this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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The woman behind an early Facebook post that helped spark baseless rumors about Haitians eating pets told NBC News that she feels for the immigrant community.

The woman behind an early Facebook post spreading a harmful and baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating local pets that helped thrust a small Ohio city into the national spotlight says she had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now filled with regret and fear as a result of the ensuing fallout.

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Erika Lee, a Springfield resident, told NBC News on Friday.

Lee recently posted on Facebook about a neighbor’s cat that went missing, adding that the neighbor told Lee she thought the cat was the victim of an attack by her Haitian neighbors.

Newsguard, a media watchdog that monitors for misinformation online, found that Lee had been among the first people to publish a post to social media about the rumor, screenshots of which circulated online. The neighbor, Kimberly Newton, said she heard about the attack from a third party, NewsGuard reported.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Expressing concern for a missing animal in a local post is not the same as spreading false rumours with racism. I'd want to see her post before judging. I also respect her talking to the media about regret and misuse of it.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Imagine communicating something to a former President but through a misinformation party apparatus of thousands and thousands of people.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

THEY'RE EATING, THE PETS.

I hope she was watching. I'd love to have seen her reaction.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Damage already done. But I'm happy to see she's sorry.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think she's sorry she was caught

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[–] [email protected] 167 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

"I didn't mean to be a terrible racist person and (possibly) get people killed. I just wanted to be casually racist."

Edit: added (possibly)

[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 month ago (3 children)

She actually said:

"I’m not a racist,” she said through heavy emotion, adding that her daughter is half Black and she herself is mixed race and a member of the LGBTQ community. “Everybody seems to be turning it into that, and that was not my intent."

Lee said she pulled her daughter out of school and is now worried about her safety with so much attention on her family. She is also concerned for the safety of the Haitian community, which she said she did not intend to villainize en masse.

“I feel for the Haitian community,” she said. “If I was in the Haitians’ position, I’d be terrified, too, worried that somebody’s going to come after me because they think I’m hurting something that they love and that, again, that’s not what I was trying to do.”

These aren't the words of some MAGA devotee, she seems pretty genuine on this and I don't see any reason not to believe her. I instead blame those who have purposefully worsened and spread this rumor for racist ends. Imagine if you made an offhand post on Lemmy that inadvertently spun up a rumor that reached a fucking presidential.debate, I bet you'd be caught pretty off guard by that.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 month ago (26 children)

“I’m not a racist,” she said through heavy emotion, adding that her daughter is half Black and she herself is mixed race and a member of the LGBTQ community. “Everybody seems to be turning it into that, and that was not my intent.”

None of that means you can't be racist.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Sorry but are you excusing a person who literally made up the racist shit for no reason just because her apology didn’t sound republican to you and other people blew her lie up further than she “claims” to have not wanted it to be?

That’s like sorry I set this building on fire, I was just trying to burn this one desk but didn’t mean for it to spread and kill a bunch of innocent people.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Lee recently posted on Facebook about a neighbor’s cat that went missing, adding that the neighbor told Lee she thought the cat was the victim of an attack by her Haitian neighbors.

Nah, someone who wasn't racist would have known not to spread your crazy neighbor's theories that are.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

"I didn't (allegedly) mean to be a terrible racist person and (possibly) get people killed. I just (allegedly) wanted to be casually racist."

ftfy

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

We shouldn't wait until it gets to that point. Look at the past, plenty of racism examples to work from that became violent. What really makes it worse is that Trump, Vance, and others are doubling down on the mistake, fanning flames that should have just been a one day "that's stupid". They want violence, it helps their cause, excites their base.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

Not yet, and I hope not. I'm worried this will (figuratively) explode into something like the recent UK protests/riots.

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