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.
“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)
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.
“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.
It certainly doesn’t. But in the absence of evidence in either direction, I think it’s most reasonable to not assume the worst of people.
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.
If she had left off the Haitian part, it would just be typical crazy Nextdoor stuff. That she felt that had to be included suggests something. Maybe not MAGA level, but there’s some specifics not being said. Hell, she may not even consider herself biased, yet she sees those Haitians as different enough to single them out.
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.
Have you seen what she actually wrote, and if yes, can you share? I think we should set the actual message before casting judgement.
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.
This lady, apparently
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.
Her post is incredibly racist hearsay from 3 people removed (her neighbor’s daughter’s friend). It describes a vile act that casts fault on 20k people in her local community.
Shes expressing remorse because she did something vile and racist and now has everyone in the world looking at her and her actions.
She doesn’t have anything to gain like Trump/Vance, so shes afraid she will have consequences in her life now that her racism and hate is so public. After the multiple days of bomb threats that have cleared local schools and city Hall, the fear has set in.
That’s it. She didn’t apologize out of a sense of decency or remorse. Her apology is:
“Well I’m biracial and gay, so I can’t be racist.”
“I also didn’t realize this hate would go national, and now that the world is attacking these people and might attack me, I realize what I did was wrong.”
“I’m so scared what I did will affect me, please don’t let it.”
That’s not remorse. That’s someone running from the ugly thing they did, hoping to escape any consequence.
Yeah, that appears pretty racially motivated. Still, the article dances around it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was clickbait. I assume that is her post?
The story about neighbours daughters friend just reads as plausible deniabikity to post horrid stuff. She had to type all this out purposefully. Its not a retweet ir share or a sentence. Its a narrative shes creating.
Just want to point out that this woman made a mistake and expressed remorse.
The guy who’s trying to be pres, deliberately and knowingly stoked this fire for his own benefit.
She’s not expressing remorse, she’s selfishly scared for herself.
Remorse requires accountability, not excuses and projection.
She made a racist, hateful, hearsay statement and now that it might affect her she says she can’t be hateful because she’s “gay and biracial.” That’s the definition of dodging accountability.
Out of curiosity, what would accountability look like to you, in this case. Since she’s admitted guilt she’s likely to be held at least partially responsible for the crimes of others if it’s found her racist claim played a part in the crimes motivation. I assume she’s likely to lose her job as well, but we’ll have to wait and see i suppose.
I like your question! To me it starts with a real apology without excuses. Real apologies are generally short and put one in a vulnerable situation, like
“I’m sorry for spreading these lies, they aren’t true and I did it from a place of ignorance”
No “I didn’t mean to,” no “I’m not racist, I’m mixed,” and so on.
Damage already done. But I’m happy to see she’s sorry.
Who knew that there would be finding out associated with all the fucking around.
