\u201cJews will not replace us!\u201d Antisemitism, interbreeding, and immigration in historical context<\/p>\n
White nationalist cries of \u201cJews will not replace us!\u201d at the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia rally were frequently discussed but rarely understood. Taken as a sign of general hostility toward Jews or the belief that Jews were vaguely threatening, the deeper meaning of the \u201creplacement\u201d theme in relation to antisemitism has often been missed. In a forthcoming journal article in American Jewish History<\/em>, I locate \u201cJews will not replace us\u201d in the broader historical context of a long-lasting antisemitic narrative. This fear of a Jewish plan for world domination had two major themes. First, Jews would encourage massive non-white immigration from inferior races that would outbreed and eventually replace whites. Second, they would promote racial interbreeding that would destroy whites\u2019 supposed natural advantages in intelligence and character, hastening replacement through \u201cmongrelization.\u201d These aims would be accomplished through Jewish-directed communism by promoting a \u201choax\u201d of racial equality.<\/p>\n Although the replacement theme is usually linked to the 2011 Le Grand Remplacement<\/em> by French philosopher Renaud Camus,<\/em> these ideas have much older roots in North America, beginning with early 20th<\/sup> century immigration debates and the first \u201cRed Scare.\u201d For the past 100 years these varied replacement narratives have persistently involved ideas of racial differences in intelligence and especially the role of anthropologist Franz Boas and his students. An \u201calternative historiography\u201d of a \u201ctakeover\u201d of the social sciences became an important discursive weapon in the attempts to preserve the racial hierarchy in the United States. Using the case of two academics who promoted ideas of replacement or destruction of the white race through Jewish conspiracy, psychologist Herbert Sanborn and classicist Revilo P. Oliver, I show how earlier themes were redeployed in the 1960s and were carried into the twenty-first century, often with a new veneer of revived scientific racism. The communal production of alternative historiographies by racial extremists and supportive academics, complete with primary sources, extensive footnotes and foundational texts, will be discussed.<\/p>\n Zoom link:<\/p>\n