From South Africa to Haiti: The History of White Refugee Narratives

In May, a charter flight from Johannesburg landed at Dulles International Airport. About 50 white South Africans, known as Afrikaners, were on board, claiming that their livelihoods were jeopardized by a climate of “anti-white racism.”

This depiction of South Africa has resonated among American right-wing commentators since at least the first Trump Administration. In the view of folks such as Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk, and Stephen Miller, efforts to redress inequalities and injustices borne of the Apartheid era constitute...