Opinion by Michael Gerson: GOP leaders ought to banish officials who embrace “replacement theory”
. Later in the evening, drunk, younger White men executed the remaining prisoners by marching them two by two out of a makeshift jail and shooting them from behind. By the end of the massacre, as many as 80 Black people were dead.
All these heinous crimes were committed with impunity. Local law enforcement had no intention of arresting and convicting the guilty. The Black people of Colfax, according to historian Nicholas Lemann, “had no choice but to live meekly under the rule of the men who had killed their husbands and sons and brothers.”I recount this story not only because it is tragic but also because it demonstrates some enduring characteristics of white supremacy.
After the Civil War, in this view, a cabal of carpetbaggers and vindictive Black officials was attempting to destroy the Southern way of life. Whites were resisting a culture war being conducted against them. This vision of victimization was set out in films such as “The Birth of a Nation,” screened by President Woodrow Wilson at the White House in 1915. Such cultural products lent credibility to White fears and knit these fears into a compelling conspiracy theory — one reinforced by newspapers, educational institutions, politicians and movie night at the White House. It was hard to separate such theories from efforts across the South to intimidate Black people through lynching and mass violence.
This much needs to be communicated — by all politicians and commentators — with clarity: No belief that likens our fellow citizens to invaders and encourages racist dehumanization is an American belief.
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