Why do they hate Haitians?
There's an ugly history here
Over the past few days, the online right has set their sights on Haitians.
Rumors of Haitian immigrants killing and eating household pets in Springfield, Ohio have been amplified by the likes of Elon Musk, J.D. Vance, and, at the debate last night, Donald Trump. Elected Republicans have joined in to stoke the flames, with Ted Cruz contributing his own memes.
For most people who aren’t infected with online brain rot, this whole hysteria came out of nowhere. I’m certain that a number of people watching the debate last night were absolutely baffled when Trump declared, “They’re eating the pets!”
So where is this all coming from?
What’s going on in Springfield?
Springfield, Ohio has seen an uptick of Haitian immigrants due to the ongoing political crisis the country has endured since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Over the last four years, the small city has taken in somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 migrants.
To be clear, this hasn’t really been a problem for the city until recently. There hasn’t been any increase in crime, and many of these migrants came to Springfield specifically because of job openings.
If anything, it seems to be revitalizing a town that had seen a significant population decrease over the past decades, like many industrial towns in the Midwest. In a PBS News Hour segment on the city, a local Baptist pastor celebrated the influx of congregants, saying, “For years, we have lost people. But you hope somebody else will come and take their place.” The church has grown now, “Because there are folks from Haiti who are coming to church.”
The influx of migrants has caused issues pertaining to infrastructure—more people means more services that the city needs to provide, like schooling and health services. This is being addressed, at the state of Ohio is providing the city with $2.5 million to help with these growth pains.
Everything changed after a car accident. A driver clipped a school bus, pushing it into a ditch. The driver, who claimed he hadn’t seen the bus because the sun was in his eyes, was a Haitian migrant. A young boy died in the crash. This kicked off a panic within the town, and put it on the right’s radar after Chaya Raichik (Libs of TikTok) publicized the event on social media, calling it a murder.1
Facebook groups sprung up, blaming the migrants for an increase in rent and accusing them of kidnapping house pets and beheading geese at the local park. There has been no real proof of this—no confirmed videos, no police reports, nothing.
Almost every piece of evidence for this pet abduction has been hearsay—one woman claiming their neighbor’s daughter’s friend found their cat hanging from a branch near a Haitian’s home. One video circulated online of a woman being arrested for killing a neighbor’s cat. The video was real, but the event did not happen in Springfield, and the culprit was not Haitian—she was just black.
In almost every case, the photos or videos circulated by right wing ideologues do not provide a source or any real reason to believe the individual they depict is Haitian, outside of the fact that they are black. One image showed a man carrying a dead goose. The image was from Columbus, not Springfield, and the man who took the photograph now regrets taking it. He just thought seeing a guy walk around with a dead goose was funny, not an example of immigrants taking over the country.
In August, a Neo-Nazi group marched on a jazz festival in Springfield, carrying flags with swastikas, holding rifles, and wearing ski masks. They organized in opposition to the influx of Haitian immigrants. During a city commission meeting on August 27, a man who identified himself as the leader of the anti-Haitian march and a member of the neo-Nazi group, Blood Tribe, spoke for about one minute, saying, “I’ve come to bring a word of warning. Stop what you’re doing, before it’s too late. Crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you bring in.” He was escorted out of the building.
The connection between neo-Nazi groups and the ongoing libel against these Haitian immigrants is notable here. When Vance went to Twitter/X to address the criticism he was facing for his comments regarding Haitian immigrants, he used a similar framing. I’m going to quote it in full.
In the last several weeks, my office has received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield who've said their neighbors' pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It's possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false. Do you know what's confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here. That local health services have been overwhelmed. That communicable diseases--like TB and HIV--have been on the rise. That local schools have struggled to keep up with newcomers who don't know English. That rents have risen so fast that many Springfield families can't afford to put a roof over their head.
Here is Kamala Harris bragging about giving amnesty to thousands of Haitian migrants. https://x.com/i/status/1833147988765478944
If you're a reporter, or an activist, who didn't give a shit about these suffering Americans until yesterday, I have some advice: Spare your outrage for your fellow citizens suffering under Kamala Harris's policies. Be outraged at yourself for letting this happen.
In short, don't let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots.
Keep the cat memes flowing.
We’ve addressed most of the issues raised in this post already. The “murder” he is referring to is the bus accident; the lack of infrastructure surrounding health and education is being addressed by the state; rents are rising everywhere and have more complex economic reasons than the influx of migrants; and, of course, there is zero evidence of any pet abduction—which he seems aware of, as he’s already covering his tracks by saying it might not be true.
One line in this sticks out to me: “a Haitian migrant who has no right to be here.”
All of these Haitian immigrants have migrated legally. Usually, the question of legality is how right wingers will defend themselves against accusations of xenophobia. They will say that their references to migrants who don’t have “any right to be here” are in reference to those who skip the legal process.2
However, Vance is showing his cards here. If this phrase is being used against someone who entered the country through legal means, it suggests that Vance believes that Haitians shouldn’t be entering the country at all, regardless of how they do it. These libelous attacks on Haitians here serve as the explanation for this stance—we can’t accepts Haitians as our neighbors, because they will bring disease, they have cultural differences, and they will kill our children and our pets. They are an infection in our body politics.
Vance and Blood Tribe share some resemblances.
But why Haitians?
Of course, xenophobia in this country isn’t just aimed at Haitians. Fearmongering around Hispanic migrants, Asians, Arab and African migrants are all mainstays of the American right. But something about this focus on Haitians strikes me as particularly insidious.
In particular, the United States has had a long and ugly relationship with the Caribbean nation. While much of this history is forgotten, it’s legacy can be found floating around in our culture, in our perceptions of “voodoo,” in the prevalence on zombies in American media. Haiti has had a notable impact on American culture, but always perceived as fundamentally other.
This should be stranger to us than it is. Haiti was the second Republic in the Americas. We are sister nations on that basic level. During the age of revolution, Haiti and the United States broke away from European powers around the same time, espousing the same commitments to equality and opposition to foreign rule.
There is one fundamental difference, though. In America, the revolution didn’t end slavery. In Haiti, the revolutionaries were all former slaves.
This set us off on the wrong foot, as you might imagine. The American economy was propped up almost entirely by slave labor at the time, and thus a small nearby island inspiring slave revolt was the worst nightmare of slave-owners in the U.S.
While Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists supported the revolution, even helping draft their new constitution, the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800 lead to a withdrawal of diplomatic recognition from Haiti in the hopes of befriending Napoleon Bonaparte.3 Pro-slavery landowners worked to delay the recognition of Haitian independence until 1862. A few years after, President Andrew Johnson would suggest annexing the island; while this never happened, it did lead to a military presence.
Throughout the 19th century, Haiti was a global pariah. Very few nations recognized it’s independence, and France only granted recognition on that condition that Haiti accept an indemnity to pay them back for the property lost in the revolution—that is, slaves. This impossibly high debt kept Haiti in perpetual poverty, which naturally lead to political unrest. The century was littered with frequent presidential assassinations.
In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson took control of the Haitian National Bank, removing $500,000 of its reserves. After an angry mob killed the president of Haiti in 1915, the U.S. invaded the island and occupied it for almost two decades. Despite the stated goals of peacekeeping and aiding in Haiti’s political development, the occupation was brutal and unpopular.
The U.S. began a program of forced labor which felt like the return of slavery for many Haitians. Two wars were waged against the occupying force, all brutally suppressed. During this time, the U.S. helped shape the Haitian national army and also demonstrate how to rig elections and lead via military dictatorship. When the U.S. eventually withdrew in 1934, they left a national military that was ready to take power and hold power. The history of Haiti afterwards is one of dictatorships and military juntas overthrowing democratic elections.
It’s around the time of the U.S. invasion of Haiti that the first ever history of the Haitian revolution was written: The French Revolution in San Domingo by Lothrop Stoddard.
Stoddard was a racist in the most literal sense. He was a member of the KKK and an outspoken advocate of eugenics who spent much of his life defending anti-miscegenation laws. His work was cited by the Nazi as a massive influence, introducing them to the term “Untermensch.” If you recall the racist rant that Tom Buchanan goes on toward the beginning of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald was directly referencing Stoddard’s work.
So why was Stoddard writing about Haiti? He felt that it was the first shot fired in the race war. His history of the event—which will forever be a part of Haitian historiography because of it’s unfortunate role as being the first on the subject—is a case study in how white supremacy was overthrown and how to avoid letting that happen in the future.
This legacy has remained a part of Haiti, despite much of this history being forgotten or repressed. It was a nation that dared to wage war against slavery, and the world has never forgiven it. France’s debt kept the nation in constant poverty. The U.S. robbed them and then eroded any potential for democracy. In the last few decades, the fruit of all of this has continued, as the nation lacked the infrastructure to cope with horrifying earthquakes and lacked the institutions to survive political unrest.
This failure is central to the narrative that right wingers pedal about the nation. Instead of historical context, the implication has always been that Haiti is a failed state because the black and the formerly enslaved cannot rule themselves. It cannot be the result of political or economic suppression, it must be something innate to them, their culture or their genetics.
In the four decades before the Civil War, roughly 20% of all free blacks in the northern U.S. emigrated to Haiti. Several hundred from the south escaped to Haiti, and at one point, Frederick Douglass himself had considered living on the island. Throughout Haiti’s impoverished and brutal past, they were willing to take in those who sought to escape antebellum racism and the institution of slavery.
Now, as Haitians arrive in the U.S., a country that has been directly responsible for so much of the unrest and poverty that plague the Haitian people, they are again being punished. Haiti deserves more than this. Haitians deserve better from the U.S.
When you see Vance decry these Haitians arriving in our country, you should hear the voice of Stoddard. There is a history here, and it’s an ugly one.
NOTE, 9/12/2024: Haitians in Springfield are now keeping their kids home from school out of fear after several cases of property damage and intimidation aimed at them. Bomb threats have been reported this morning.
The father of the young boy killed in the bus accident has been furious at the right for using his son’s death as a political tool.
Of course, people skip the legal process in part because of our right wing immigration policy. The easiest way to stop illegal immigration is to allow for legal immigrant. Immigration is going to happen regardless.
While Robespierre supported the Haitians, Napoleon did not and would attempt to return slavery to the island. He got his ass handed to him by the Haitians.