White extinction anxiety: Why this curious race-related term trended on Twitter
Don't look up the phrase "white extinction anxiety" in a world history textbook. It's pretty unlikely that you'll find it, since the most relevant Google search results for the term lead to an opinion piece published just hours ago.
What does the phrase mean? The author of the column, the New York Times op-ed writer Charles M Blow, argues that Donald Trump's contentious "zero tolerance"immigration policy panders to white Americans' fear of losing their demographic majority in the US.
"Strip all the other rationales away from this draconian immigration policy. This is at the core: White extinction anxiety, white displacement anxiety, white minority anxiety," Blow writes. "This is the fear and anxiety Trump is playing to."
On Monday evening, Twitter listed "white extinction anxiety" among its worldwide trends. And Blow found out about the surge in interest.
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