“You are not alone,” leaders from across U.S. tell Haitians in Springfield | VIDEO 

Springfield, Ohio — Leaders with the NAACP, representatives of Haitian American groups from across the U.S. and local Ohio activists vowed during a community Saturday to organize and support Haitians in rejecting baskets and racist claims about Haitians harming animals.

“We stand together, not divided,” Denise Williams, president of the NAACP said.

“There is work that is in place right now,” she said, listing several actions around housing, language and health needs underway to help the city resolve the strain of accommodating new immigrants. “You are not alone. You are our people, and we protect each other. This is a community of love.”

The pledges and words of solidarity came during a community conversation held in the days after former President Donald Trump made racist comments about Haitians, then pledged mass deportations if re-elected. Originally planned as an in-person community town hall, the meeting, part of an ongoing series organized by The Haitian Times, was moved to Zoom after the city received bomb threats tied to white extremists.

Some Haitian residents in the meeting shared their experiences in recent weeks and months as the fake news went viral. Participants also shared their fears, concerns and hope for the growing community. Even as they spoke, a ruckus broke out outside the community center from which a few participants logged into the Zoom when a strange truck appeared in the parking lot carrying white occupants acting cagey.  

Such ongoing tensions and fear are the reason to take the matter seriously and force Trump and Vance to retract their viral statements, just as the woman who first posted about the animals did over the weekend. The gravity of the claims led one political scientist to compare the attack on Haitians in the Midwest town with the precursor to Nazi-era Jewish pogroms, where both people are associated with animals.

“What Trump is doing now is preparing the terrain,” said Dr. François Pierre-Louis, a political science professor at CUNY- Queens College who studied transnationalism and migration. “It’s not about just picking people up for deportation and sending them back to Haiti. It’s about mass killing that about to happen, it’s about genocide.”

“People don’t understand the danger,” Pierre-Louis continued. “These days with social media, people can post something [and] make things funny. But when they come for you, it’s not going to be funny.”

Watch the full video of the conversation here.

https://fb.watch/uDTaJaguwY

This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.

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