The racist campaign against the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, is dangerous and must be stopped.
Both Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, are fanning the flames of racial hatred. They’re claiming that Haitians living in Springfield are eating people’s pets. Billionaire Elon Musk repeated these lies to his nearly 200 million followers on X (formerly known as Twitter).
These ludicrous allegations using racist stereotypes can’t be regarded as a mere joke, as many candidates of the Democratic Party are doing. They are the stuff that can lead to mob violence.
What Trump, Vance, and Musk are telling people is that Haitian people are “dangerous savages” who have to be put down and driven out. A neo-Nazi gang called the Blood Tribe was bellowing the same message when they marched through Springfield in August carrying swastika flags.
Instead of investigating these Nazis, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is considering filing a lawsuit to prevent migrants from coming to Ohio. That’s reminiscent of an 1807 Ohio ordinance that required Black people coming into the state to post a $500 bond.
The tragic death of 11-year-old Adrian Clark last year in Springfield when his school bus was struck by a Haitian driver is being used to whip up racism. The plea of Adrian’s father, Nathan Clark, a teacher, not to use his son’s death to spread hate is being ignored.
Vance posted on X that “a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant.”
Nathan Clark responded at a Springfield City Commission hearing, saying “My son was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti … don’t spin this towards hate.”
On Sept. 12, a racist bomb threat forced Springfield’s city hall, two schools, and other facilities to be evacuated. The schools involved had many Haitian students.
Revenge for liberating themselves
The current racist hysteria is another chapter in over 230 years of revenge against Haitian people for having conducted the only successful slave revolution in history.
The wealthy and powerful in the United States and Europe have never forgiven Haitians for doing so. From Texas to Maryland, U.S. slave masters lived in fear of “another Haiti” breaking out on their plantations.
It was Haitian President Alexandre Pétion who gave Simón Bolívar ships and guns to liberate much of South America from Spanish colonialism. Venezuela’s elected President Nicolás Maduro is standing on the shoulders of Pétion and Bolivar.
The white supremacist President Woodrow Wilson had U.S. Marines steal Haiti’s gold reserve and occupy the country for nearly 20 years. The Marine who assassinated the Haitian national hero, Charlemagne Péralte, was obscenely awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
While Trump & Co. are spreading filthy lies about Haitians in Ohio, the Biden Administration wants to re-occupy Haiti using soldiers from Kenya and other countries.
A long history
Springfield, Ohio, has seen mob violence before. Richard Dickerson— sometimes spelled Dixon — was taken from his jail cell there and hanged from a telegraph pole by a mob of racists on March 7, 1904.
Two thousand came to watch the African American die. Revolvers were passed around so that the corpse could be shot up.
After killing Dickerson, the mob then went to the “Levee” district by the river and burned 150 Black people out of their homes. White firefighters did nothing except protect the drinking establishment owned by Charley Bray, a white saloon keeper.
While all this was happening, Company A of the Ohio National Guard’s Ninth Battalion — an all-Black outfit — was kept bottled up in the armory by Springfield Mayor Bowlus. (Cleveland Gazette)
But there’s another side to Springfield’s history. Seventeen miles away are the Wilberforce University and Central State University campuses, both historically Black institutions (HBCUs).
John Brown lived in Springfield, Ohio from 1845 to 1851, running the “Perkins and Brown” wool warehouse there.
Frederick Douglass first met John Brown in Brown’s Springfield home. There, Brown revealed to Douglass his great plan to turn the Allegheny Mountains into a guerilla stronghold. (“John Brown” by W.E.B. Du Bois)
Springfield’s Black community righteously rebelled in 1967 against racism.
Like other communities across the Midwest, factory closings have deeply wounded Springfield, pushing back the labor movement. Yet today 1,300 United Auto Workers Local 402 members work at Springfield’s Navistar truck plant.
The labor and people’s movements have to mobilize to stop the racist hysteria being incited by Trump and Fox News. Beat back the racist attack!
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