FEARMONGERING IN SPRINGFIELD
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs!”
yelled Trump at his TV debate.
What’s behind these demon tales?
What fuels such baseless hate?
It starts with an influx of workers
back in 2017.
Springfield factories no longer hummed.
The town was in decline.
Then came the Haitian immigrants
to package food, work shifts
in automotive machining plants.
But new faces caused rifts.
15,000 new faces
riled up a Nazi group—
this “Blood Tribe” marched with swastika flags
and paramilitary troops
to crash a jazz and blues event.
Pointed guns at cars.
Shouted, “Go back to Africa!”
The Blood Tribe was at war.
A spokesman told the City Council:
stop hiring workers’ kin.
“Crime and savagery will increase
with every Haitian you bring in.” *
The speaker got kicked out. Next day,
Springfield City Hall
was closed because of bomb threats,
and a school got threatening calls.
Then, when a cat went missing,
the scapegoating began.
“They say those Haitians eat our pets.”
Rumors wildly ran.
Now schools are closed to keep kids safe.
Bomb threats, fear, and hate
menace Springfield’s peaceful town.
Does this make America great?
* Quote by Drake Berentz, aka, Nathaniel Higgins,
reported by Stephen Starr in the Guardian, 9/14/2024
One thought on “Poetry from Pat Doyne (one of several)”
This shines some LIGHT on a very darkside of humanity. It is also an ancient trope aimed at immigrants which has roots in the Chinese Exclusion Act of the late 1800s, they too were branded “dog eaters” by fearmongers and told to go back to China AFTER they helped build the transcontinental reailroad that would connect the east to western America. Thank you your astute explanatory script.
Danny Glover speaks to Haiti’s iconic importance to the America’s as the First Black Republic and the Abolition of Slavery. Not to mention that it was also money from the then RICHEST island in the Western Hemisphere whose France used to supplement the American Revolution, Haitians also volunteered to fight in America’s fight against the British for which they are memorialed in Savanah, Georgia and the Founding Founder of Chicago was Haitian explorer Jean Baptisse Dusable! America out to be thanking Haiti, not demean the country and its people!-Jacques Fleury, Haitian American author of “Chain Letter To America: The One Thing You Can Do To End Racism” .
LInk to book on Amazon for more on Haiti’s History: https://www.amazon.com/Chain-Letter-America-Celebrating-Multiculturalism-ebook/dp/B0832SR2X1
This shines some LIGHT on a very darkside of humanity. It is also an ancient trope aimed at immigrants which has roots in the Chinese Exclusion Act of the late 1800s, they too were branded “dog eaters” by fearmongers and told to go back to China AFTER they helped build the transcontinental reailroad that would connect the east to western America. Thank you your astute explanatory script.
Danny Glover speaks to Haiti’s iconic importance to the America’s as the First Black Republic and the Abolition of Slavery. Not to mention that it was also money from the then RICHEST island in the Western Hemisphere whose France used to supplement the American Revolution, Haitians also volunteered to fight in America’s fight against the British for which they are memorialed in Savanah, Georgia and the Founding Founder of Chicago was Haitian explorer Jean Baptisse Dusable! America out to be thanking Haiti, not demean the country and its people!-Jacques Fleury, Haitian American author of “Chain Letter To America: The One Thing You Can Do To End Racism” .
LInk to book on Amazon for more on Haiti’s History:
https://www.amazon.com/Chain-Letter-America-Celebrating-Multiculturalism-ebook/dp/B0832SR2X1