Shaun King

The Only Politics is Blood — On Replacement Theory in America
TNS contributing writer Nicholas Mitchell on the violence of Replacement Theory ideology and its role in the Buffalo massacre, and racial violence in general.
May 17

On May 14, 2022, a self-described white supremacist murdered 10 Black people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. He live-streamed the entire massacre and was later arrested. The American tendency is to attribute instances where white racists murder people to them being mentally unstable. This may be the case in Buffalo, but this denies the history of racial violence in the United States and scapegoats those with mental health issues as being a threat to the general public. Philosopher Jason Stanley wrote on Twitter, “Ideologies are real. They have real-world effects. Ideologies are not derangement or madness.”

I agree with this assertion. Ideology motivates people because ideologies all have a function. They want us to do something. The very real function of racism is to be able to ignore the screams as you tear apart a human being. This is especially true in the case of white supremacy in America, whose bloody path stretches from the ruins of Tulsa in 1921 to the aisles of a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo New York in 2022.

Like many modern mass murders, the shooter in Buffalo left behind a manifesto. For him, it was a long racist screed about race and IQ among other white supremacist babble but what has jumped out at many people is his strong belief in what is called replacement theory. The Southern Poverty Law Center defines replacement theory as “the idea that white people of European descent are being systematically displaced in the Western world.” It is not a new idea. Historian Kevin Kruse points out that the idea was found in Madison Grant’s 1916 highly influential racist work “The Passing of the Great Race.” To understand replacement theory, it is important to understand those who came up with the idea: white supremacists.

White supremacy in the United States is as old as the country is and white supremacists have been consistent in their belief: White people are superior on the earth and everyone else is subhuman deserving of no rights or consideration as human beings. It is important to point out that not all white people are white supremacists and that white supremacists are not above using violence against white people who oppose them because they consider them to be race traitors. This is central to understanding how they see their opposition as an alliance of subhumans and race traitors. White supremacists are also apolitical in the sense that they have no strong political party commitment.

Some will try and argue that white supremacy belongs to one side of the political spectrum or the other. This is a flat-out lie. White supremacy, as an ideology, stretches from the far left to the far right in the United States. For most of American history, white supremacy was the chief organizing principle of government, the chief economic organizing principle, and the primary lens for interpreting the constitution. In truth, white supremacy has no political affiliation as most Americans would understand the concept. It is its own political worldview.

White supremacist communists exist just like white supremacist free-market capitalists. There is no reason that a white supremacist would oppose Medicare for all or the welfare state; just as long as people of color and other undesirables don’t have access to it. White supremacy is perfectly adaptable to any political point that exists on the mainstream political spectrum, and this is by design. White supremacy is politically flexible. This is why the political leanings of the shooter in Buffalo are, frankly, irrelevant. Far-left? Far-right? Centrist? For the white supremacist, all of these terms are little more than intellectual cosplay to be discarded as the need arises.

White supremacy is also multimedia platformed. While it is true that Tucker Carlson trades in replacement theory, the shooter is 18-years-old. What are the chances that he was introduced to this toxic idea on television as opposed to the darker corners of the internet? Although the darker corners of the internet cannot be blamed for sitting members of Congress spouting off about replacement theory. White supremacy stopped being about handmade magazines long ago. This is why replacement theory is so unique; it's one of the few beliefs held by white supremacists that cannot be disguised as anything other than what it is. And it has gone mainstream in many ways.

The Buffalo shooting is the latest tragedy in a series of racially-motivated shootings perpetrated by online extremists. We've analysed nearly 700 pages of the shooter's Discord logs and his manifesto, with help from @DavidNeiwert and @rajanbasra.

Buffalo shooting: How far-right killers are radicalised online
A movement of online extremists targets innocent people in shooting rampages that follow a similar blueprint.

Replacement theory is the purest expression of white supremacy because it unifies all its targets into a single constellation of sadism. It is a grand conspiracy theory. The theory itself is not only racist, but also antisemitic, xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic, and transphobic that orbits a concern about white birth rates and this is how it must be understood. White supremacists only consider people with pure white ancestry to be white. Mixed people with one white parent are, in their eyes and in replacement theory, not white. This also fuels xenophobia. The old term was “miscegenation” and it drove the resistance to integration. But why would it be misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic? Again, because of their obsession with white birth rates.

White women who have children with nonwhite people, gay white men, white lesbians, and white transgender people are understood to be race traitors because they are not having white babies and are seen as a challenge to the patriarchy inherent to white supremacy.

The antisemitic aspect of replacement theory is particularly important for a few reasons. First, it shows the enduring power of the ancient bigotry called antisemitism. Second, it is a reminder that antisemitism and racism are complementary ideologies that serve the same destructive goals. Third, while Jews are multinational, multiethnic, and multiracial, white supremacists have long had a particular venom towards Jews of European descent, whom they do not consider to be white. This shows an often-ignored truth of white supremacy- it has a very specific definition of whiteness that does not mean “descended from the people of Europe.” White supremacy deals in gradients of whiteness where some people are whiter than others. This is best exemplified by the ideology of the Ku Klux Klan, who hated European Catholic immigrants, and the Nazis, who tried to exterminate and enslave millions of Eastern and Western Europeans.

To assume that replacement theory does not have such gradients is a profound leap of faith.

Despite being an obsession, birth rates are not the main driver of white supremacists or replacement theory. The focus on white birth rates is largely a ploy to cover up what really sits at the heart of the theory and white supremacy itself - paranoia. Unlike many of the racial conservatives who seek to harness their energy and try to gaslight communities of color about the existence of systemic racism, white supremacists suffer no such delusions. They understand systemic racism has existed in the past and reimposing it in the most brutal fashions that they can imagine is their political goal for the future.

Because of this knowledge, white supremacists are paranoid about what communities of color may do to them if they ever get to be the majority with the entire power of the American state at their disposal. This paranoia sits at the heart of replacement theory. White supremacists are terrified of the possibility that communities of color will treat them like the white supremacists have historically treated communities of color. In short, white supremacists fear revenge. This fear is not new. The Declaration of Independence accused the British of trying to inspire “domestic insurrections,” meaning enslaved people rebellions. Plantation owners were always afraid of slave uprisings. Segregationists were terrified that integration would usher in a world where Black people would repay their cruelties of Jim Crow.

Confronting replacement theory is a low bar. All one needs to do is denounce it as sadistic babble from an ideology that believes that cruelty is the goal of state and culture. But a great many people are going to fail to leap over this bar.

As I write this essay, the sanitizing campaign has already begun online with racial conservative public intellectuals and people who ally themselves with racial conservatives to transform what is clearly replacement theory into concerns over demographics or immigration. The demographic spin is intellectually dishonest for one reason — demographics are not destiny. Just because America becomes a majority-minority does not mean that minority communities will vote certain ways or believe certain things. Republicans like Tim Scott and other Republicans of color are in no danger of losing their seats. Both of Trump’s electoral coalitions were multiracial. The people trying to sanitize replacement theory recognize its electoral power, but they seem to think they can harness this inferno of hatred and not get burned.

In a country addicted to culture war, those who try to pass off replacement theory as valid political thought have yet to realize that they are playing with the intellectual equivalent of a dirty bomb and when it finally explodes, they too will be irradiated. They simply do not understand that white supremacists cannot be bargained with. They do not cut deals. They do not care about ideologies about taxes, war, or freedoms. They do not care about political affiliation. They only care about blood because it is inescapable. It is their only loyalty. Everyone else are people trying to replace them.

The very real function of racism is to be able to ignore the screams as you tear apart a human being. Those who try and sanitize replacement theory have convinced themselves that the screams will never be theirs. If they took the time to read history books, instead of banning them from libraries, they would see how wrong they likely are.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicholas Ensley Mitchell is an essayist and critical race scholar-practitioner.

Shaun King


Met one of my heroes, a living legend, in Buffalo. ⁣
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A generation ago, @cariolh was a Buffalo Police Officer and saw a white cop choking the life out of a Black man who was handcuffed. ⁣
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Cariol literally intervened and saved that young man’s life.⁣
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And they fired her.⁣
And took her pension. ⁣
And tried to ruin her life.⁣
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But for 15 years she fought them.⁣
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And last year, after the cop she stopped for being brutal was finally found guilty for other cases of brutality, 2 things happened.⁣
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1. A judge found that Cariol was right all along. And restored all of the pension she had missed and made sure she got her full pension moving forward.⁣
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2. Buffalo passed Cariol’s Law - which now REQUIRES cops to intervene when they see misconduct.⁣
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Even now she’s on the front lines making sure victims of the terrorist attack are given the respect and dignity they deserve.

Shaun King

🤬🤬🤬 I need to know ALL of their names. All of them. And we need to know the 20 people that were watching the livestream. If these people were anything other than white they’d be in custody right now.

This is for Facebook, but worth placing here.

Shaun King
28 mins ·
"There was at least 40 lawmen armed to the teeth but didn't do a damn thing until it was far too late. The situation could've been over quick and we as a community witnessed it firsthand.”⁣
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-Jacinto Cazares, the father of 10-year-old shooting victim Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares, told ABC News⁣
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Police basically didn’t go into the school until Jacinto threatened to rush in with parents himself. ⁣
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He made clear to the press that they weren’t “waiting for backup” either. They had 40+ heavily armed cops out there. ⁣
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And they FROZE. While the kids and teachers were being slaughtered and were bleeding out.⁣
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We now know that the shooter was in the school for NINETY minutes before he was killed. ⁣
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90. ⁣
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The first 911 call came at 11:30am but police waited for nearly an hour before entering the school. Then claimed it took them 30 minutes to FIND A KEY to open the door?⁣
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WHAT??????

The Breakdown with Shaun King
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Last night over 3,000 of you attended our town hall on what it means to confront white supremacy in 2022.
Now, we're moving on to our first 6 action steps. You can also see them now @ TheGreatestThreat.com
Listen to today's episode here:
https://smarturl.it/tnsthebreakdown

To understand why American culture is completely incapable of addressing anything in regards to gun violence and has this strange veneration of the second amendment, you have to go back to when the current unspoken understanding of gun culture was cemented - Red Summer in 1919.

In the summer and fall of 1919, over 36 racist pogroms in multiple American cities where armed white mobs attacked Black communities. Scores of people were killed, and entire neighborhoods were destroyed. It was also notable for the widespread defense of Black communities by armed Black men and women. White mobs attacking Black communities was a common occurrence during the Nadir, but as a cultural moment, the image of Black people shooting back was shocking to mainstream white America because the dominant white supremacy of the day held that Black people were docile. The specter of Black retaliatory violence terrified white racist America and elevated the gun to being a necessity for putting down, from that point on, a forever impending Black rebellion that haunted their nightmares. However, for Black America, the gun became seen as indispensable for defending Black communities from white terror.

This is a history we don't really teach in the United States, so we have largely forgotten how common pogroms and racist street violence were here. Therefore, we don't recognize key moments in our culture that explain why we are the way we are. And this just isn't limited to Black people or even nonwhite people. Events like the lynchings of Pasquale and Giuseppe Defatta along with three other Italian immigrants in Tallulah, Louisiana in 1899, the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, the dispossession of the First Nations which ended with the Posey War in 1923, the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, and the Japanese American Internments from 1942 to 1945 all fed into creating the culture of violent paranoia that we see today. Red Summer is a major event in American history that many Americans have no clue about, much like they knew nothing about the Tulsa Race Riot in 1921 until recent years. If you, the reader, have never heard of Red Summer or any of the aforementioned events, it is because, like so many other crucial events in American history that really shed light on why we are the country that we are, it was erased from common knowledge because it was inconvenient to the national myth of America as the shining city on the hill.

Just look back at the “red summer” in 1919 and the stories that are rarely told of Black towns who defended themselves from race riots because they had the means to. These stories exist. Just because ain’t nobody making movies don’t mean it didn’t happen.

So, many Americans have no clue why the culture is so paranoid about the other or even recognize that this is why so many of them cling to their guns. It’s not fear of criminals or tyrannical government; those are metaphors for the fear of their fellow citizens passed down from generation to generation.

Does this history mean that all gun violence and school shootings are expressions of racism? No. This is bigger than race. This is an American cultural and civilizational crisis. Something was cemented during Red Summer that is directly relevant to why political support for gun control always evaporates like water on sun-baked pavement; a culture of violence rooted in paranoia about those we deem to be others and it doesn’t matter who the other is. This expectation of violence has permeated everything across every cultural line that exists. School shootings and gun violence are cross-class, bipartisan, and interracial. The roots are in the dark days of racism during the Nadir, but the paranoid vine is wrapped around the entire culture.

So, what is the unspoken truth that clings to all debates about gun rights like dew on humid nights?

The unspoken truth is that a truly diverse cross-section of America does not want any restrictions on guns because they don't want to be caught empty-handed when the group they hate or the group they think hates them decides to attack. It's intergenerational paranoia.
This is why any attempts to address gun violence fail. An unspoken culture of paranoia at the other, regardless of how the other is defined, sets the political agenda for gun debates. As a culture, America still is haunted by the ghosts of Red Summer.

I do believe in a God and I pray that the slain are at peace in whatever lies beyond this life, but I also know that prayers do nothing for dead children. As politicians offer thoughts and prayers, I ask “what are you praying for?” I hope it is for the courage to confront this, at this point, intergenerational scourge and for wisdom to devise solutions that will work. I hope that politicians are not praying for absolution because to this point, they do not deserve it.

Absolution comes after amends have been made, not before. But the fault is not theirs alone. America must confront its culture of paranoia-inspired violence that eats its children in the name of preserving some balance of power in preparation for some social breakdown that, oddly enough, the culture of paranoia seeks to ensure rather than prevent.

We do not have to be this country. We should not want to be this country. We must stop being this country.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicholas Ensley Mitchell is an essayist and critical race scholar-practitioner.

I took a look at some of the accusations that King is white. All it takes is a look at his photo to see he is of mixed race, as he has always said. It's a case of social media believing a lie for no other reason than malice.

Shaun King
@shaunking
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I am told this morning that at least 2 parents of children killed in Uvalde are considering having open casket funerals to show the world what happened to their babies, who are now completely unrecognizable.
,.,.,.,.,..,.,.
😢 My God. Mamie Till did this 70 years ago to show the nation what happened to Emmett. It’s a step that I understand but don’t wish on any family.

·
I wanted to take a moment today to pause, catch my breath, and say THANK YOU.⁣
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2 weeks ago a white supremacist slaughtered 10 Black men and women in Buffalo. ⁣
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This week 19 babies and 2 teachers were murdered in Uvalde, Texas. ⁣
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And for these past 14 days I’ve thrown my heart and soul into helping these cities, walking with grieving families and communities, making sure the right people are held accountable, and making sure the right stories get told, and told the right way. ⁣
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During this time, this page you are on right now has been one of the single most engaged pages in the world with hundreds of millions of comments and views and interactions. ⁣
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Together you have helped me not only provide practical support to families in need, you’ve helped me shape the entire news cycle for two straight weeks.⁣
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And we’ve done this in spite of the entire world trying to convince you to not trust me, listen to me, or support me. ⁣
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We’ve moved forward, TOGETHER, in spite of that. ⁣
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God Bless You. ⁣
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This world can be a painfully cruel place. ⁣
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Let’s do our best to make it better however we can.⁣
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Love and appreciate you.⁣
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Your friend and brother,⁣
⁣
Shaun

Shaun King
🤬For the past 25 years this has been called a TERRORIST CELL. And that’s what this is today. ⁣
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Except because they are white they haven’t arrested them or detained them or, it seems, even questioned them face to face.⁣
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Imagine, please just for a moment, that a retired federal agent that was a Muslim, was in a cell of 6 people that encouraged and supported and RADICALIZED another man that did this, but instead of being in the name of whiteness it was in the name of Islam.⁣
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That retired federal agent would be arrested and detained and brutally interrogated ASAP. The whole cell would be.⁣
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Their neighbors and families would be harassed. ⁣
Their mosque would be put under surveillance.⁣
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But now, because it’s white men, crickets. Nothing.⁣
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It’s not right.

The North Star
·
In the aftermath of several mass shootings in one week, many Americans want to do something--anything--to help but, feel helpless. Petitions, donations, and voting are all clear ways to start a path towards change but there is a very effective and immediate impact you can have from the comfort of your living room: changing your investments. Most investors are completely oblivious to how they are--and have been--funding gun production and warfare through their retirement accounts and investment portfolios.
In this episode, we tell you exactly how to uncover if/where this applies to you and how to defund these organizations in real-time.
Listen here:
https://smarturl.it/momentumadvisors

Should Black Voters Decide to Let the Democrats Figure Midterms Out Without Our Vote There's a Reason for it.
With Biden's approval rating plummeting among Black voters by 20 percent since last year, a recent NBC News Report points to the situation Democrats find themselves in with Black voters.

2020 was one of the most vulnerable and perilous times Black Americans faced in over four centuries of life in this country. The coronavirus was disproportionately ravishing Black communities, and the high-profile deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery [among others] compounded the grief and trauma Black folks were experiencing collectively. At a time when uncertainty was heightened across the globe, Black Americans were especially susceptible to a myriad of hardships, whether it was economic, health-related or the threat of systemic, cultural and communal violence.

And at the time, Donald Trump was running the country.

By the second quarter of 2020, the field of prospective Democrats to face Trump was narrowed to two options: Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, and before the second quarter ended it was obvious that Biden would be the nominee, as the nation, and specifically Black folks overwhelmingly rallied behind the concept of him being the only viable option to unseat Trump.

And then in November of that year, after the largest voter turnout in the history of presidential politics, Biden edged out Trump to become the 46th President of the United States — largely powered by damn near a homogenous Black vote.

Now, nearly two years later and 20 approval percentage points lower, the legacy of the Biden administration and the Democratic stronghold of the House and Senate are in a compromised position as Black America is polling at a place of uncertainty when surveyed about rallying around Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms.

And I sure as hell don’t blame us.

Shaun King
@shaunking
·
31m
Just learned that it was
@JoeBiden
, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that repeatedly denied the father of Eliahna “Ellie” Torres a compassionate release to attend her funeral in Uvalde, Texas today.

He’s incarcerated for drug crimes.

An unforgivable slight from Biden.

Shaun King
3 mins ·
Even when police HEARD gunfire in the classroom, they still refused to enter. ⁣
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Even as 911 calls from students continued, they refused.⁣
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Even as students told 911 that gunshot victims were alive and needed help, police still froze.

Shaun King
29 mins ·
Let me pause a moment to do something I don’t do often. ⁣
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I want to thank this unnamed law enforcement officer for IGNORING every single command he was given at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. It was him, and 3 others, that saved those kids while other cops just looked on in fear.⁣
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This is him with Khloie Torres, who bravely called 911, while the shooter roamed her room. She was surrounded by dead bodies and others on the brink of death. And stayed on the line for 20 minutes.⁣
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Khloie also calmed down her classmates and gave them advice on how to hide and survive. ⁣
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Listen - I don’t know this man. Or his politics. I could make some educated guesses. ⁣
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But what The NY Times just made clear in their new report is that he and 3 other officers ignored 140 other cops and the commanding officers from 14 different departments and decided to rush the room to save Khloie and her 9 surviving classmates.⁣
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Even when this man rushed the room, police continued to tell him to stand down, but they refused. ⁣
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Those other coward cops got multiple kids killed and let other students and teachers bleed out and die. ⁣
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I have a lot more I could say about what police could and should do better in the world, but this time, I’m glad these cops broke the code and had courage to do what was right ⁣

Shaun King
·
Today I'm honored to announce that I accepted a new position as Contributing Editor at Newsweek.
I'll be writing a regular column at the intersection of race, justice, power, and faith.
I'll also be bringing on some new voices and featured writers to join me over the course of this year.
Of course I want to thank the Newsweek team for believing in me, but I'm also grateful for the teams I've worked with across the years at Daily Kos, the New York Daily News, The Intercept, and of course The North Star.
My first new column for Newsweek will be out later this week.
Love and appreciate each of you for your support as well.
Shaun

Shaun King
·
Today I'm honored to announce that I accepted a new position as Contributing Editor at Newsweek.
I'll be writing a regular column at the intersection of race, justice, power, and faith.
I'll also be bringing on some new voices and featured writers to join me over the course of this year.
Of course I want to thank the Newsweek team for believing in me, but I'm also grateful for the teams I've worked with across the years at Daily Kos, the New York Daily News, The Intercept, and of course The North Star.
My first new column for Newsweek will be out later this week.
Love and appreciate each of you for your support as well.
Shaun