Tragic Buffalo shooting is an ugly culmination of "great replacement" theory

 

Erika D. Smith for the Los Angeles Times analyzes the events yesterday surrounding an 18-year-old white man going on a shooting spree in a market in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y.  Most of the victims were Black.10 people were killed and three others wounded. 

Smith focuses on "the white supremacist explanation" for the shootings as suggested in "a manifesto that authorities say [the shooter] Gendron uploaded":

"He is an adherent of the so-called `great replacement' theory. According to authorities, [the shooter] felt compelled to drive roughly 200 miles to shoot innocent Black people indiscriminately with a high-powered rifle because white Americans are being `replaced' by people of color."

As Smith writes, the theory dominated California politics in the 1990s, a time when the voters passed the anti-immigrant milestone Proposition 187:

"That’s when Republicans, desperate to hold on to political power, were spreading fear and paranoia about millions of Mexican immigrants wanting — how dare them! — resources and rights, and the inevitable decline of the state’s white population. These were the formative years of Stephen Miller, the Santa Monica native who grew up to become President Trump’s repugnant, immigrant-hating senior advisor."

UPDATE May 16

 

The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) May 16, 2022

KJ