The movement started in Europe, the idea that white Christian identity is being threatened by ethnic diversity and multiculturalism. It may have been new to America when chants of “You will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us” were heard at the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017. The fear of replacement has long been a rallying cry of the European youth alt-right movement, Generation Identity.
This idea of replacement is partly due to the work of a deeply controversial French philosopher named Renaud Camus. Camus argued that European civilization and identity are at risk of being subsumed by mass migration, especially from Muslim countries, a concept he refers to as the “Great Replacement.”
Cultural appropriation isn’t limited to hairstyles and clothing. The American white supremacy movement latched onto the concept, though they likely never knew of the work of Renard Camus or even Albert Camus, considered against his wishes as the father of existentialist thought. Renard Camus was asked his opinion of the Charlottesville rally, which turned violent. He condemned the violence and insisted he had no ties to Nazism.
“If the marchers are Nazis and/or anti-Semites, or if they make attacks — I am, of course, very much against all of that, and I cannot say they are inspired by me,” said Renard Camus.
"But, I can very well understand why people in America would chant, ‘We won’t be replaced,’ and I approve of that.
I recently traveled to Europe, including stops in Paris, London, and Rome. It had been forty years since I’d been to Paris, and the change was remarkable. Paris had become more diverse, with a much greater presence of Africans and those of Arabian descent. One reason is that North Africans and Algerians brought to Paris to work in factories during World War I and World War II were no longer confined to the slums on the city's outskirts. Another is the stream of refugees from other nations. France brought Africans when they needed them but don’t know what to do with them now. Thomas Jefferson described a similar situation in America as “having a “wolf by the ear.”
It was my first visit to London, though I’d spent a lifetime seeing it on television and in film. Sherlock Holmes didn’t regularly encounter Black people, nor did dozens of the first several James Bonds when not in the Bahamas or other Black countries. Not only was the population far different from the predominantly white city I’d always seen, but cab drivers uniformly pointed out major areas now owned by Saudi Arabians and royals from Qatar. I can’t speak to whether white Europeans were being replaced, but they certainly now worked and lived alongside people darker than they were accustomed to.
America suffers from an image of itself that it was ever a white country. When the first Europeans arrived, they were outnumbered, although the diseases they brought and constant massacres ultimately took care of that. The slaves they imported, plus the population growth from forced breeding and rape, caused the number of enslaved people to the degree that white people were outnumbered, not only on plantations but in whole states like South Carolina. At the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln hoped to send the free Black population to Liberia or Central America, but a failed experiment at Cow Island proved that plan unworkable.
The film and television industry has as much to do with America’s image of a white nation as anything. A whole genre of Westerns would deceive one of the reality that up to 25% of America’s cowboys were Black. You’d never guess that by watching Gunsmoke or even Yellowstone from this era.
Each episode of “Friends” or “Sex in the City” showed New Yorkers who rarely interacted with minorities. Gomer Pyle grew up in an all-white Mayberry and joined an all-white unit of the Marines. In twelve seasons, the Andy Griffith Show had only one speaking part with a Black actor, Rockne Tarkington, who portrayed a former professional football player who’d come home to Mayberry to work in an unseen family business. North Carolina, where the fictional Mayberry was set, had plenty of Black people in the 1960s, but they ironically had been replaced. Tarkington was also one of the few Black people to ever have a role on “Bewitched.”
American children typically get their first idea of what America is from their televisions. People attend mostly segregated churches where every position of power is inhabited by someone who looks like them. What a shock it must be for a white person to grow up, get a job, and at least visit major cities that look nothing like what they’ve been led to believe. They’ve been misled and bamboozled. Plymouth, Massachusetts, where you will find Plymouth Rock, is 94% white, so there’s that.
“Oh I say it, and I say it again, you been had, you been took, you been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok.”-Denzel Washington as Malcolm X
“We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.” — Malcolm X
It’s easy to understand why some white Americans think they are being replaced. You always thought America was whiter that it actually was. Then again, the power structure has been almost exclusively white for centuries so you weren’t wrong there. For six years, 1929–1935, Oscar Stanton De Priest served as the only Black person in either house of Congress. During the preceding 28 years there were none. In the history of the United States, there have been 14 Black U.S. Senators, three of whom were temporary appointments that did not get elected afterward. We have had one Black Vice President and one Black President from whom we’re still suffering the whitelash.
The one thing those crying out that they won’t be replaced have absolutely wrong is that they will be replaced. Many white people I talk to are looking forward to the day when white people become a minority in America, currently projected for 2045 in twenty years. In the meanwhile, white supremacists will try to sustain power by any means. Malcolm X wanted freedom, justice, and equality when using the phrase, “By any means necessary.” Those wanting to erase DEI want only power and control.
So who will be doing the replacement exactly? If you define those being replaced as older white men. The ones doing the replacing will be everyone else. The collective “We” will combine Hispanics, Black people, Asians, LGBTQ, Muslims, and youth who are the least likely among us to see color.
White supremacists will consult with those experienced in maintaining minority rule where they are outnumbered, from countries like South Africa. There’s no need to point out that Elon Musk is already here providing such assistance. White supremacists will assert control over voting, judges, law enforcement, politicians, and all levers of power, but the day will come when their efforts are unsustainable. They will be replaced, and I hope to live to see it.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.