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.
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-
- She made a post
- It was racist
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.
So now you’re saying the reason you’re indignant that someone might have said she was racist… was because they didn’t begin by saying, “I, too, have seen the evidence that is referenced in the article we’re all commenting on?”
No. I don’t expect people to reveal everything they hold in their head that could be relevant to the discussion. That would be ridiculous. I do expect people to be wary of their biases and not make assumptions without adequate evidence.
Protist made a very reasonable response to the article given what they knew, and was clear that they didn’t have enough information to make further judgement.
treadful’s response was saying there also isn’t enough evidence to conclude that she isn’t racist. Many would read that as saying she’s probably racist, so my response is intended to curb that bias.
I’m not accusing anyone of making baseless accusations. I am preemptively drawing attention to a common bias and asking people be aware of it and to avoid it.
