Ahead of the debate tonight, and for those of us not overly online in right wing conspiracies, I wanted to share something that has been making the rounds and literally makes no sense.
SO— here goes— the weird crew are stating on Beyonce’s Internet, in 2024, that in Springfield Ohio immigrants from Haiti are..checks notes…eating pets, especially cats and ducks.
This went on and on and has consistently and obviously been debunked AND the origin of the stupid story was actually from Ohio but alas…
But here we are. Just Don’t Vance of couch fame just HAD to weigh in and spread the flames even more. KNOWING the story was false.
Now Terrance, did you make a couch joke just then? YES I DID. And that is clearly a joke and different. But they want to act like this is the same. Well, it isn’t and I’ll get into why in a second. But first look at this nonsense from Ted Cancun Cruz:
The playbook is not new, and things like this are used to dehumanize and demonize people of color. Basically to scare white people about those who are ‘other’ and signal a need to protect each other. I mean look at this one from Mike Collins who you probably DON’T know but my guy literally just had a school shooting in his area and THIS is where he decides to weigh in:
But why? And again, what about the couch jokes?
Well couch jokes are harmless and point out the weirdness of someone like JD Vance who didn’t even know how to order a donut:
WHO says give me whatever makes sense to a donut order? Like WHAT does that even mean…
But I digress…the couch thing was a silly joke that wasn’t rooted in deeper meaning and used to ‘other’ white people and weird white men who claim school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ to deal with.
However, for decades people have used tactics like the lies spread about eating cats (still ridiculous to type) to remind white people that some of us aren’t like you and we are savages. Sooooo racism yay!
The use of racism and fear to dehumanize people of color in U.S. elections has deep historical roots, stretching back to the post-Reconstruction era. After the Civil War, white supremacist ideologies emerged forcefully, especially in the South, to maintain political and social dominance over newly emancipated Black Americans. This culminated in tactics like voter suppression, violent intimidation, and racist rhetoric to disenfranchise Black voters and ensure white political control.
Throughout U.S. history, politicians and political campaigns have resorted to dehumanizing people of color by likening them to animals to stoke fear and racism in voters. These tactics have long been used to portray Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities as less than human, reinforcing racist stereotypes and justifying exclusionary policies. During the era of slavery and Jim Crow, Black people were often depicted in political cartoons and propaganda as apes or savages. This imagery was used to justify their subjugation and exclusion from the democratic process, playing on white fears of Black people as violent, uncontrollable, and inherently inferior.
Not even LeBron is safe from this, here is the response to his Vogue cover.
A glaring example of this occurred during the early 20th century, particularly in campaigns that sought to uphold segregation and disenfranchisement. In the 1915 film Birth of a Nation, which was used as political propaganda, Black men were depicted as predatory animals threatening white women, reinforcing the idea that they needed to be controlled by law and violence. This depiction helped to fuel the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and justified lynching and terror aimed at preventing Black political participation.
In the 1988 presidential campaign for George H.W. Bush, he used the infamous Willie Horton ad to evoke similar racist tropes. Horton, a Black man who was furloughed from prison and committed a violent crime, was portrayed as a subhuman threat to white Americans. The ad depicted Horton in an almost animalistic light, evoking fear of Black men as violent predators who needed to be controlled.
In the 2016 election campaign of Donald Trump he upped the strategy and sowed immense racial fear in U.S. politics. His characterization of Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and the promise to build a border wall to keep out supposed criminal elements resonated with voters’ who had a tangible boogeyman to be scared of and demonstrated how fear-based appeals to race and xenophobia continue to be politically effective, amplifying divisions and dehumanizing communities of color for electoral gain.
Those are just a few examples… unfortunately there are plenty but they are nothing like the couch. Nothing at all. The couch was/is funny, this is downright nasty.
So tonight, as the lies come out. And as we inevitably deal with more racist attacks and dog whistles, think about the history and why they would push such a stupid lie that we are out here eating pets.
I don’t even know how to be upset it’s so absurd.