What It Is > What Is “White Genocide?”
What Is “White Genocide?”
“White Genocide” is a conspiracy theory that links a recognition of real demographic changes underway in the US to an imagined plot to extinguish the entire white race and “replace” it with other races. In most versions of this theory, Jews are the masterminds of the conspiracy.
American white nationalists draw attention to real changes happening in our population. Over time, the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as “Non-Hispanic White” has been falling, while more Americans identify as Black, Hispanic White, Asian, Native American, and so on. It is predicted that by the mid-21st century, most American citizens won’t identify as Non-Hispanic White. People of European descent will continue to be the majority far into the future, but white nationalists don’t consider “Hispanic White” people to be “white,” so they see white people becoming a minority in America for “the first time in history”—that is, since colonial days.
Most white nationalists view this change with alarm. They call it White Genocide or “The Great Replacement.” They connect population shifts to other trends that have negatively affected some white Americans, such as rising opioid addiction, blue-collar job loss, and the decline of family farming. They also see connections to other changes thatthey reject. For example, white nationalists generally oppose the increased influence of women of all races in commerce and society, as well as abortion rights, birth control, and non-traditional family structures. They also link White Genocide to trends in popular and commercial culture toward embracing cultural differences, as well as the increase in discussions about diversity in mainstream politics. This is why white nationalists have sponsored billboards that read “Diversity = White Genocide.”
American demographics and culture are changing. White nationalists believe this is the result of a conspiracy of “globalist” Jews to destroy the white race. This is why white nationalists at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlotte, NC chanted, “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us.”
Although the terms are new, these ideas are old. For example, as immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe spiked a century ago, some white Americans of Northern European descent predicted the newcomers would ultimately cause the extinction of “true whites” in America. The population of the US did become much more diverse. However, the number of Americans who identify as being of Anglo-Saxon or Nordic descent today is greater than the entire US population a century ago.
The best succinct and accessible account of the theory of White Genocide that we have found is the Georgetown University Bridge Initiative’s Factsheet: White Genocide Conspiracy Theory. The contemporary formulation of the theory owes much to the “White Genocide Manifesto,” published from prison in 1995 by David Lane, a violent American white nationalist.
The Bridge Initiative notes a parallel with perceived threats to a more narrowly conceived white population a century ago. We found a clear account of the details of the earlier theory in Charles C. Alexander, Prophet of American Racism: Madison Grant and the Nordic Myth. The phrase “Anglo-Saxon or Nordic” more specifically denoted people of Germanic, Scandinavian, or British descent. Our observations on population figures come from the 1920 US Census (available on Wikipedia) and the 2010-2015 Census Bureau Community Survey.
Updated, October 2021
What It Is: Related pages
