Mass murder in United States reveals country’s frightening trend of White supremacism

A racially motivated mass shooting occurred Saturday afternoon at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing ten people and exposing the rising trend of White supremacist terrorism in the United States, which stems from the country's deeply embedded racist structures and ideology. Experts say that racial superiority, which was previously the domain of fringe White nationalist groups, has gradually permeated the mainstream of American political and cultural discussion with fatal consequences.

Authorities identified the gunman as Payton S. Gendron, an 18-year-old Caucasian man from the New York community of Conklin. Mr.Gendron drove more than 200 miles to carry out his abhorrent attack, which he livestreamed, according to police statements cited by U.S. media. Ten individuals were killed and three more were injured, most of whom were Black.

The 10 people killed in Buffalo represents the highest number of fatalities among all the mass shootings that have taken place in the U.S. this year so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks them.

In a news conference Saturday evening, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul decried the attack as a frightening reminder of the dangers of "White supremacist terrorism."

Seeking to rehabilitate toxic racial supremacy views, a growing number of White supremacists in the U.S. have committed a series of heinous hate crimes, while fostering public fear of immigrants and minorities, and exacerbating other concerns such as racial tensions and gun violence. On average, bias-motivated incidents in 37 major U.S. cities increased by nearly 39% in 2021, with the 10 largest metropolitan areas reporting a record increase of 54.5%, according to an analysis of national police data compiled by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, California.

Who’s next? 

Investigators work at the site of a mass shooting in Buffalo of New York State, the United States, May 15, 2022. An 18-year-old U.S. white man was arraigned on Saturday night hours after shocking the nation by live-streaming his mass shooting at a supermarket in the city of Buffalo. (Photo by Xinhua）

Shortly after the attack, CNN obtained a 180-page manifesto, which was purportedly written by a person claiming to be Payton Gendron, who later confessed to the mass shooting.

The manifesto’s author expressed his perceptions on the dwindling size of the White population in the U.S. and claims of ethnic and cultural replacement of White people. The author attributed the Internet as the source for most of his beliefs and described himself as a fascist, a White supremacist and an anti-Semite.

The latest incident has underscored a rising trend of hate crimes and growing White supremacy in the U.S. According to preliminary statistics from more than three dozen U.S. police departments, hate crimes in the country rose by double digits in 2021 and are continuing to multiply in numbers into 2022.

African Americans are not the only targets of White supremacist terrorism in the U.S. According to a report published by Pew in on May 9, 2022, about six-in-ten Asian adults (63%) said that violence against Asian Americans in the U.S. is increasing, while about a third of Asian adults (36%) said they have altered their daily schedule or routine in the past 12 months due to worries that they might be threatened or attacked.

Hispanic and Latino Americans’ situation is not that much better. According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the overall rise in the number of reports of hate crimes against Hispanic and Latino Americans pushed the total number to an 11-year high in 2019, while of the 51 hate-motivated murders reported in 2019, almost half were attributed to an anti-Hispanic and Latino mass shooting that took place in El Paso, Texas, which was perpetrated by a White supremacist.

In his recent essay "What the 'Majority Minority' Shift Really Means for America," Justin Gest, a political scientist, noted that the U.S. has broadened its definition of White people throughout its history enough to maintain the American majority’s power over Black, Asian, Hispanic and Latino people living in the country.

Experts believe that due to a long-standing racial hierarchy that places Whiter-looking people at the top and darker-skinned people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, White supremacy has become a major issue in the U.S. over the years, which could exacerbate the country's already severe internal divisions and problems.

The seemingly continual rise in the number of hate crimes and a burgeoning home-grown White supremacist movement has worried those citizens and individuals residing in the U.S. who, as visible minorities, are ethnically or racially non-White. According to a poll conducted by Pew in 2021, nearly eight-in-ten Black adults, 59 percent of Hispanic and Latino adults and 56 percent of Asian American adults say a lot more needs to be done to achieve racial equality.

"Being white gives you access to jobs, opportunities, and being perceived as competent," a Chinese-American software engineer residing in New York City expressed. Requesting anonymity, the man stated that “Such discrimination is already intolerable; now our lives are in jeopardy. The victims this time are African Americans; who will be the next, a Chinese American like me or my Hispanic friends?"

"We've been called Negro, Ching Chong, and Latinx for centuries, and such labeling persists in the modern United States." This must be changed, and steps must be taken to ensure that we are not the next victims of a mass shooting," he added.

Fall from a high moral ground

Despite its self-proclaimed achievements in promoting "racial equality" and human rights, the U.S.' failure to halt White supremacist terrorism has already pushed the country off the moral high ground in terms of promoting human rights, with the public accusing the American government of being an "accomplice" to White supremacy.

White supremacy reached unprecedented heights at an official level during the Republican administration of Donald Trump. During the early debate over the Trump administration’s Muslim ban, HuffPost uncovered 17 speeches that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon had given in which he described “The Camp of the Saints,” a book written by Jean Raspail that has been a central text for White supremacists since its publication in 1973, which Bannon claimed was his favorite book, having quoted extensively from it.

The “Camp of the Saints,” a French contribution to violent modern racism, tells the story of French society and the French military losing their nerve and failing to massacre foreign migrants as they landed on French shores in increasingly greater numbers, resulting in the eventual total collapse of Western civilization. White supremacists in the U.S. have argued that given this type of apocalyptic scenario, any tactic would therefore be acceptable.

In 2018, when deploying U.S. troops to the Mexican border, President Trump made an incendiary remark: "If they want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. I told them to consider it a rifle." The neo-Nazi group National Vanguard even published an article titled "Camp of the Saints Invasion on the U.S.-Mexico Border: 97 Percent Increase as 2,714 Invade Daily", arguing that allowing immigration from Central America will lower the average IQ of Americans. In this way, the ideas that underpinned social Darwinism and the ideology of Nazi Germany have been repurposed for the 21st century.

This is the logic that led to the Trump administration's Muslim ban in January 2017, which also encouraged American politicians to attack minority groups in the country, including by using racist language.

“The US political landscape is characterized by its focus on election campaigns. Both parties are trying to polarize the society and are making their supporters more and more extreme," Wei Nanzhi, a research fellow with the American Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday.

By inciting internal conflicts, they can consolidate their voter base and create mutual hatred among segments of society, making it impossible for the American public to not question the whole system, the expert said.

Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post columnist, noted on Monday that the Black victims of the Buffalo shooting were killed as a result of White supremacism in the U.S., and he doubted that White supremacism would end soon in the country as a major undercurrent.

“Political leaders and commentators from far left to far right will denounce Saturday’s massacre. We will have the customary arguments about the need for sensible gun control and the need to focus on mental health. Gradually, the arguments will peter out. Nothing meaningful will change,” he added.