How Falsehoods About Haitian Immigrants Consumed America

We've seen this xenophobic rodeo before. The blood libel accused Jews of using the blood of Christians in religious rituals, especially in the preparation of Passover bread.

On Aug. 27, approximately one hour and 10 minutes into a City Commission meeting in Springfield, Ohio, local resident Anthony Harris, a self-proclaimed "social media influencer," asserted as a fact, without available video or photo proof, that "(Haitian immigrants) are in the park grabbing up ducks by the neck and cutting their head off and walking off with them and eating them." The first question that comes to mind in the digital age is, where's the video or photo? Further, Mr. Harris did not say the Haitians were present in the United States illegally. Haitians are Black. Would Mr. Harris have commanded even a crumb of credibility if he had accused Danish immigrants of killing and eating ducks?

On Sept. 5, Erika Lee, a member of a Springfield, Ohio, residents group, made a Facebook post based on unreliable double hearsay and without easily accessible video or photo proof:

"Warning to all about our beloved pets & those around us!! My neighbor informed me that his daughter's friend lost her cat. ... One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards a neighbors house, where Haitians live, & saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you'd do a deer for butchering, & they were carving it up to eat."

Springfield is a town in Ohio with a population of 58,000. Since the election of President Joe Biden, approximately 15,000 legal Haitian immigrants have come to reside there. No evidence has surfaced that the immigrants have spiked the crime or unemployment rate, overwhelmed public schools, are disproportionately on the public dole, are draining Springfield's coffers, or have cast even one illegal vote.

Then came the Harris-Trump debate. It would be superfluous to repeat the eating-dogs-and-cats falsehood of former President Donald Trump. It has become a social media meme.

The xenophobia found further expression in maligning Haitians as savage, penurious practitioners of voodoo, featuring the consumption of ducks and cats as illustrative of their barbarism.

The deceit continued to mount online. One photo was an image of an Ohio Division of Wildlife employee transporting two dead geese down the street after their deaths in a car accident. As to a hammer everything looks like a nail, to racist xenophobes all evil looks like an illegal Haitian immigrant.

Republicans, including Trump, have been disseminating AI-generated images depicting him rescuing cats and ducks, as well as anthropomorphic cats and ducks displaying Trump-Vance signs. What next? Allegations of cannibalism?

Illegal immigration is a problem. It is not new. It has endured for more than 50 years. There are no simple answers. Most immigrants flock to the U.S. to work and escape from gang murders or rape. American business welcomes their industry and willingness to work for spartan wages. But it is obtuse to permit immigrants who violate the law to jump the queue ahead of immigrants who follow the rules and wait year after year for an immigrant visa.

Finding an Aristotelian mean between too-exacting and too-lax immigration laws and enforcement is elusive. But that goal is hampered by blood libel-type epithets coursing through social media without vetting. AI mixed with proliferating Laura Loomer lunacies will aggravate the problem one writer identified more than a century ago: "A lie gets halfway around the world before truth puts on its boots."

=======

Armstrong Williams is manager/sole owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year. To find out more about him and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.