As reports continue to roll in about the Buffalo shooter’s embrace of white nationalist rhetoric in a lengthy manifesto that detailed his plans and reasoning for carrying out Saturday’s horrific attack, many are pointing to figures on the right who espouse similar viewpoints as helping such racism become mainstream.
The shooting on Saturday left 10 people dead and others injured in a majority-Black neighborhood after an 18-year-old suspect allegedly opened fire with the intent of killing as many Black people as possible. It was just the latest in a long line of attacks inspired by far-right rhetoric concerning the issues of race and immigration.
In a manifesto verified by several news outlets as belonging to the shooting suspect, the 18-year-old clearly links his aims to reversing a trend that has been coined by white supremacist conspiracy theorists as the “white replacement theory”. The conspiracy in short spreads the false belief that Democrats are attempting to supplant white Americans with Hispanic immigrants and other people of colour in an attempt to radically change the US voting population.