I was all set to post about JD Vance and the far-reaching impact of his childless cat lady comments, but was more agitated about the far-reaching impact of his Haitians-eat-cats comment. So, this piece is coming first. 

There’s something off about the “illegal Haitians steal people’s pets and eat them” tale that JD Vance, Donald Trump, and the MAGA base are perpetuating. 

The same old playbook? No. It’s more than that. 

1: It stereotypes a Black culture particularly as it relates to vodou; and 2: It asserts White dominance over a people who live in poverty due to colonialism and slavery.

It’s a quintet of MAGA offensiveness.

The GOP deliberately slanders Haitians with this xenophobic tale of snatching geese and cats and dogs and devouring them raw, because it’s easy to exploit misinformation around a culture that has been mocked. Haiti is 95% of African-descent, and has been the victim of Hollywood, being depicted as harboring evil magic, zombies, and harming people.

Fun fact #1: Vodou does not involve eating pets or raising the dead. It’s a legitimate way of life with Roman Catholic influences. (Most Haitians are Catholic, having been forced to convert.) It is often blended with Vodou, and meant to foster a sense of community and cultural identity.

Fun fact #2: Westerners pay an overpriced, questionable medium to invoke spirituality to “talk” to their dead relatives, airing the experience on TV shows. The dead person is always “in the room with us right now.” Huh.

The show Heroes featured such a character. He had no name. He was just “The Haitian.” What did The Haitian do? Wiped out memories, of course! JD Vance and Trump, who admit to believing everything they see on TV, thought it was real.

They dehumanize Haitians as uncouth primitives who import a witchcraft culture to “poison” pure white Americans. Turning patriots into zombies. Yes, folks, our former president and his trusty sidekick are perpetuating a Black zombie apocalypse.

Zombies? Who would believe it? Oh…maybe the same bunch who believed Hillary Clinton was a pedophile who drank the blood of children in a pizza shop? Maybe the same bunch who visited the shop armed and ready to kill. Maybe the same bunch who take orders from an invisible troll called Q? 

Could they get any crazier? As a matter of fact, they can.

It’s clear some Trumpers got drunk and dared one another to come up with insane stories about minorities. I’ve no doubt it went something like this: 

(Santana playing in the background.)

Stephen Miller: I’m on my 2nd bottle of Jäger. Whatrrr we doing againnn?

Laura Loomer: ok, ok, we’re gonna think of the cuh-raaaaziest story about some Indian dot people and how they’re gonna smash our churches with their 10-armed Hindu gods.

JD Vance: Now just waitaminute. My wife’s Indian! Obvs she’s not white, but I like her just fine. Not doin’ it. I’m a man of principle, you see.

Miller: Fine, fine. How ‘bout Black people?

Loomer: Dude, we’re trying to get the Black vote.

Miller: I meant Haitians. We’ll just say they hopped the fence bringing zombie dust to sprinkle on the children!

JD: I’m in. Can we say they sacrifice kittens, too? MAGA, they’ll eat anything.

Loomer: DEAL!

And just like that, Trump brought it up in the debate. 

The Circle of Colonialism

There’s another layer to the offensiveness, and that is the White supremacy Team Trump is trying to assert over people from a country that is poor strictly due to colonialism. 

Much of Haiti’s citizens are victims of poverty — thanks to France extorting payments after the slave revolt. Haiti was ordered to pay 150 million francs for “lost property” — including slaves. Haiti took high-interest loans for freedom. What could go wrong? A crippled economy ensued.

“Freedom from France in 1804 did not mean an end to foreign powers intervening in Haiti. France only recognized an independent Haiti in 1825 after its former colony agreed to pay reparations that are estimated to be worth $21 billion in today’s dollars. Over the next 122 years, as much as 80 percent of Haiti’s revenues went to paying off this debt.”

The debt was canceled only after an earthquake — in 2010. 

Racist evangelical Pat Robertson told his fans then, that bad Haitians deserved to die in the quake, because White Jesus was punishing them for their audacity. Apparently wanting to be free of physical, mental and financial enslavement meant bargaining with Satan.

“The Haitians “were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it's a deal.’ … ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

Sound crazy? Not to Republicans. Demanding freedom from white enslavers is a truth they fight tooth and nail to suppress.

Knowing Haiti’s history, this is the community they consciously chose to launch bigoted, and classist, attacks upon — to show who’s on top of the racial hierarchy. When Neo-nazis posted on Facebook alluding to Haitians, and animals subsequently going missing, JD Vance dutifully picked up that lie and piled on.

What’s alarming is that Vance’s post was even more inflammatory, than that of the neo-Nazi.

He’s not the only one.

Springfield, Ohio, has welcomed over 15,000 Haitians, there to escape violence at home — not cause it here. It’s at the root of the story.

Yet local committee woman Glenda Bailey accused Haitians of disease, crime and – you guessed it – carrying out vodou rites. 

The Trump follower fears the Lord great replacement theory. "Some of the Haitians are gang members. I've seen them. They have become the occupiers. What they've done is they've replaced the population in Springfield, Ohio.” Where have we heard that language before? Anyway, Springfield is still (checks notes) 73% White. 

Doesn’t matter that Springfield police stated there were no credible reports of pet-eating. Vance’s lie took root. NAACP chapter president Denise Williams received vicious threats by bigots. Predictably, on Sept. 12, several buildings received bomb threats. 

Ten bucks says it wasn’t by a Haitian immigrant.

“I want to talk to JD [Vance]. What are you going to do now about the violence that has been stirred up and talked about in our community? I'm concerned about the threat that the white supremacists are making.” said Williams.

What’s he going to do? This is what he set out to do. 

Next target, step right up!

It is no coincidence this absurd cat-eating claim comes just after the Georgia school shooting. An innocent Latino child was among those killed by a homegrown White citizen who brought crime to our towns. Christian Angulo, 14, was the young son of Mexican immigrants. 

This poses a problem for Donald Trump. His campaign is built on lies about border-crossing evildoers. So much that he’s resorted to saying not only will they take White people’s jobs, but “Black jobs,” too. But now people had sympathy for the Mexican-American boy killed at Apalachee High School. 

Then who? Where can they point fingers next? Which other immigrants did Kamala Harris “let in?” Two come to mind.

• Almost 500,000 Ukrainian refugees here temporarily, fleeing violence and instability.

• About 110,000 Haitian refugees here temporarily, fleeing violence and instability.

So, America opened its borders to 400,000 more Ukranian immigrants than Haitians. Statistically, that means Ukranians are more likely to commit a crime. Logically, that means anti-immigrant MAGA should be protesting their entry. 

MAGA panties were in a twist.

In actuality, neither group had been reported to have broken the law. So, crimes needed to be fabricated. Who would the Trump voters instantly believe is a threat, no questions asked? Who scares them more? 

Ugh. Does the GOP have a single strategy, just one, that does not involve assailing a minority group and lying about them? It’s a complete and utter absence of human decency. No one is off limits. 

The saying used to be "Not all Republicans are racist, but all racists vote Republican." Now it’s “All Trump supporters are racist, and all racists vote Trump.” That’s it. Trump stands for nothing but racism. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Not one Trump-supporting politician called out this BS as outlandish. Not one said it does not represent Republican values. How can they, when Trump himself reiterated it on the international stage? With a straight face. 

And we didn’t detect the sarcasm.

I’ll leave you with this gem:

Kaitlan Collins: 'Senator [Vance], if someone calls your office and says they've seen Big Foot, it doesn't actually mean they've seen Big Foot.”

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