In relation to white supremacist propaganda and race trolls, this website has taken on and refuted (among other things) misuses of heritability, abuses of dated and flawed adoption studies from the 1970s, low sampling density masquerading as discrete racial categories in PCA graphs and frivolous claims about how ethnic diversity in a society is somehow a cause of psychosis and cancer. Yet, some of the core claims of white supremacists has not yet been covered. So without further ado, it is time to drive the stake into the heart of a couple of white supremacy conspiracy theories and errors: white genocide, Eurabia and the failure to understand socio-economic confounders.
Demographic change over time due to population migration is not the same as the intentional physical extermination of entire groups of people. The notion that there is a relative epidemic of black-on-white murders in the United States is based on a failure to normalized for base rates and differential encounter rates. Most of the observed over-representation of African-Americans in crime statistics can be explained by various socio-economic factors and related factors. The Eurabia conspiracy theory fails to understand basic math and also makes a number of false assumptions about fertility rates. Finally, anti-racism is not a secret code word for anti-white because anti-racists tackle many other constellations of racism, such as oppression of the Dalits in India and the Burakumin and Koreans in Japan.
Demographic change over time is not the same thing as genocide
The basic idea behind the flawed notion of “white genocide” is the notion that population demographic changes over decades (caused by e. g. different populations moving and interbreeding) constitutes an actual genocide. However, this does not actually fall under the definition of genocide.
Although there are several definitions of genocide with slight differences, here is the genocide definition provided by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) adopted by the UN:
The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (article 2) defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group … “, including:
– Killing members of the group;
– Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
– Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
– Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
– Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
A similar definition of genocide was adopted by the International Criminal Court:
For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Does changes in population demographics over time due to movement of people and interbreeding constitute:
- …an intention to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group? No.
- …the killing of members of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group? No.
- …causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group? No.
- …inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part? No.
- …a way to prevent births within a national, ethnical, racial or religious group? No.
- …a way to forcibly transfer children? No.
Thus, based on generally accepted definitions of genocide, notions of “white genocide” based on changing population demographics over time and interbreeding are demonstrably false.
In an ironic twist, complaints that a “white genocide” is occurring represents a common denialist tactic known as playing the martyr card. People who promote other kinds of pseudoscience like alternative medicine or crank claims about physics often compare themselves with Galileo and ensure their followers that the only reason they are being criticized is because modern science feels threatened by new ideas rather than the more plausible reason that they are promoting nonsense.
White supremacists fail to control for base rates and differential encounter rates
Another component to the myth of white genocide is the notion that there is an epidemic of black-on-white homicide in the United States. This is usually advanced by raw data comparisons on statistics from the U.S Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, a naive raw data comparison is a notorious example of statistical illiteracy. A simplified example may help to bring this point home: imagine that a raw data comparison between right-handed and left-handed people showed that there were more right-handed murderers than left-handed ones. What conclusions could you draw about the connection between being right-handed and being a murderer? Absolutely nothing, as you have to perform the correct data normalizations. In this case, you have to control for the size of the two groups of right-handed and left-handed people. Are there more murders by right-handed people because right-handed people are more prone to murders or because there are just so many more right-handed people than left-handed people? In other words, the correct comparisons are between frequencies, not absolute figures.
The factors that white supremacists who use the “black-on-white homicide epidemic” trope fail to control for are:
- (1) differences in base rates: because of socio-economic factors (such as crowded housing, poverty density, population density, income, levels of urbanization, unemployment rates, deprivations of community resources and family disruptions), African-Americans are overrepresented in crime statistics. When comparison black-on-white homicide and white-on-black homicide, base rates is a confounder (cf. handedness above).
- (2) differential encounter rates. Whites are more likely to encounter other whites, whereas African-Americans are not more likely to encounter other African-Americans. Thus, the differential encounter rates also needs to be controlled for so that the comparison is between apples and apples.
Once you control for these two factors, the black-on-white homicide rates are more or less what you would expect if there was no relationship between ethnicity and homicide. In other words, the second pillar of the white genocide myth collapses.
Anti-Racism is not a Marxist anti-White plot
People opposing racism comes from many different political positions: leftists, libertarians, independent etc. and it is not restricted to being about discrimination against African-American. For instance, anti-racist activist Tim Wise has talked about the discrimination against the Dalits in India or the Burakumin and Koreans in Japan.
Eurabia: a conspiracy theory based on bad math and faulty assumptions about fertility rates
The Eurabia conspiracy theory is based on the flawed notion that Arabic countries are plotting to transforming Europe into an Islamic republic by sending a deluge of Muslim immigrants with enormously high fertility rates compared with Europeans. This is typically accompanied by estimates like “in X decades, country Y will be majority Muslim” or something similar. However, the Eurabia conspiracy theory is based on: (1) bad calculations, (2) failure to understand that fertility rates in Arabic countries differ substantially (and is actually falling!) and (3) that the fertility rates in immigrant populations converge on the fertility rates of the population at large.
Here is an informative graph from Pew Research:
A CNN interview with Pew Researcher Brian Grim explains the problem with the Eurabia conspiracy theory:
“There has been a lot of speculation about the growth of the Muslim population around the world, and many of those who speculate don’t have good data,” said Brian Grim, a senior researcher at the Pew Forum.
For example, the report undermines the notion that Europe is heading toward having any country with a Muslim majority. The continent will be about 8 percent Muslim in 2030, it projects.
“The data that we have isn’t pointing in the direction of ‘Eurabia’ at all,” Grim said.
“The Muslim population is growing and slowing. Instead of a runaway train, it’s trending with the general global population,” he said.
Cooperman [another Pew researcher – E. K. note] hopes that information will help make for more intelligent discussions, he said: “In the midst of heated debate and speculation, we think that solid, reliable, empirical estimates are valuable.”
I think it is true that solid empirical estimates are good, but pseudoscientific propaganda is very powerful. If irrational people accepted rational arguments, there would be no irrational people.
Bonus round: responding to white supremacists
A few white supremacists decided to descend on a video put up by the Youtube user Ann who explained why the conspiracy theory of white genocide did not make sense.
“In actual practice, only White people try to do this. A duty to humanity always ends up being WHITE people’s duty to humanity, just as diversity always ends up being in ONLY WHITE countries. In any of the things you advocate, White people are the only ones doing the giving, and the other races are the only ones doing the receiving. In face, White people are the only people who care about the things that you talk about. In that sense, your thinking is very White-centric, in that you assume that all races care about the good of humanity, but, in fact, only White people do. Other races only care to the extent that there is something in it for them. You don’t sound like someone who is deliberately anti-White, but you need to think through as to how other races think and not just how White people think.”
There are a number of errors in this comment. First, the comment author seems to be stuck in a form of typological thinking aggravated by extreme stereotypes. In other words, he or she cannot seem to think outside group versus group and see individuals. All individuals in a certain group do not think in the exact same way. Second, the reasons why anti-racism is discussed a lot in majority white countries include (i.) the fact that a lot of these countries contributed to colonialism, lynching, and contributes discrimination of African-Americans (ii.) those governments have laws and democratic principles in place which allow discussions about systemic discrimination to be discussed and debated.
“the white genocide thing has to do with destroying the institution of family because white people have the highest tendency to get married,settle down and start a family
other people are easier to get into a tribal mindset
in the long run this is all about creating a man without roots who can be more easily controlled…
brave ‘new’ world.. ”
This is ironic because family disruptions by e. g. unemployment is disproportionately hitting ethnic minorities, not the majority white population. It has nothing to do with a “tribal mindset” (another irony because white supremacists often fall to collectivist thinking of group versus group).
“The word “racist” was invented by Leon Trotsky, aka the first leader of the Soviet Red Army. He used this to get revenge on russian nationals for persecuting jews, for trotsky’s real name is Lev Davidovich Bronstein.”
No, the term racist tracks back to the French word “racisme” from the 1930s in relation to Nazis. It has predecessors such as “racialist” and “racialism” that comes from the late 1800s or early 1900s. However, none of these terms were invented by Trotsky. This is yet another case of the “anti-racism is a Marxist conspiracy” belief.
Racist is a Hate word. Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White
The term “racist” is sometimes used indiscriminately, but it is not a hate word. That is another example of racists playing the martyr card. As was argued above, anti-racist is not a code word for anti-white as people of different cultures, political and philosophical beliefs and anti-racism is not just against white supremacy, but also against the Indian caste system and so on.
“low birth rates for rich natives plus an influx of 3rd world impoverished immigrants with incredibly high birth rates will lead to the white population losing control of their governments then the immigrants will use their majority for more redistribution of wealth. the white population will be too few to stop it because dopes like you cant get over your egalitarianistic ideals long enough to face facts. i feel sorry for our race but not you, you deserve whats coming.”
This fear mongering picture is not supported by the best current empirical predictions. Muslim fertility rates is on the decline and in 2030, only 8% of Europeans will be Muslim. There is also a problem with “you deserve whats (sic) coming”, which is a very unpleasant way to put down your opponent. It is about to get worse:
whiteness is not a matter of skin color but of social standing? girl, you are fucking lost. I could state all the facts in the world, but if you ignore basic biology, then there is nothing I can do for you. Have fun with your fellow marxists, until some somali guy rapes you in an alley.”
It is very typical that white supremacists claim to have biology on their side, but their assertions are often based on misunderstandings of heritability, an ignorance of confounder and a failure to appreciate sampling density. There is also the Marxist conspiracy ideation together with stereotyping about people from Somalia culminating in the worst part of it all: the commenter apparently sincerely wishes that the female video maker would be raped. It is extremely common that white supremacists, when their arguments fail them (and their arguments always fail them), resort to rape and death threats (or these kind of “I wish you get…” statements) and this is morally outrageous. The person who wrote that comment does not deserve to be taken seriously.
debunked by your socialist government? how impressive. let me ask you, why does israel DNA test its immigrants to make sure theyre jews? I mean, if its just a social construct, isnt that impossible?”
Israel does not require that immigrants be Jews. That is only for attaining citizenship via the Law of Return. It is possible for non-Jews to become citizens in Israel via other means. Also, it is worth to point out that those that are considered of Jewish descent actually represents eight genetically overlapping subpopulations that overlap with other, non-Jewish populations. Thus, DNA-testing is a very crude method, at best.
also, one other problem, is you think that these immigrants have a thought process like you or another european. they dont, look at the rapes happening daily against blonde hair women in sweden. most of these immigrants are the people committing the crimes in their home countries, and even when they are arrested in europe, they are released after short sentences, and not even deported. you europeans have set up such good socialist programs, that these impoverished 3rd worlders (who mostly hate you) come to your country and never plan on working. Why would they work? they dont even speak your language, so its much easier if they just segregate themselves and pick up their government check every month. Free money for the savages!!! am i wrong?”
The classical “Sweden is the rape capital of Europe” is debunked by the fact that Sweden has a very broad rape definition, which now includes “especially exposed circumstances”. Thus, comparing raw data for rape incidence and prevalence across European countries is not valid. It is comparing apples to oranges.
Also, it is worth remembering that even though some groups are overrepresented in crime statistics, these are typically not controlled for socio-economic factors and even if the raw overrepresentations were true, it would not by itself be informative about the proportion of immigrations who commit certain crimes. In fact, because crime is generally low, even an overrepresentation would not mean that the absolute proportion of immigrants who are criminals are high. In fact, it is very low. In Sweden, for instance, over 99.7% of immigrants have never been convicted or suspected of rape or attempted rape. The white supremacists are essentially suggesting that we should judge the 99.7% by the less than 0.3%. This could be an obvious statistical fallacy.
Japan is 99% Japanese.
Japan does not let foreigners vote and kicks them out all the time.
Japan is RICH, has a low birth rate, and a horrendous colonial history.
Yet no one is demanding the Japanese in Japan, be replaced with a “Blended humanity” to end “racism”.
They only FORCE WHITE geNOcide.
As we saw above, parts of Japan has problems with discrimination against Koreans and the Burakumin.