Is the 'Great Replacement' behind the rise in hate crime in America?

According to the FBI, hate crime in the United States reached an all time high last year. Recent world events have caused even more of these events to occur, undoubtedly the amount of hate crimes occurring in America is not diminishing.

According to some experts, the "Great Replacement Theory" may be behind the race-fueled attacks plaguing the United States.

Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old white man accused of killing ten people and wounding another three in the mass shooting in Buffalo in 2022 may have believed this theory. Gendron allegedly declared in a manifesto that the fall of white birth rates was basically a genocide.

But what is the "Great Replacement"? The short answer is that it is a conspiracy theory that says that people of color are being brought into Western countries such as the United States in an effort to "replace" white voters with the aim of achieving a political agenda.

The National Immigration Forum reports that white supremacists and anti-immigration groups often endorse the theory.

According to NPR, many white supremacists believe that an influx of non-white immigrants will "lead to the extinction of the white race." As a result, many extremists think that the United States should close its borders to immigrants.

NPR spoke to Adolphus Belk Jr., a professor at Winthrop University who teaches political science and African American studies. Belk Jr. says that movements such as the Great Replacement gain in popularity when "people of color are seen as a threat in the political and economic realms."

The media outlet reported that Belk says that white nationalists are afraid that they will no longer be the majority of the population and therefore see people of color as a threat both to themselves and the nation.

According to the National Immigration Forum, the "Great Replacement" theory comes from French nationalism books from the early 1900s.

But the current application of the theory is attributed to French writer Renaud Camus (pictured), who wrote: "Le Grand Remplacement" or 'The Great Replacement' which was published in 2011.

In his book, Camus promotes the belief that white Europeans "are being reverse colonized by Black and Brown immigrants, who are flooding the Continent in what amounts to an extinction-level event."

In his writing, Camus was influenced by French author Jean Raspail's 1973 novel called 'The Camp of the Saints.' The fictitious story tells the tale of immigrants working together to take over France.

Per the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), many white supremacists are upset with the Jewish community in the United States.

ADL says that white supremacists blame the Jewish community for the non-white immigration to the US. As a result, the replacement theory is now also associated with antisemitism.

To better understand this manner of thinking, one must remember the fourteen-word slogan that is part of the core beliefs of the white supremacist movement: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children."

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that the slogan was made by David Lane (pictured), a prominent member of The Order, a white supremacist group.

The results of the "Great Replacement" theory are extremely visible in the United States today. In 2021 the FBI reported that hate crimes in the US were at the highest level in twelve years, mainly due to a massive increase in assaults on Asian Americans and Blacks.

In his statement regarding the mass shooting in Buffalo in 2022, President Joe Biden said: "A racially motivated hate crime is abhorrent to the very fabric of this nation. "

Biden continued, "Any act of domestic terrorism, including an act perpetrated in the name of a repugnant white nationalist ideology, is antithetical to everything we stand for in America. Hate must have no safe harbor. We must do everything in our power to end hate-fueled domestic terrorism."