A Uniquely American Problem Shoots Again
In 2019, a 16-year old Payton S. Gendron in a small town in New York state watched two events which inspired him — a mass shooting of 23 Latinos in Texas, United States, and another mass shooting of 49 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand. From these events, he came up with his own idea.
He documented this idea in a 180-page document which he eventually posted online. In this manifesto, he fleshed out what he believes is the solution to a concept that has become increasingly popular as immigrants from Middle East and Africa flock to Europe and North America.
Replacement Theory, developed in 2010 by French novelist Renaud Camus, is the concept that the ethnic French population — as well as white European populations at large — is being demographically and culturally replaced with non-European peoples — specifically Arab, Jewish, Berber, Turkish and sub-Saharan Muslim populations — through mass migration, demographic growth and a European drop in the birth rate.
This concept has received considerable followership in Western Europe, North America, and the Oceania. In America, it is simply the notion that white Americans are at risk of being replaced by people of color — someone who is not considered “white”.
Payton is a believer in his theory. In his hate-filled manifesto, he described the solution to the ‘problem’ in his own environment — kill as many Black people as possible. This included the type of gun to use, a timeline, a specific parking spot and where to eat ahead of time.
At 2:30 p.m. yesterday, Payton drove 320km — about the distance from Lagos to Ilorin (a 4-hour trip) — to a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo. He was dressed in combat gear and body armor, and his helmet was equipped with a video camera for livestreaming. He had with him an assault rifle with a racist epithet scribbled on the barrel.
Then he started shooting.
The shooting was broadcast live on Twitch, the livestreaming site owned by Amazon that is popular with gamers.
When he was done, eleven Blacks had been gunned down and two whites caught in the line of fire.
“Bodies were everywhere,” one witness said. A store manager said she heard at least 70 shots as the Supermarket quaked.
Payton had written in his manifesto that he chose the area of the supermarket because it was the closest place he could find near where he lives with the largest concentration of Black residents.
After he was done, Payton returned to the front of the store where the police were waiting for him, and he began removing his tactical gear as a form of surrender.
During his arraignment on Saturday night, the 18-year old Payton S. Gendron told the judge,
“I understand my charges.”
