Welcome back to New Day Northwest.
In his rant online,
the suspect of the mass Buffalo
shooting repeatedly cited the
false great replacement theory,
which suggests Jewish elites are
bringing people of color into
the US to replace whites.
So I talked with Rachel Carol
Riva from the Southern Poverty
Law Centers Intelligence project.
It's a group that monitors hate
groups throughout the country,
including 19 right here in Washington state.
You know, this particular
theory is really rooted in.
Unfortunately, a long long history
of this idea of white displacement.
The terminology I think you know really,
we're talking about a dozen years
and about the last, you know,
seven years where there has been specific
acts of violence referencing this term,
but that you know it's rooted in
this really old old conspiracy.
This false conspiracy and this white
supremacist idea that's been around for,
you know, decades and decades of decades.
So can you kind of explain the
main idea of this theory to us,
the false white supremacist?
Great replacement theory is this
idea that there are nefarious actors,
usually Jewish people.
Sometimes Democrats be manipulated
by Jewish people that are purposely
manipulating the demographics of the
United States through immigration to
replace white people with people of
color and then to gain political power.
By doing that.
This is not true, it is a false.
India and unfortunately again
it's rooted in antisemitism,
white supremacy and continues to be
spread by people in leadership positions,
media pundits,
politicians and sometimes by folks who
I think don't know that they're being
manipulated into spreading this lie
like that every time that you've
mentioned this, you've made sure
to before saying this theory,
the false replacement theory
was the young man who was
accused in the Buffalo shooting.
Was he part of his?
Specific group that may
have been on your radar.
Yeah, at this time we're not aware of a
specific group that he was involved in,
but that's sort of the challenge
of how these movements work, right?
Especially when an idea like this
becomes so common and repeated in
the deep dark circles of the Internet
and the spaces on the Internet that
are accessible to youth and gaming
and our political pundits and our
elected officials when it's coming
at folks from all those directions.
Those access points are everywhere,
and so it seems like from what we
know that this accused perpetrator
is someone who really was bombarded
with this message in many, many ways,
particularly online and then acted
on it because unfortunately they were
very heavily armed and could plan
out and then inflict mass violence,
and it seems at this point
he acted alone in this.
How are these lone wolves?
If you will being radicalized?
And how are the messages spreading?
You talked about the deep
dark corners of the web.
Yeah yeah, and I think I mean that's a
really interesting term to point out too.
You know, for a long time we did refer to
people who kind of on an individual basis,
acted in violence in a moment as lone wolves.
But actually that terminology comes from
a 1980s white supremacist leader who
actually had a strategy of using these
ideas and spreading them so wide that
you would actually have individuals act.
And wouldn't be able to place blame
on the folks who have perpetrated
the ideas in the 1st place who have
purposely planted them in these minds.
So we actually try to kind of move
away from that term because it takes
the blame off of the fact that there
were people pushing this out there.
In this case, you know it do.
It does look like the perpetrator
was in a lot of online spaces,
regular spaces that people engage
in like Reddit and then discord,
and was getting this information.
But there were warning signs
in their life as well,
and we hope that people start to think
about what those are and interrupt.
There's never going to be a time when
we all have the same ideologies.
We all think the same way,
but at some point we have to kind of
understand where the line is drawn.
How do we get into the education
for people who maybe growing
up with this ideology or being
told this their whole lives?
How do you change that course?
This is not easy stuff, right?
We're talking about really complex
and historical things that
have gone on for a long time,
so maybe first, right?
Let's let's really talk about our history,
so that's number one.
I think inclusive and true.
History is important
because that's how we learn.
But then I think the other
piece really is that you know,
these are powerful ideas.
These hard right false conspiracies because
they offer simple answers to complex
questions and they scapegoat people.
And we actually have powerful
ideas about how.
Our world is not a 0 sum game.
We can all thrive.
Actually, there is an opportunity
for all of us to be Better Together,
and that's powerful.
So we have to both talk about
the falsity and what we hear,
but also offer powerful ideas,
because I actually think we all
want to be able to thrive together.
And thanks to her for that
thoughtful discussion.