'It just exploded': Springfield woman claims she never meant to spark false rumors about Haitians
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:
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.
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.
The evidence that shes racist is the incredibly racist post she made.
Evidence which wasn't available to the participants of the conversation at the time. With only what we see in the article, there's no reason to believe that this post she made was racist.
The human world is based on purposefully creating and maintaining inequality to enable exploitation. This is empirically verifiable. It is therefore reasonable to assume that most humans do not act based on morality, but instead out of convenience and/or apathy.
Get back to me when there are no hungry children, then I will be ready to reassess the evidence.
You can believe what you want about human nature, but consider how well society would function if it was acceptable to make baseless accusations and act on them as if they were facts.
I do consider how well society functions, and I don't think it is successful.
And so you'll improve it by throwing around random accusations?
How is "the lady who made an extremely racist post online might be racist" a random accusation, exactly?
Bolded the baseless accusations. In the context of my initial comment in this thread, we didn't have access to this post, so no one actually knew if it was actually racist.
In the context of the original comment you made in this thread, we knew she had made the post. You even reference her talking about the post she made. That post is, in fact, racist. So the facts you're trying to point to are-
There's nothing baseless about either of those statements, so there's nothing baseless about stating she is, in fact, probably a racist. And your arguments about giving someone (who admitted they made the racist post) the "benefit of the doubt" are arguments for giving a person, who made a racist statement, the benefit of the doubt, about being racist.
Accusing others of making a baseless accusation against an innocent hold zero water when these facts are evident. I am pointing at the basis.
You understand that not everyone has the same context as you, right? It's fine to say "[she] made an extremely racist post online" if either
a) you've read the post and recognize that it is racist, or
b) someone else who has read the post has informed you that it is racist
It is not okay to make that claim if neither of the above hold. I'm assuming you've read it, so if you said she made a racist post, then that's acceptable. I've read it too at this point, so I can say the same. I do not want someone who knows nothing about the situation telling me that she made a racist post.
Looking back on my two previous posts in this thread, I have not accused any individual of anything. Nor do I think I can improve a human world specifically designed to hurt humans all by myself. All I can do is refrain from hurting others - this is not an action which, by itself, changes the moral behaviour of the majority.
You, in fact, are the one throwing an accusation. You might be doing this, ironically, out of a desire to improve the world. Feel free to ask me towards the end of the lifespan whether I have noticed a difference due to your efforts.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/10659257
Is this not written in support of treadful's comment and in disagreement to my response? If not, then I have no idea what you were getting at.
Ah, yes, you do live mostly in a world that you simulate inside your head. You probably do this in order to ignore the fact that you are participating in a human world which is purposefully organised by humans in order to hurt most humans. Carry on, I'll leave you to it.
Well, I'm utterly confused by what you've been trying to say, so a clarification would be nice. But I understand if you don't want to continue the conversation.
There is evidence of her being a racist piece of shit though.
https://lemmy.ca/post/28915538/11651615
I've rephrased this comment more explicitly and concretely here. Feel free to read through the rest of that thread. I'd rather not repeat myself unless you have something new to add.
You're trying to save face in the same way this racist piece of shit is trying to save face: badly.
Your comment is a great example of the kind of biases I'm telling everyone to avoid. You misunderstood my initial message, then decided to cling on to that interpretation despite clarifications.
In any case, if you have feedback (e.g. what made the comment unclear, or how you interpreted it), I'd appreciate hearing about it so I can improve my writing. I'm not always aware of the hidden meanings non-autistic people pull out of words that weren't intended to have any.
I understood your message
Blah blah blah we don't know she's a racist because weh weh weh random bullshit about missing context.
Yes we do. She's a racist shitbag. The context is her being a racist shitbag writing a racist shitbag post on social media. The post has been displayed on various news sources and visible to anyone with a passing interest in the subject.
Her only remorse is that her casual racism turned out to be exposed to the public and the racist in chief is putting the spotlight on her racist shitbaggery.
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.
Alright, I found a screenshot of it posted on twitter. Can confirm that this is racist.
Have people been killed?
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.
And somehow it will make trump right instead of wrong, at least in his own mind.
Not yet, and I hope not. I'm worried this will (figuratively) explode into something like the recent UK protests/riots.
ftfy
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.
Agreed.
This sounds more like "sorry I got caught" than "I acknowledge it was wrong to have thought or said that".
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.
"But I'm gay and biracial"
"Oh, I had no idea. Do whatever you want all of the time."
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.
I agree with your analysis of her apology. I don't think I've ever considered what makes an apology sound genuine. I've always thought of it as a gut instinct. Thank you!
Do you think that the publicity from this statement, would make a second, more genuine attempt at an apology sound like attention seeking? I wonder what kind actions she could actually take to mitigate some of the damage she's caused. That's a rhetorical question, I think.
She needs to at least apologize believably.
The cat was also gay and a mixed breed, so unfortunately that cancels out.
She got caught in the act and is scared for her own self. She’d keep posting this stuff otherwise.
Damage already done. But I'm happy to see she's sorry.
I think she's sorry she was caught
Yep.
Classic nopology.
Who knew that there would be finding out associated with all the fucking around.
Imagine communicating something to a former President but through a misinformation party apparatus of thousands and thousands of people.
THEY'RE EATING, THE PETS.
I hope she was watching. I'd love to have seen her reaction.
If only there was a way to have prevented this - perhaps thinking before posting would have helped.
"I never meant to spark false rumours when I literally spread false rumours"