# What's literally meant by "Great White Replacement Theory"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 17, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553 "2022-05-17T14:54:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/81 "2022-05-18T21:02:41Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I should follow up that “conservative” is not the same as “White”. There are numerous Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. conservatives in this country as well as White conservatives. Doesn’t prevent them from being white supremacists. At this moment in our country, white supremacy is the driving force of mainstream conservatism. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/82 "2022-05-18T21:36:43Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > They need a word that conveys “we’re going to become the minority”. Displacement? Disempowerment? Takeover? Yeah none really fits right. … A lot of supremacists have no problem with the presence of minorities _ **who know their place** _ . Be nice and quiet, behave yourselves and do your work as told and say God Bless America that you are allowed to have dollars in your pocket, a roof over your head, and can go to your chosen house of worship. But Og help you if you want a say in how things run. …and a number of members of minorities themselves will say just that to their own peers. Be happy with your job and your tax break and your gun. Beats the Old Country by a mile. … Besides fear of payback, just as long established in fear of “replacrment” is also the notion that there is something about being _culturally_ Northwestern European/Anglo-American that makes you especially suited for stewarding constitutionalism, rule of law and the free market. That if other peoples become dominant, absent a thorough assimilation, our society will quickly turn into what a certain President called a “s\*\*\* -hole country”. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/83 "2022-05-18T21:51:43Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > A lot of supremacists have no problem with the presence of minorities _ **who know their place** _ . A joke I heard is that southern racists don’t mind minorities living nearby so long as they don’t get uppity, but northern racists don’t mind minorities getting uppity so long as they don’t live nearby. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/84 "2022-05-18T22:39:33Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Displacement? Disempowerment? Takeover? Yeah none really fits right. Displacement would make more sense, I think. Maybe dilution? ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/85 "2022-05-18T22:43:28Z")
It’s the new term for so called “White Genocide”, where the purity of the white race is getting eliminated. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/86 "2022-05-18T23:53:50Z")
Thanks especially for the Coates reference. I liked it. But SpacemanSpiff\_II seems correct, you’re not showing anything the pre-war Southerners were saying about this vengeance. It may be impossible to make sense of what they were thinking. Today, their choices seem impossible. But, it’d be interesting to hear what they were saying. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/87 "2022-05-19T00:07:23Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > But SpacemanSpiff\_II seems correct, you’re not showing anything the pre-war Southerners were saying about this vengeance. [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D6056%26context%3Detd&ved=2ahUKEwj\_oZTxoOr3AhWBIkQIHTteAgIQFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1jMm7iy\_bV\_UqyyFSmFcsN](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D6056%26context%3Detd&ved=2ahUKEwj_oZTxoOr3AhWBIkQIHTteAgIQFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1jMm7iy_bV_UqyyFSmFcsN) This paper has quotes from a whole lot of Southern sources regarding San Domingue (Haiti). As the site of a successful slave revolt, Hait always served as a worrying example for the Southern slaver class. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/88 "2022-05-19T01:22:55Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > The scariest thing to me is that I have Asian ( both East Asian and South Asian) American and Hispanic members of my family who were Republicans before 2016, left the party then over the xenophobia and racism, but are now back in the party because they are convinced that they are the “good” immigrants/minorities that these white supremacists dominating the GOP agenda are going to accept as “honorary white people”. Back in 1968 my 82-year old grandfather announced that he was going to vote for noted segregationist [George Wallace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace) because Wallace would look out “for real Americans.” My father replied, “Papa, you’re an immigrant. **Real Americans** don’t want you here.” And in fact, if my white, Protestant grandfather had decided to come to America a few years after he did, the [Immigration Act of 1924](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act) probably would have kept him out. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/89 "2022-05-19T06:11:21Z")
> [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](#): > > None of your quotes cite a single word written by Southerners before the Civil War warning that if slaves were allowed any freedoms, including learning to read, they would wreak vengeance on the whites for the way they had been oppressed. Do you seriously mean that you’ve never seen any such words? The connection between enslaved people’s literacy and the prospect of their violent rebellion was definitely strongly articulated in the antebellum South. [Here’s one example of its acknowledgement being explicitly codified into law,](https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/bill-prevent-all-persons) in North Carolina’s 1830 anti-literacy statute: > [@](#): > > Whereas the teaching of slaves to read and write has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce [insurrection](https://www.ncpedia.org/glossary/insurrection) and rebellion to the [manifest](https://www.ncpedia.org/glossary/manifest) injury of the citizens of this state: Therefore > > Be it enacted by the General Asembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that any free person who shall hereafter teach or attempt to teach any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, Shall be liable to indictment in any [court](https://www.ncpedia.org/glossary/court) of record in the State having [jurisdiction](https://www.ncpedia.org/glossary/jurisdiction) thereof […] ---
**Author:** ![SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19adc/32.png) [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpacemanSpiff_II)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/90 "2022-05-19T13:39:47Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Do you seriously mean that you’ve never seen any such words? Not that I recall. TBH, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were such words written. But it was striking that in this thread a guy who made the claim that there were millions of such words couldn’t even come up with a single word when challenged on it, which now makes me wonder. At any rate, I thought I would point out that his quotes don’t support his claim. Neither does yours. > [@Kimstu](#): > > The connection between enslaved people’s literacy and the prospect of their violent rebellion was definitely strongly articulated in the antebellum South. Very possible. But that’s not about “wreak[ing] vengeance on the whites for the way they had been oppressed”. The law you cite suggests that the objection to literacy was that it “has a tendency to excite dissatisfaction in their minds and to produce insurrection and rebellion”. Sounds like what they believed was that literate people would be less contented being slaves than illiterate. Nothing about vengeance. EM’s point with all this was that the knowledge that slaveholders were savagely mistreating their slaves was widely accepted among slaveholders themselves, as illustrated in their “millions of words” about possible vengeance, and that this contrasted sharply with later claims that slaves were well treated. That is not at all supported by laws such as you cite, which are at least consistent with the notion that slaveholders believed that slaves were relatively content (and they wanted to keep things that way). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/91 "2022-05-19T13:42:10Z")
> [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](#): > > Not that I recall. TBH, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were such words written. But it was striking that in this thread a guy who made the claim that there were millions of such words couldn’t even come up with a single word when challenged on it, which now makes me wonder. At any rate, I thought I would point out that his quotes don’t support his claim. Neither does yours The neat thing about Discourse is that it shows you did not open the link below, which does quote contemporary Southern fears of slave rebellion: [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D6056%26context%3Detd&ved=2ahUKEwj\_oZTxoOr3AhWBIkQIHTteAgIQFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1jMm7iy\_bV\_UqyyFSmFcsN](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D6056%26context%3Detd&ved=2ahUKEwj_oZTxoOr3AhWBIkQIHTteAgIQFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1jMm7iy_bV_UqyyFSmFcsN) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/92 "2022-05-19T14:06:08Z")
My Great White Replacement Theory is that Great White’s success in replacing Ian Hunter’s “Once Bitten Twice Shy” with an inferior cover version is evidence that they were too crappy a band to make it with their own songs. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/93 "2022-05-19T14:21:32Z")
> [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](#): > > That is not at all supported by laws such as you cite, which are at least consistent with the notion that slaveholders believed that slaves were relatively content (and they wanted to keep things that way). I’m having trouble differentiating what you actually believe to be true against your argument over the semantics of Kimstu’s original post. Is your assertion that slaveowners believed their slaves to be content and did not fear violent rebellion? Or is this whole exchange just a quibble over the “millions of words” claim and not the sentiment behind it? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/94 "2022-05-19T14:41:32Z")
> [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](#): > > Sounds like what they believed was that literate people would be less contented being slaves than illiterate. Nothing about vengeance. > > EM’s point with all this was that the knowledge that slaveholders were savagely mistreating their slaves was widely accepted among slaveholders themselves, as illustrated in their “millions of words” about possible vengeance, and that this contrasted sharply with later claims that slaves were well treated. Oh, I see, what you were asking for was documentary evidence that slaveholders were aware, and explicitly acknowledged, that enslaved people were being unjustly oppressed. And that slaveholders’ fears that literacy would inflame slaves’ resentment and violence were based on their own explicit recognition of that injustice. I am not Exapno\_Mapcase and cannot speak for him, but my interpretation of what he said is different from yours: > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Before the Civil War, Southerners wrote millions of words warning that if slaves were allowed any freedoms, including learning to read, they would wreak vengeance on the whites for the way they had been oppressed. Somehow this is forgotten in the retelling of the wonderful antebellum South that treated the “darkies” like family. I read that as meaning that the slaveholders were well aware, and often consciously acknowledged, that enslaved people were fundamentally resentful and dissatisfied about their condition. (This in spite of concurrent Southern propaganda and cultural indoctrination about slaves’ contentment and gratitude for their owners’ kind paternal treatment.) And, as I and others have pointed out, this is indeed very well documented from contemporary sources. I don’t think Exapno\_Mapcase was in fact claiming that slavery advocates openly admitted that slavery was unjust oppression whose victims had every right to resent it. That was indeed a very taboo opinion in pro-slavery culture. The description of potential slave revolts as “wreak[ing] vengeance […] for the way they had been oppressed” was authorial perspective, ISTM. Exapno\_Mapcase is of course welcome to chime in to correct either or both of our interpretations. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/95 "2022-05-19T14:53:29Z")
Here are just some of the millions of words discussed: [https://classroom.monticello.org/view/73749/](https://classroom.monticello.org/view/73749/) > [@](#): > > One would think that the circles of ethics and logic could not furnish less doubtful questions than these. Were the whites of St. Domingo morally bound to bring on themselves the massacre pro­duced by the liberation of their slaves? Is such a sacrifice of freemen to make freemen of slaves, virtuous or wicked ? Will it advance or destroy the principles of morality, religion and civil liber­ty? Is it wise or foolish? > … > And yet an amiable and peaceable religious sect, have been long laboring with some success, to plunge three-fourths of the union into a civil war of a complexion so inveterate, as to admit of no issue, but the extermination of one entire party. Suppose the extermination shall fall on the blacks, the ferocity acquired by the white & during the con­test, and the destruction of the labor in three­ fourths of the union, will not endow the remain­ing fourth with wealth or happiness. If the whites should be the victims of this enthusiastic philanthropy, and our northern brethren should succeed in overwhelming the southern states with the negro patriotism and civilization, what will they have done for the benefit of the liber­ty, virtue or happiness of mankind ? The French revolution, bottomed upon as correct abstract principles and sounder practical hopes, turned out to be a foolish and mischievous specula­tion; what then can be expected from mak­ing republicans of negro slaves, and conquer­ors of ignorant infuriated barbarians? Southern planters came to believe that abolitionists were misguided fools who would bring the fate of San Domingue down upon the Southern states. ---
**Author:** ![SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19adc/32.png) [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpacemanSpiff_II)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/96 "2022-05-19T14:56:26Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Oh, I see, what you were asking for was documentary evidence that slaveholders were aware, and explicitly acknowledged, that enslaved people were being unjustly oppressed. And that slaveholders’ fears that literacy would inflame slaves’ resentment of that oppression were based on their own explicit recognition of that injustice. I don’t know why you’re introducing the issue of “unjustly” and “have a right” into this. I haven’t said anything about that in anything I’ve written. Leave out the “unjust” angle. There’s a big difference between: > A lot of these slaves would much rather be free and they may rise up and rebel to get their freedom, And > A lot of these slaves hate our guts because of how we mistreated them and they may rise up and come after us with axes to get revenge. The second suggests a far greater level of mistreatment and dissatisfaction than the first, and I believe that’s what EM was going for. And the “millions of words” part was to suggest that this was widely accepted at the time. FTR I’m not an expert on this era and and not committed to either position on this. EM made the claim and someone else challenged it, and then EM purported to support his positon and didn’t, and I pointed that out. That’s all. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/97 "2022-05-19T14:59:05Z")
> [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](#): > > > A lot of these slaves hate our guts because of how we mistreated them and they may rise up and come after us with axes to get revenge. > > The second suggests a far greater level of mistreatment and dissatisfaction than the first, and I believe that’s what EM was going for. And the “millions of words” part was to suggest that this was widely accepted at the time. This attitude did exist, but it rose to prominence after the Haitian Revolution, as I cited above. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/98 "2022-05-19T15:17:28Z")
> [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](#): > > I don’t know why you’re introducing the issue of “unjustly” and “have a right” into this. I haven’t said anything about that in anything I’ve written. Leave out the “unjust” angle. > > There’s a big difference between: > > > A lot of these slaves would much rather be free and they may rise up and rebel to get their freedom, > > And > > > A lot of these slaves hate our guts because of how we mistreated them and they may rise up and come after us with axes to get revenge. ? How on earth is “hate our guts because of how we mistreated them” not a clear acknowledgement of the injustice of the situation? The “‘unjust’ angle” simply can’t be left out of this analysis of views on slavery: it’s an intrinsic part of what you’re saying. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/99 "2022-05-19T17:42:54Z")
> [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](#): > > What you’ve cited is several non-Southerners writing many years after the Civil War attributing this sentiment to Southerners, and also evidence that Southerners were concerned about slave insurrections. I cited four independent scholars coming to the same conclusion about different times in history. Did you think they were all lying? What about their being non-Southerners made a difference? Would it improve them if they had come from KKK members? The purpose of the KKK, after all, was to terrorize blacks, a logical development from the earlier slave patrols, found even in the North. Additionally, the cites were given to Napier, who asked: > This is very interesting! Can you give me a cite or two? I’m not challenging – I believe it! – I’d just like to learn more about this phenomenon. Where in there was any hint that I had to cite contemporary sources? To be honest, I found your objection so bizarre I had no idea how to answer it. I still don’t. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553/100 "2022-05-19T20:22:45Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > - The expansion of what is considered “white” will grow. I don’t see this as being very likely since it would require consensus amongst people and many people don’t want to discuss this, unlike in the 19th Century, and the trend, if anything, is going in reverse. I’m not observing that. It seems to me that we still keep seeing those with middle-to-fair skin being allowed to be white. We have white Latinos and white Arabs now, and we’re seeing East Asians getting lumped in with white people. And I can’t think of any group that has gained whiteness that is starting to lose it. Can you elaborate more on what you mean? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-literally-meant-by-great-white-replacement-theory/964553.md?page=6)