EXPLAINER: Theory of white replacement fuels racist attacks

NEW YORK (AP) — A racist ideology seeping from the Internet's fringes into the mainstream is being investigated as a motivating factor in the supermarket shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York. Most of the victims were Black.

Ideas from “The Great Replacement Theory” filled a racist screed supposedly posted online by the white 18-year-old man accused of targeting Black people in Saturday's rampage. Authorities were still working to confirm its authenticity.

Certainly, there was no mistaking the racist intent of the shooter.

WHAT IS THE GREAT REPLACEMENT THEORY?

Simply put, it says there's a conspiracy afoot to diminish the influence of white people.

Believers say this goal is being achieved both through immigration of nonwhite people into societies that have largely been dominated by white people, as well as through simple demographics, with white people having lower birth rates than others.

The theory's more racist adherents believe Jews are behind the so-called replacement conspiracy. When white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, their chants included “you will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us.”

A more mainstream view in the U.S. suggests Democrats are encouraging immigration from Latin America so more like-minded potential voters replace “traditional” Americans, said Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism.

WHAT ARE ITS ROOTS?

How long has racism existed? Broadly speaking, its roots are that deep. In the U.S., you can point to efforts to intimidate and discourage Black people from voting — from replacing white voters at the polls — that date to the post-Civil War era.

In the modern era, most experts point to two...