White Genocide (Armenian: սպիտակ ջարդ spitak jard) is the term used by Armenians to describe the threat of assimilation in the Armenian diaspora, especially in the West.
During the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Armenians living in their ancestral lands which were then part of the Ottoman Empire were targeted for systematic extermination. From 1894 to 1896, up to 300,000 Armenians were killed in the Hamidian massacres. From 1915 to 1923, the Armenian Genocide took the lives of around 1.5 million Armenians, who were killed by the Ottoman government.
German political scientist Christoph Zürcher writes in his 2007 book The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus:
"Genocide" became a key word, which had several connotations. "White" genocide or "white" massacre denoted the repression, assimilation, or forced migration of Armenian from their historical lands (which were far larger than Soviet Armenia and included Karabakh, as well as areas belonging to contemporary Turkey).
Western Armenians consider Armenians who assimilate within the local population of the country where they were eventually forced to emigrate (such as United States, France, Argentina, Brazil, Canada etc.) as lost to their nation due to the continuing exile after the actual genocide itself, and thus consider that lost Armenian to be another victim of the genocidal attempt to eliminate the Armenians.
The term has also been used by some Armenians to describe the discrimination against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan, which has caused Armenians to leave their homes. Some have used it for Javakheti region of Georgia.