Mystery Meat
With Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump may yet have competition for the 2024 election. Sleepy Joe Biden, worn out by the campaign trail, has retired from the race and will spend the rest of his presidency quietly resting. Meanwhile, his vice president hopes to make history as the first woman elected to the nation’s highest office. Her hurdle? Defeat Don.
With just eight and a half weeks until election day, the two candidates went head to head on the debate stage, sans studio audience. Kamala spoke like a true politician: dodging questions and making last minute policy changes as not to alienate potential voters. Though her domestic policy promises were vague and unextraordinary, she excelled in making wannabe-strongman Trump look like a fool. She successfully baited him into multiple traps and subtly mocked him, hitting him in his most sensitive areas.
Unable to offer a strong or relevant rebuttal, the former president’s performance was similar to his last debate against Biden: slander, bluster, lies, and an obsession with our southern border, which seems to be one of the only platforms the GOP is running on. No matter the subject, somehow Trump forced it to circle back around to immigration and the border. During one of these rants, a bold claim was made: immigrants are eating pets.
The direct quote from Trump is: “in Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” This is referencing a statement made by his VP pick JD Vance about Springfield, Ohio, where over 10,000 Haitians migrated over the last three years. To alleviate stress on the border, the Biden administration included Haitians among a group of nationalities that would be eligible for a program that would create more lawful pathways into the U.S. The program, created in January of 2023, required that applicants be vetted and have a sponsor in the U.S. Word spread from Haitians already living in Clark County to Haitians living in Haiti and South America about low costs of living and ample job opportunities. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is thankful for the large labor force stimulating the local economy, despite the stress the sudden injection of workers is putting on housing, healthcare, and education. The migrant workers have been mostly accepted by the community, but not entirely. On August 10th, about a dozen members of the neo-nazi group “Blood Tribe” marched through downtown Springfield carrying Swastika banners in an “anti-Haitian immigration march,” led by Drake Berentz and Christopher Pohlhaus. The march was in response to a picture taken in Columbus, Ohio of a man carrying a presumably dead goose. The far-right group used the picture to stoke racial hate within their Telegram and Gab channels, resulting in the march and escalating rumors.
The lies blew up after a police report was filed by Anna Kilgore in August, claiming that her Haitian neighbors stole her cat, Miss Sassy. Another Springfield resident, Erika Lee, posted on Facebook a thirdhand account from her neighbor’s daughter’s friend having a cat go missing and later finding that a family of Haitians were “carving it up to eat.” Erika now expresses regret, stating “it just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen.” Since then, over 33 bomb threats have been called into Springfield city hall, hospitals, and schools. Governor DeWine says all of the calls were hoaxes and many came from overseas. The national attention Springfield has gained has done nothing but obscure the actual problem Clark County is experiencing: a lapse in funding for new infrastructure to support the rapid influx of new workers.
Non-white labor has been demonized since before the founding of our country, and “pet-eating” claims have persisted since the influx of Chinese that helped build the western railroad arrived. Unfortunately, the Haitians in Springfield have become the next vicim of white nationalists, whose hate will persist even after the rumors were debunked.
Miraculously, Miss Sassy was found. A few days after Kilgore filed the police report, her missing cat was found in her basement. But it begs the question: is Anna Kilgore incompetent? Or did she perpetuate a hoax on purpose? Kilgore later apologized to her Haitian neighbors, but after the damage has been done to Springfield and its Haitian community, will JD Vance do the same?
The answer is a resounding “no.” Vance, also a victim of baseless rumors, particularly regarding an erotic affair with a couch, has chosen to stand by his claim. On September 9th, City Manager Bryan Heck told a Vance staffer outright that “there was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true.” Still, Vance is repeating his claim, justifying it by saying if he has to “create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
The fact remains that the Haitian migrants in Springfield are in the United States legally, pursuing job opportunities and chasing the fabled “American Dream.” It is no fault of the Biden administration that a large number of them just so happened to end up in Clark County. Even though their employers praise them as hard workers, Trump promises to deport the legal migrants, which could leave a large labor gap in the community.
Who would fill such a gap? White nationalists would expect that white labor would, but how can they also expect any self-respecting white person to accept low-paying unskilled labor jobs. The reason migrants take such jobs is because their employers are typically treating them unfairly, abusing their labor and underpaying them without fear of reprisal. Had the jobs been filled by whites, the labor owners would have gone bankrupt paying fair wages and benefits.
The “people that came in,” are eating the pets of “the people that live there” is a flawed claim. Haitians have been there for many years, yet no Haitian has filed complaint of a missing animal. Could Trump mean the migrants ate the pets of white people? When Vance says the “suffering of the American people,” does he mean “overcrowded public facilities for whites?” Migrants are Americans. They work American jobs, spend American money, and pay American taxes. The Mother of Exiles does not discern the tired, the poor, the huddled masses by color. All deserve equality under the red, white, and blue. Those who seek to divide us have no place leading the county; we’re stronger together.
Please believe me when I say that racist rumors will not stop at Haitians. Extremists do not divide by nationality, they divide by color. Haitians become “blacks,” Latin American and Hispanic people become “Mexicans.” The expressed goal of white nationalists is a white nation, where any shade that does not meet their standards is deported or disposed. Find delight in our differences, not disgust. For underneath the cultures and the colors that make up our melting pot of a nation, we all have one commonality: we are all human.