Q&A: Hate-fueled mass shootings didn't start in Buffalo. It's doubtful they end here

Pittsburgh.

Charleston, S.C.

Christchurch, New Zealand.

San Diego.

El Paso, Texas.

And now Buffalo.

Six white supremacists have shot and killed 105 and wounded another 75 at shopping centers and places of worship in these communities.

Those who track the hate behind the carnage see no end at this point – and fear that some of the twisted logic and conspiracy theories used to justify the shootings have gone more mainstream.

“I've seen too many attacks like this at this point,” said Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Buffalo won’t be the end.”

The center pursues racial justice in in the South and beyond, working with educators, schools and communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen collaborative movements, and advance the human rights of all people. It monitors hate groups and other extremists across the U.S. with aims to expose their activities to the public, press and law enforcement.

Miller talked to The Buffalo News after 10 people – all Black – were killed and three others wounded in a racially motivated mass shooting at a Tops Markets store in Buffalo.

The attack came five days after a new poll by the Associated Press and National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago estimated one in three Americans agree that a group of people is trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains, a key argument of replacement theory.

Hate hit Buffalo hard, so where are the region and America headed and what can we do about it?

Miller, who focuses on white supremacy for the law center’s Intelligence Report, shared her perspective with The Buffalo News in an interview that has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Question: How many more killers like the 18-year-old charged in the Buffalo shootings are out there?

Answer: That’s hard to quantify but this is an organized movement encouraging people to carry out mass terror attacks like the one we saw in Buffalo. We've already seen a number of young men take up arms in the name of the Great Replacement Theory. We're not doing enough to push back against it and to change the landscape. If we're doing nothing, then we can fully expect that this will continue.

Q: The theory sprung from French nationalism a century ago and re-emerged with a book published in that country a decade ago. What are the major tenets?

A: That white people are being systematically and deliberately replaced and that the survival of the white race depends on taking action against the supposed perpetrators, the people they see as their racial enemies. It's the main animating narrative of the white power movement and it's the one inspiring the most violence.

It's an attack on a lot of different progressive policies and historically marginalized groups of people. Oftentimes, this is about immigration, but it also includes abortion, and LGBTQ rights, and feminism and racial integration. All these things are seen as a threat to the white population and to white birth rates reaching a replacement level.

Q: Do you have any feel for the number of Americans captivated by this thinking?

A: It's difficult to say. We do an annual census of hate groups. (The center reports 733 across the nation. New York State has 35 listed at splcenter.org, including one each in Buffalo, Lockport and Niagara Falls and three in Rochester.)

Q: Is the radicalization in this case much different from the radicalization into terrorist groups in the Middle East or other parts of the world?

A: Extremism at its core is the fear that your defined in-group is facing an existential threat from an out-group and your survival depends on taking hostile action against that group. So yes, in some way there is that similarity. But a movement like this also feels very deeply American.

Q: How can you dismantle it?

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way to do it quickly, or simply. This same idea has motivated political movements throughout American history. You can look at the eugenics and immigration policies of the early 20th century and immigration policy during the Trump era. They’re very much based on the same idea that people of color represent this kind of existential threat to the country.

Some ways to address it are telling a truthful history of America, adopting anti-racist education in our schools, so we can counteract some of the messaging that young people are seeing in places like the internet. We need to provide a counter message built on solidarity. We need political leaders to speak out against things like replacement theory and political violence. Words to push back have a lot of power. But we also need more resources to fund prevention programs. So often we look to our criminalization and punishment and surveillance, but a lot of that only deals with the end results of radicalization. You're not doing anything to prevent people from getting there in the first place. That includes empowering parents and caregivers to see the signs of radicalization and to be able to step in. And it means strong communities that can help people push back against dangerous ideas.

There are organizations to help people when they feel disempowered and aren't sure what to do, organizations like Life After Hate (lifeafterhate.org). It’s a really delicate process. We think about these people sometimes as lone wolves. That is a misnomer. They've been indoctrinated into a community. They have a coherent set of beliefs that they've spent a lot of time developing. This is something that needs to be walked back from, carefully and with compassion, over a long period of time.

Q: Are we at a tipping point in this country?

A: We are in a dark place. I think that's pretty indisputable. We have seen attack after attack like this, using the same rhetoric, the same justification. The first attack that we've seen in recent years specifically citing the great replacement was in 2018, in Pittsburgh. And the thing that's changed since then is the larger political landscape, where you have people on the right, people like Tucker Carlson, who are now spouting the same rhetoric. This is no longer something that we can say is confined to the fringes. If we want to walk it back, we need to take on that entire landscape that's helped create those changes. That's the history of white supremacy in this country. That is the social media landscape that allows these kinds of things to thrive. That's the media landscape that is perpetuating these ideas on the right and helping to normalize them.

We need to respond to all of these things at once, in a coherent way and really aggressively. Right now, we haven't done that. There is a lot we can do, so I don't think people should feel hopeless.

Q: What can we do individually?

A: People feel really disempowered in moments like this but organizing your communities, that's what keeps people safe. When they have strong networks of people, and they can stand up against attacks in their community and show that they are resilient. It gives people a sense of control, a sense of empowerment, and allows them to prepare to fight for the future. They can also put pressure on their elected officials to address this in a more robust way, speaking out against this kind of violence, condemning this kind of rhetoric, and showing that this conspiracy is untrue. We can also hold social media companies to account when the don’t put funding and resources toward prevention programs, towards education, things that can help us dismantle these movements in a more systematic way.

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White supremacy mass killings

Charleston, S.C.: A white racist, 21, kills nine Black parishioners June 17, 2015 during a prayer services at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Pittsburgh: A 46-year-old enters the Tree of Life Synagogue during a Sabbath service Oct. 27, 2018, yells “All Jews must die,” and opens fire on congregants. Eleven are killed and six wounded, including several Holocaust survivors.

Christchurch, New Zealand:  A 28-year-old Australian man kills 51 Muslims and injures 40 others March 15, 2019, in attacks on two mosques after posting a racist screed online. He live-streams the slayings.

Poway, Calif.: A 19-year-old man kills one and injures three April 27, 2019, the last day of Passover, at Chabad of Poway synagogue outside San Diego. He is serving two life sentences.

El Paso: A 21-year-old man is charged Aug. 3, 2019, with killing 23 and injuring 23 others, mostly Latinos, at a Walmart department store, after posting an anti-immigrant diatribe on social media.

Buffalo: An 18-year-old who lives outside Binghamton is charged May 14 with killing 10 and injuring three at a Tops Market in a predominantly Black neighborhood after posting a screed laced with racist conspiracy theories and epithets.

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10 signs of an imminent race killer

The Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report undertook a two-year study of almost 100 murders by racist extremists and identified 10 unique characteristics of killers who were active online.

Unemployment: All were unemployed at the time of the killings.

Public activism: By protesting, leafleting, or attending racist skinhead concerts or gatherings, all offenders publicly participated in racist activity or outreach, though most remained anonymous prior to the killings.

Home crime scene: Triggering events are personal. More than half of offenders began killing in or around their homes, with family members often the first victims.

Multiple platforms: Almost all offenders posted on more than one racist blog or web forum.

Sustained activity: Almost all offenders had been active on racist forums or blogs for more than 18 months at the time of the killings.

Oppositional behavior: Almost all offenders were seen to be argumentative or antagonistic with others on the racist forums. Some were eventually banned in the months leading up to the killings.

Posting variation: Most offenders exhibited a notable change in their posting frequency in the days and weeks leading up to the killings – either a significant increase or decline in posts. Several were active on the racist Stormfront forum in the hours leading up to the killings.

Discussion of violence: Most offenders discussed violence as an acceptable means of conflict resolution in their postings.

Weapons: Most offenders discussed firearms online.

Identification of an “enemy”: Most specifically identified an enemy in their writings. Though many named minorities, most identified the U.S. government, or “ZOG” (for Zionist Occupation Government), as their primary opposition.