive to talk about racism, white privilege, and white supremacy. Despite the carnage, white conservatives would have us believe that Critical Race Theory is the real problem here, not racism, not discrimination, not rising hate crimes, or our top law enforcement officials reaffirming that White domestic terrorism is the greatest threat to national security. And it’s high time Americans drop the curtain on their racist dog and pony show. And for those willing to call this tragedy “racially motivated” but refuse to acknowledge the domestic terrorism element, remember James Balwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

So, how do we know “The Great Replacement Theory” motivated Gendron’s actions? First of all, he wrote a 180-page “Replacement Theory” Manifesto where he interviewed himself about the attack, providing details in advance. Secondly, Gendron wrote “n*gger” on his rifle and drove 220 miles to enact violence in a predominately Black community. One thing is clear — we can’t run from the rhetoric that inspired the attack in Buffalo.

“The Great Replacement Theory” is at the heart of the modern white supremacist movement, which incorporates a hatred for Black and Latino people with their desire to control women. Gendron wrote, “White birth rates must change,” adding that “to maintain a population the people much achieve a birth rate that reaches replacement fertility levels.” While many will refer to Gendron as an extremist, nearly half of Republicans believe in “The Great Replacement Theory.”

Also, this spring, conservative Supreme Court Justice Alito’s referred to a domestic supply of infants” in his leaked draft opinion, which mirrors the gunman complaining about White women not making enough babies to keep up with immigrant populations. But, of course, as long as women have the right to choose, White men cannot force them to beef up the population, and that’s precisely why Great-Replacement-level conservatives are so determined to strike down women’s reproductive rights.

Claiming Black people and immigrants are replacing White people sounds like a dystopian body-snatching novella, but it’s also incredibly dangerous propaganda. Gendron is trying to use “The Great Replacement Theory” as justification for killing ten people, and his violence shows that Americans can no longer hide from the white skeleton in our proverbial closet. White Supremacy won’t disappear when you close your eyes. Shopping while Black, sleeping while Black, or jogging while Black shouldn’t lead to a death sentence in America, but shoulda, woulda, coulda can’t save this nation. Only a full-throated racial reckoning can do that.

Gendron mentioned Dylan Roof as someone who inspired his behavior that day and claimed his actions was “lighting a path forward for those that wish to follow.” That’s why calling Gendron a lone wolf doesn’t tell the whole story that Americans need to hear, that White supremacist ideology poses a threat to many groups and violates our right to live peacefully amongst one another.

Why did Gendron target Black people?

Some may wonder why Gendron targeted Black people since “The Great Replacement Theory,” on its face, seems to focus on xenophobic, anti-immigrant terminology. From his perspective, “all Black people are replacers just by existing in white countries.” Even though Black people have lived in America since the beginning, White people like Gendron will never fully accept Black people as Americans. And he's not alone. Months ago, senate minority leader McConnell’s Freudian slip exposed his ideology by separating Black people from “Americans.”

Too many White Americans are openly fantasizing about a whites-only nation. And this is not a new concept. Even Abraham Lincoln toyed with the idea of resettling Black Americans elsewhere after the Civil War. Gendron’s rhetoric is reminiscent of Lothrop Stoddard’s claims in the 1920 publication: “The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World Supremacy,” “warning that White Americans were being engulfed by the more ‘fertile’ nonwhite races.”

“The Great Replacement Theory” places no hope in democracy, that collectively the voice of the majority can ensure we have equitable access to opportunities and experiences. Instead, this doctrine encourages white supremacists and neo-nationalists to use violence as a political weapon. Gendron continuously referred to himself as a “partisan,” and wrote, “as long as the white man lives, our land will never be theirs, and they will never be safe from us.” His intent is crystal clear, and if intentionally targeting and killing Black Americans doesn’t count as domestic terrorism, then what would?

As soon as the census results came out, revealing the white population dropped below 60% and that White people would become a minority by 2045, “The Great Replacement Theory” picked up a lot of steam. Some White Americans are terrified of becoming a minority, but if they genuinely believed in democracy, they would welcome diversity instead of condemning Black and Latino people for existing.

The anti-immigrant rhetoric from conservatives and the complacency of those who consider themselves “center-right” or “center-left,” have contributed to “The Great Replacement Theory” becoming mainstream. We hear a lot about how divided we are, but that type of language doesn’t quite capture the moment — it stops short of an explanation. Hatred is what divides us and those who fail to understand that have no hope of unifying the nation.

Immigrants are not enemy combatants; they are human beings who deserve respect and have the legal right to seek refuge in The United States. And while the shooter did not target a Latino community this time, it’s essential to recognize this hatred doesn't occur in a vacuum. For example, when 21-year-old Patrick Crusius killed 22 people in El Paso, in 2019, he “expressed support for two deadly shooting attacks that targeted mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.” Likewise, Trump’s campaign to build a wall that separates us from Mexico contributed to “The Great Replacement Theory.” But so did his Muslim bans and the birtherism movement, which doubted Obama’s American citizenship. Gendron’s manifesto, alongside the efforts of conservatives, destroys any attempt to obscure the intention behind “The Great Replacement Theory.”

America needs to face the hard truth. There are no two sides to racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and hatred. In Germany, after World War II, the government ensured students learned about the atrocities perpetrated against Jewish people so that history would not repeat itself. Still, American conservatives continue to fight to erase the truth about slavery, Jim Crow, and xenophobic policies in America rather than confront the devil we know.

And sadly, “The Great Replacement Theory” continues to take center stage as Fox News and conservative politicians continue to push the same hateful rhetoric that inspired Payton Gendron’s violence, with seemingly no remorse for the harm caused. As much as some want to jump to the end of the narrative, where we all live happily ever after in a multiracial democratic utopia, we’re not there yet, and it’s time we confront bigotry rather than try to sweep it under the rug.

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