Extremists on the far right are deeply troubled by the name Black Lives Matter, viewing it as an assertion that white lives don’t matter — which, of course, it isn’t. Saying that black lives matter isn’t saying that white lives, Asian lives or Native American lives don’t matter; it’s simply pointing out that black lives do matter.
But to far-right extremists, attacking racism is attacking whites in general. And historian Peter Mitchell, in an op-ed for the Guardian, notes some of the ways in which attacks on the George Floyd protests are drawing on the racist Replacement Theory.
According to white nationalists who promote the Replacement Theory, enemies of the white race are seeking to “replace” whites with non-whites in the United States and many other countries. That far-right conspiracy theory, Mitchell notes, was promoted by French writer Renaud Camus in his 2011 book “Le Gran Replacement.” Continue reading.