Dear Conservative Christian Creeps: Coming Out As LGBTQ+ At School Isn’t A Behavioral Issue

Thoughts on the stupid lies Donald Trump and Republicans are telling to demonize LGBTQ+ people with only 46 days until the election – by Evan Hurst

. Read on Substack

I’ve been thinking this week about some of the absolutely stupid garbage conservative, culture-war-obsessed MAGA people believe, or claim to believe, for the purposes of demonizing people and making people hate the same people they hate. The most glaring current example is obviously Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and their media mouthpieces attacking innocent Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, with lies about them stealing and eating family pets.

But there are a bunch more.

There are the abortion lies Trump and Republicans love to tell — which many of them truly believe — about how Democrats love to let babies be born, at which point they lay them on the table and decide whether or not they’re going to execute them. Trump is sure it’s happening, because he saw on TV that the previous governor of Virginia (or is it West Virginia? Trump is never sure) totally said that, and if it’s on TV, it’s true.

Every election cycle lately, there’s a crop of the country’s stupidest Republican politicians babbling out loud that they have a friend whose pastor told them at the local elementary school there are children who identify as “furries” and demand to poop in litterboxes. It’s amazing watching them tell that one with a straight face.

Of course, Republican lies, blood libels and conspiracy theories often have a tiny element of 0.2 percent truth in them, something they can use to insist that the ridiculously stupid thing they say is happening really is happening. In the Virginia abortion story Trump tells, the nugget of truth was former Governor Ralph Northam talking about palliative care in grievously tragic situations where a newborn infant has no chance of surviving.

There actually have been litterboxes in classrooms. It’s so that if there’s a mass shooter in the school and classrooms are locked down for hours, poor little kids who can’t hold it might not have to be humiliated by wetting their pants.

(Did I ever mention that white conservative MAGA Republican politicians, pundits and influencers are extremely sick, evil liars?)

And then there’s the right-wing Christian Republican war on LGBTQ+ kids.

This week, Fox News tweeted a video featuring failed swimmer/anti-trans hatemonger Riley Gaines — remember her from my post about the Paris Olympics? — on “Fox & Friends,” spreading some the vile lies she so loves to tell. The clip caught my attention and pissed me the fuck off, and that’s why I’m talking about that this week instead of Mark Robinson. (I’ll get to him in due time, I’m sure.)

Here’s the video: (embedded on the page.)

Fox explained in its tweet that Gaines was “react[ing] to a California judge banning a school district from imposing a policy that would have required teachers and staff to notify parents if their student declares they want to change their name or pronouns.”

In the video Gaines bellyaches that such rulings are the government saying “they know your children better than you do. They don’t believe that these are your kids. They believe that these are the government’s kids.”

Elon Musk, who has apparently never met a conspiracy theory he wasn’t stupid enough to amplify — and who judging from all available evidence has a particular hate in his heart for transgender people, including his own trans child — retweeted Gaines’s video, saying simply, “The Dems want to take your kids.”

To which I reply, oh, go fuck yourself, Elon. Same message goes for Riley Gaines.

I want to talk about the California law in question and what it really does, and how that ties into how Donald Trump and Republicans are demonizing LGBTQ+ kids as part of their hate campaign against America, but I also want to tell y’all a story, so I’m going to try to do both.

Storytime!

Two nights before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, I was standing in line in the wee hours in the lobby of a prominent hotel in downtown Atlanta, with a bunch of fellow weary travelers. It was Friday, the first day of the CrowdStrike update that borked the entire global internet, and all our Delta flights had been canceled.

I struck up a conversation with the guy in front of me, a handsome young guy from El Paso. His wife and small children were somewhere in the expansive lobby, exhausted, while Dad tried to get hotel rooms sorted. They were coming from Disney. I was on my way back from the Republican convention in Milwaukee. We made small talk.

But we were in line for over an hour, so the conversation actually got surprisingly deep. He was a second-generation immigrant from Mexico, with parents who only speak Spanish. We talked about what life is really like along the border these days for people who actually literally live right on it. He described himself as a conservative, but not extreme, and not super-political. He freely offered that he couldn’t stand Donald Trump, but probably would vote for him, not that he was enthused about it.

But one thing that was bothering him, big time, was this law that had just been signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in California, to protect gay and trans kids from rogue school personnel who would out them to their parents without their consent. I was a bit surprised this Texas guy, who again didn’t seem that political, was so in tune with something California’s governor had done five days prior. But there we were.

He made extra-clear from the beginning that he doesn’t consider himself anti-gay or anti-trans. But it was immediately clear to me that this very kind-seeming guy was getting all his information on this issue filtered through the Christian nationalist bullshit machine of right-wing media.

The California law was passed directly in response to school districts in red areas of the state enacting policies forcing schools to notify parents if a child asked to be referred to with a different name or pronouns. The legislature acted to protect those kids.

But to this dad, it sounded like California was trying to put one over on parents, to usurp their parental role, stealing and indoctrinating their kids. (Hey, Riley Gaines! How did your shitty, vile hate get in this nice man’s brain?)

It was 1:00 a.m., so I wasn’t about to start bickering, and also y’all would be amazed how gentle and diplomatic I am in person. But I did try to get on this dad’s side and maybe help him see it from a different perspective. He had gathered that I was gay, or maybe I told him.

“You obviously love your kids,” I said, “and you wouldn’t reject them for any reason, no way, no how.” He agreed.

“That law isn’t about hiding things from good, loving parents like you,” I told him. “It’s about protecting kids who don’t have parents like you, kids who are frightened of what would happen if their parents knew who they were, kids who don’t feel safe, kids who come from of abusive homes.” It could be the religious kind of abuse, and/or the non-religious kind of abuse.

He understood what I was talking about and several times reiterated how very not-anti-gay and not-anti-trans he was.

There have been memes going around lately along the lines of, if your child is gay or trans and they don’t want you to know, there’s probably a good reason for that, and likely it’s you. The problem is you.

I was trying to help this dad see, though, that he was not the problem. But he was still uncomfortable with it. He felt he would want the school to tell him. He grudgingly agreed that if one of his kids thought they were trans, he would absolutely want to make sure they had the best medical care and guidance they could get, that he would want to do whatever was best for his child.

But he wasn’t convinced this law wasn’t out to get people like him. You don’t fix the constant lava flow of conservative Christian right-wing fascist propaganda and lies in one sleepy night when all anybody wants to do is get a fucking hotel room and then fly the hell out of Atlanta the next day.

That dad is a good example of why Trump and Vance and Fox News and the rest of the Republican machinery are so committed to demonizing all LGBTQ+ people, but especially trans people, this election season.

This is a strategy, and it works on a whole bunch of people.

‘Think about it, your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation.’

Donald Trump has been saying that on the campaign trail lately. He is absolutely full of shit. He repeated the lie at a Moms For Liberty circle jerk recently, and Moms For Liberty was nail-spitting furious that CNN deigned to factcheck Trump’s obvious lie.

(Trump also memorably screamed at the debate that Kamala Harris “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison!” He gets confused about his conspiracy theories sometimes.)

Reality check: there is no school nurse in the country doling out top surgeries or bottom surgeries, either for trans-identifying kids, or for kids who come in after they skin their knees on the playground. (That would be real fucked up!)

Schools aren’t going gender-affirmation surgeries and kids aren’t demanding litterboxes because they say they’re “furries.” The baby isn’t being born so they can put it on the table and decide to execute it, and Haitians in Springfield aren’t eating Whiskers. Not even the best Obamacare money can buy has a plan where kids can walk in to the school nurse, without their parents’ consent, sign up for surgery, and then reappear at their parents’ house days later with a brand new set of genitals.

But Moms For Liberty got so mad at CNN for debunking Trump’s dementia lies. It was very important to them that Trump be out there demonizing transgender people, in general, regardless of whether Trump’s babbling about children getting on the school bus and coming back “a few days later with an operation” was literally true.

They angrily sent CNN a bunch of examples of lawsuits filed in various states, all focused on “parental rights” and, in particular, schools letting kids transition socially — as in, come out as trans or non-binary, etc. — without running off to tattle to their parents. Letting kids use different pronouns if that’s what they’re feeling is right for them. Etc.

Of course, because it’s Moms For Liberty, their missive to CNN — and the pissy PR email they sent to tell everybody about it — was full of hallucinatory conspiracy theory babblings about schools “secret[ly] social-transitioning … minor children” and, quoting one lawsuit from Massachusetts, “encourag[ing] minor children to hide key components of who they are from their parents, while actively encouraging children to disobey and ignore their parents’ wishes, and while actively deceiving parents and hiding information about their own children from them.” Moms For Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice even suggested that schools are “legally allowed to assign a new pronoun without parental knowledge.”

As if it’s the schools initiating these actions. As if schools are handing out pronouns with seating charts. (“Aw fuck, bro! Did you get she/her? Bro that sucks!” — common elementary school conversation now.)

They also straight up lied and said Minnesota allows gender-affirmation surgeries for minors without parental consent. It does not.

(Again I ask, on what fuckin’ insurance plan? Have I mentioned lately that these people are delusional weirdos?)

But as I said, pretty much everything Moms For Liberty was mad about, even when they were totally misrepresenting things, was social transitioning. Because that’s the slippery slope to hormones and surgery, and they’re not telling their parents, AIIIIYEEEEEEEE!

So they were fine with Donald Trump straight-up lying and saying schools are doing transgender surgeries on kids, because sometimes you have to make up really fucked up lies to con people into hating the same people you hate. Isn’t that right, Republicans?

What did J.D. Vance just say about his and Trump’s blood libel lies about Haitian immigrants? “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” And by “suffering of the American people,” he meant things he’s a total Nazi about.

Or as one white fascist Christian put it on Twitter this week:

Lying for Jesus! It’s been around a long time, yet it’s never done by people who actually reflect the character of Jesus in any way, shape or form.

(One of these days I’m going to write y’all a full Bible study on Matthew 7:23, AKA Jesus’s personal candygram to conservative white Christians.)

MAGA Republicans are absolutely counting on conning enough people with these absurd, demonizing lies and libels, about trans people and immigrants and abortion and anything else they can think of that deserves a good Two Minutes Hate. In Texas, it was reported this week that congressional Republicans are spending millions targeting Democrats with anti-transgender ads.

It’s literally all they have to run on. And they know it works, at least on some people.

In summary and in conclusion, and back to what pissed me off so much in the first place.

Riley Gaines griped to “Fox & Friends” that “[t]hey don’t believe that these are your kids. They believe that these are the government’s kids.”

We’ve been over this before, how these MAGA Christian fascist creeps (and their ideological compatriots) think they literally own their children. They believe they own them until they transfer ownership of their daughters to their husbands, or in the case of their sons, when they become wife-owning patriarchs in their own right.

It offends them when it’s pointed out that actually, their kids are their own people, and they own themselves.

Now, when the kids are minors, sure, their parents have custody and responsibility for them, and the schools have a part to play in that, both as partners with the parents and just in general, in preparing them to be respectable, functioning adults. Schools have a responsibility to let parents know when their kids’ grades are slipping; if they’re getting in fights, or getting bullied; if they’re acting out in school; if they’re doing something illegal, or dangerous, to themselves or others. And so forth.

This shouldn’t have to be said, but coming out of the closet — as gay, as bi, or as somewhere on the gender spectrum other than that which they were assigned at birth — DOES NOT FALL UNDER ANY REASONABLE CATEGORY OF “MISBEHAVIOR” FOR WHICH A SCHOOL WOULD NEED TO NOTIFY PARENTS.

Being LGBTQ+ is not dangerous, it’s not immoral, and it’s not “I found meth in your kid’s backpack.” It’s simply a thing. If a child is excelling and getting along well socially and in grade seven they decide to try on some new pronouns, that doesn’t warrant a phone call home.

It doesn’t warrant tattling.

But that’s what these evil fascist creeps want. They want schools to be their abusive morality Gestapo when they’re not around, to shame and punish their children in their absence, and to call a parent-teacher conference if they suspect a child has come down with the Woke Mind Virus.

By the way, schools do have another responsibility when it comes to kids, and that’s to spot abuse and neglect, and to intervene for the welfare of the child if they suspect the child is in danger at home.

And that — dearly beloved MAGA fascist assholes — is the category under which this falls.

If a kid comes out as gay, or starts socially transitioning, but they say “Hey, my parents don’t know, and I need them not to,” then there’s a reason that kid — the actual owner of their own body, mind and soul — is saying that. Maybe they’re just not ready! Maybe they’re getting their sea legs with their friends before they go home to their parents. Maybe they’ll tell them next year.

But it’s also possible that they don’t feel safe with their parents, and fear their reaction. It might be a reasonable fear. Fundamentalist Christian homes are notoriously abusive to LGBTQ+ children, oftentimes disowning them or kicking them out, oftentimes subjecting them to physical, psychological and religious abuse. There’s a reason states all over the country have been passing bans on fully discredited, fully ineffective and uniformly harmful “ex-gay” and “ex-trans” religious torture for minors for over a decade now. (Congratulations, Kentucky! You have a good governor.)

They might be scared their parents will ship them off to “pray away the gay” or “pray away the trans.”

Laws like the one in California protect those kids.

The parents bitching about this and filing lawsuits and publicly demonizing LGBTQ+ people — including their own children — they are demonstrating precisely why these laws need to exist.

That’s what this is about.

It’s not about hiding things from good and loving parents. It’s about protecting kids from parents who are monsters.

In the next 46 days, you might encounter people who say they can’t vote for Kamala Harris and against Donald Trump for truly stupid reasons. This is one of them. (And the abortion thing and the Haitian immgirants thing and the litterboxes and oh God, so many more.)

Tell them their reasons are stupid reasons.

How loving and diplomatic you decide to be about it, that’s up to your own best judgment.

New Court Filings Place Matt Gaetz at a Party at the Center of the Sex Trafficking Scandal

This is the first public filing that cites sworn testimony alleging that Gaetz attended one of the long-rumored parties with a teenage girl.

https://www.notus.org/florida/new-court-filings-matt-gaetz-dorworth-sex-party

Jose Pagliery September 20, 2024 01:35 AM | Updated: September 20, 2024 10:28 AM

Rep. Matt Gaetz attended a drug-fueled sex party in 2017 with the 17-year-old girl at the center of the alleged sex trafficking scandal, according to legal documents filed to a Florida federal court shortly before midnight Thursday, which cite sealed affidavits from three eyewitness testimonies.

The minor, who was a junior in high school at the time, arrived in her mother’s car for a July 15, 2017, party at the Florida home of Chris Dorworth, a lobbyist and friend of Gaetz’s, according to a court filing written by defense attorneys who interviewed witnesses as part of an ongoing civil lawsuit Dorworth brought in 2023.

The lobbyist claimed he had been unfairly dragged into the alleged sex trafficking scandal that has dogged Gaetz and his allies for years. Dorworth ultimately dropped the case, but lawyers filed these documents in an attempt to recoup attorneys fees for a lawsuit they say should never have been brought.

One eyewitness cited in the court filings, a young woman referred to as K.M., provided a sworn affidavit that claimed the teenage girl was naked, partygoers were there to “engage in sexual activities,” and “alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy … and marijuana” were present. The teenage girl was identified in the filings only as A.B.

“The discovery taken in this case to date reflects that on Saturday, July 15, 2017 … Dorworth, hosted a party at his residence … with the following guests present: (1) A.B.; (2) K.M.; (3) B.G.; (4) Matt Gaetz,” lawyers wrote in the filing, also listing several others. The defense lawyers filed testimonies from those three women — who the attorneys say placed Gaetz at Dorworth’s house that night — under seal pending a judge’s approval to make the records public.

Additionally, Gaetz’s own ex-girlfriend — who was present at the party — provided testimony that lawyers say rebuts Dorworth’s claims that he was not there.NOTUS independently verified that Gaetz and one of the women who testified were previously involved in a relationship; she is only identified in the court filing by her initials, B.G.

The congressman’s ex-girlfriend’s eleventh hour testimony on Sept. 3 came just two days before Dorworth dropped his lawsuit, defense attorneys said in the filing. The defense lawyers also relied on Dorworth’s geolocated cell phone records, which showed that he communicated constantly with the congressman that day.The defense’s court filings show a hired digital forensic examiner identified Gaetz’s number, which has a Florida panhandle 850 area code and texted back and forth 30 times that day and then called Dorworth twice in the hours before the evening revelry. “B.G., another attendee at that party, confirmed A.B.’s testimony under penalty of perjury,” defense lawyers wrote.

This marks the first time that sworn testimony has been referenced in public court filings alleging that the congressman attended one of the long-rumored parties tied to an alleged underage sex scandal.Previous reports have revealed details of ex-politician and Gaetz friend Joel Greenberg’s confession letter that was never made public, which described how Gaetz would allegedly pay him to arrange several sexual encounters with young women — including a 17-year-old girl. Greenberg is serving an 11-year prison sentence for a list of charges, including fraud and sex trafficking with a child.

There have also been reports of Venmo payment transactions that were also never released showing the congressman paying Greenberg on at least one occasion.

In 2021, Gaetz appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and asserted, “The person doesn’t exist. I have not had a relationship with a 17-year-old. That is totally false.” Gaetz has denied allegations that he has ever had sex with a minor or participated in sex trafficking.

The Department of Justice investigated Gaetz and ultimately declined to file criminal charges.

Gaetz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Records also show that A.B., who was born in 1999, attended three weekly deposition sessions in July and testified in front of lawyers in Boulder, Colorado.

The new details were released in a cache of court filings that were ironically made public as a direct result of the congressman’s friend, Dorworth, trying to make this disappear.

When the DOJ dropped the investigation, Dorworth sued several people including Greenberg, and the woman who claimed she was sex-trafficked by Gaetz when she was only 17.

Dorworth responded by text message Friday morning, repeating his claim that he “never met” the teenager, “not once in my life.”

“She is also lying about Matt Gaetz,” he added.

Dorworth said his account is supported by a polygraph test he took years ago during which he was asked about the alleged encounters, and he noted that he is “still suing Joel, his parents and his company in state court.” He also took issue with the way defense lawyers referenced material that he stressed was “confidential.”

—

The story has been updated with Dorworth’s respone. (sic)

Jose Pagliery is a reporter at NOTUS.

Let’s talk about the republicans getting tricked by the GOP….

Some Decent News from Kentucky

By BRUCE SCHREINERUpdated 2:32 PM CDT, September 18, 2024Share

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear banned the use of “conversion therapy” on minors in Kentucky on Wednesday, calling his executive order a necessary step to protect children from a widely discredited practice that tries to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling.

The governor used his executive powers after Republicans who control the state legislature repeatedly blocked efforts to enact a state law banning the practice. Beshear said he would no longer wait for others to “do what’s right.”

“My faith teaches me that all children are children of God,” Beshear said during the signing ceremony at the Kentucky Capitol. “And where practices are endangering and even harming those children, we must act. The practice of so-called ‘conversion therapy’ hurts our children.”

It was the latest action in a national debate over conversion therapy and the rights of LGBTQ+ children and their families. (snip-MORE)

https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-conversion-therapy-andy-beshear-93a07354cd0ed2e7fc09c15f204f75c0

Watch: GOP Ohio AG gets testy after being fact-checked live on CNN

https://www.rawstory.com/dave-yost-cnn-interview/

Brianna Keilar interviews Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (Screen cap via CNN

Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost grew testy on Monday when CNN host Brianna Keilar fact-checked him for promoting false claims about Haitian immigrants.

During an interview about bomb threats that have been leveled against schools in Springfield, Ohio in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s attacks on the community there, Keilar asked Yost about his own role in helping Trump advance false claims about immigrants kidnapping and eating residents’ pets.

Keilar pointed out that Springfield Mayor Rob Rue has said that local police have investigated and found no evidence to back up claims that Haitian immigrants in the city are eating either pets or local wildlife.

“Do you think the mayor is lying?” she asked him.

Yost dodged the question and said that most of his social media posts about Haitian immigrants in Springfield have been on the “real impacts” they’ve had rather than the fictional pet-eating impacts.

ALSO READ: Scientific American magazine backs Harris with second endorsement in 179-year history

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“My tweet was about the media’s disregard for citizen reports, citizen interaction with their government,” he said.

Keilar then pressed him for more information about these “citizen reports” and Yost said he was referring to “several videotaped comments that were made by citizens regarding a variety of things going on in Springfield.”

Yost added that these comments from citizens “are not enough to make a case” against Haitian immigrants, and he then pivoted to saying that too many children attending school in Springfield don’t speak English.

Keilar then asked Yost why he and other Republicans don’t simply talk about the strain on local resources that migrant communities are placing on public services instead of telling lurid and false tales about pet eating, especially “when you are supposed to be a very serious law enforcement individual.”

Yost took exception to this statement.

“Implying, of course, that you think I’m not [serious],” he replied indignantly.

Trump’s claims about Haitians draw from a centuries-long narrative. These women explain why.

The former president’s debunked comments that Haitian immigrants are eating household pets in Springfield, Ohio, is just the latest in a long history of smears against them, experts say.

Originally published by The 19th

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Call it a mother’s intuition. After former President Donald Trump repeated a vicious smear about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, during his September 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, many parents in that community instinctively kept their children home from school. They were right to be concerned. In the days following Trump remarking on national television that these immigrants are eating household pets — a debunked rumor that first spread on social media — the threats rolled in.

The bomb and mass shooting threats that started shortly after the debate and continued through the weekend forced evacuations and closures of government buildings, hospitals, a university and schools in Springfield. Although Trump’s words have imperiled Haitian immigrants, he has not withdrawn his claim; he has doubled down on it. On Thursday, while campaigning, he suggested Haitians had ruined “beautiful Springfield” and were not in the city legally, although Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said they are living and working there lawfully. Trump also insinuated the immigrants are involved in sexual violence against “young American girls,” continuing his pattern of linking immigration to the predation of White women and girls.

The targeting of Haitians in the smalltown Midwest has led to an outcry of support from the public, policymakers and immigration advocates. The National Parents Union, a woman-led organization made up of parent advocacy groups fighting for equity in education, criticized “the reckless and irresponsible comments” from Republican leaders and announced that it “stand[s] with the families of Springfield” in a statement on Friday.

But no one empathizes with Springfield’s Haitian community like Haitian Americans themselves, they say. The 19th spoke with scholars and immigrant advocates, mostly women of Haitian heritage, about the repercussions of Trump’s words. They contend that his claim — and the hate before and after it — are nothing new: Due to the unique ways race, religion and resistance have intersected in Haiti’s history, immigrants from the Caribbean nation have experienced a specific brand of xenophobia in the United States, even as Black immigrants in this country lack visibility.

“This kind of narrative has been going on since at least the middle of the 19th century,” said Danielle N. Boaz, professor of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “We can connect all of this back to the thing that Haitians did that was unforgivable to people of European heritage, which is they had this . . . rebellion that started in the 1790s and culminated in what historians have sometimes called the only successful slave rebellion in history, where they were able to defeat not only the French but other foreign powers.”

Illustration depicting Francois Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture participating in the successful revolt against French power in St. Dominique (Haiti). Hand-colored engraving. — Illustration depicting Francois Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture participating in the successful revolt against French power in St. Dominique (Haiti). Hand-colored engraving. Bettman/Getty

The 1804 creation of Saint-Domingue, later Haiti, left slaveholding societies terrified that the human beings they held in bondage would also rebel. For securing their freedom, Haitians were demonized, with the Vodou religion often used to make wild claims against them, Boaz said.

“So, over the years, the narrative just kind of increases about how Haiti is this barbaric place,” she said. “It’s run only by Black people.”

Trump reinforced the barbarism messaging by implying Thursday that Haitians are “savage criminal aliens.”

Despite Springfield Police denying any “credible reports or specific claims” of Haitians abusing animals or committing other crimes, Trump’s allegations have reverberated nationally. Christopher Rufo, who has led the national push against critical race theory in schools and is a trustee for the New College of Florida, where hundreds of books on gender and diversity were discarded last month, offered a $5,000 “bounty” to anyone with evidence of Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating cats. In Florida and New York — the states with the largest Haitian-American communities — Haitian-American leaders condemned Trump’s remarks and similar statements by his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.

The bomb and shooting threats targeting Haitians disproportionately place pressure on mothers, said Taisha Saintil, senior policy analyst for the UndocuBlack Network, which advocates for Black immigrants. Often children’s primary caregivers, women rearrange work schedules, stay home or make childcare plans when schools close, losing household income in the process.

A note on the front door of Fulton Elementary School directs parents to a nearby school for pick-up after the building was evacuated due to bomb threats earlier in the day. — A note on the front door of Fulton Elementary School directs parents to a nearby school for pick-up after the building was evacuated due to bomb threats earlier in the day in Springfield, Ohio, on September 12, 2024. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

“Women are often the ones managing the day-to-day fears, picking up and dropping off children, and trying to shield them from the psychological trauma of these threats,” Saintil said. “This gender dynamic adds another layer to the stress, as women feel pressure to keep things normal for their families while silently shouldering the weight of their own fear and frustration.”

Having immigrated to Florida from Haiti in 2006 at age 9, Saintil said that she feels for Springfield’s Haitian community. Before moving to diverse Fort Lauderdale, Florida, she briefly lived in a White community where she said her classmates taunted, spat on her and called her a cat-eater.

“I remember . . . the fear, waking up every single day knowing that I’m going to get bullied, nobody wanting to talk to me, sitting at the lunch table by myself,” Saintil said. “When I compare it to what is happening now to the newly arrived kids, I think about just how . . . the bullying will mark them for the rest of their lives.”

Lured by manufacturing jobs, an estimated 15,000 Haitian immigrants have settled in Springfield — a mostly White town of just under 60,000 people — starting in about 2017. Before then, Springfield experienced an economic downturn caused, in part, by population decline. Then, the immigrants arrived, giving the city an economic boost.

Valerie Lacarte, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute’s U.S. Immigration Policy Program, said that immigrants typically settle in areas because they know they can find reliable employment or their ethnic community already lives there. Springfield wasn’t previously home to a Haitian community, but state officials reportedly advertised the city’s livability and jobs, news that attracted migrants.

“You have employers who are hiring these people, so from the job market perspective, that’s a good thing. You have a match,” Lacarte said.

But this mutually beneficial development did not prevent tensions, which, last year, worsened after a Haitian immigrant crashed into a school bus, killing one child, Aiden Clark, and hurting nearly 30 others. Still, Nathan Clark, Aiden’s father, spoke out at a city commission meeting last week to denounce immigration foes for exploiting his son’s death. Anti-immigrant residents, meanwhile, have complained that Springfield lacks the infrastructure for population growth.

“It’s tempting to think the growth of immigrants, that’s what’s causing the problems,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, coauthor of “Framing Immigrants: News Coverage, Public Opinion, and Policy” and a University of California, Berkeley, researcher. “It’s the politicization of immigrants, and especially in places that have significant Republican voting populations, the scapegoating of immigrants tends to be higher. This is an issue we’ve seen time and again in the American heartland, places that are depopulating, places that are short of workers, that actually benefit from immigrant workers, but you have people . . . tapping into these national dynamics, when it comes to race and xenophobia, to win elected office.”

Officials must “be intentional about social cohesion” to avoid conflict between the longtime residents and the Haitian transplants, said Lacarte, the daughter of Haitian immigrants. It’s important to make sure that both the U.S.-born and foreign-born community members get the attention and resources needed to grow together as a diverse community.

Longtime residents may misunderstand why people who look and sound different from them are moving in, Lacarte said. They witness the demographic shift, but they don’t realize these changes can be helpful. Then, bad actors deepen anxieties by spreading disinformation about immigrants.

“Immigrants have been not only filling these jobs and helping grow the economy. They have their own demand for goods and services,” Lacarte said. “They send their kids to school. They even, in some cases, create businesses . . . and that grows the economy.”

During the presidential debate, Trump did not portray foreign-born workers as a positive but as a threat to Americans, accusing immigrants of taking jobs from Black workers. This framing overlooks that immigrants fill jobs the native-born population doesn’t pursue, Lacarte said, and that more workers are needed as birth rates decline and the White population ages. It also belies the fact that Black immigrants exist.

About one in five Black people are immigrants or the children of Black immigrants, the Pew Research Center reported in 2022. Africans have driven Black immigrant growth; their population increased by 246 percent between 2000 and 2019. In 2005, The New York Times reported that more Africans were entering the United States than since the slave trade. Today, Africans make up 42 percent of the Black foreign-born population, while Caribbean immigrants make up 46 percent. Of the latter, most come from two countries: Jamaica and Haiti.

A United States Border Patrol agent on horseback tries to stop a Haitian migrant from entering an encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande near the Acuna Del Rio International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas on September 19, 2021. The United States said Saturday it would ramp up deportation flights for thousands of migrants who flooded into the Texas border city of Del Rio, as authorities scramble to alleviate a burgeoning crisis for President Joe Biden's administration. — A United States Border Patrol agent on horseback tries to stop a Haitian migrant from entering an encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande near the Acuna Del Rio International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas on September 19, 2021. The United States said Saturday it would ramp up deportation flights for thousands of migrants who flooded into the Texas border city of Del Rio, as authorities scramble to alleviate a burgeoning crisis for President Joe Biden’s administration. PAUL RATJE/AFP

After footage of Border Patrol agents on horseback confronting Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas, went viral in 2021, Saintil said she received multiple messages disclosing, “I did not know there were Black immigrants. Where did they come from?” She assumed, due to her profession, that people knew the United States had Black immigrants.

“Most of my work now has been to raise visibility of Haitian and Black immigrants,” Saintil said. “We’re the most detained, the most placed in solitary confinement. Our bail bonds are higher. So, the same things that are happening to African Americans in the criminal justice system are happening to Black immigrants in the detention center. Our asylum claims are the most denied because immigration judges don’t trust our pain.”

Long before the debate, Trump disparaged Black immigrants. In 2017, he reportedly said that Nigerians lived in “huts” and Haitians “all have AIDS.” The following year, he labeled Haiti, African nations and El Salvador “shithole countries.” In Springfield, local Republicans have echoed Trump’s remarks. In addition to the pet-eating allegations, they’ve accused immigrants of being in gangs, spreading disease and practicing “voodoo” rituals, claims police have denied.

As Haiti became the yardstick for measuring whether Black people could participate in society equally, attacks on its character escalated. By the 1880s, stories spread about Haitians engaging in cannibalism and human sacrifice, especially of White children, Boaz said. Told repeatedly, these stories inform the rumors about Haitians in Springfield today, and they may jeopardize women.

“Historically, women in marginalized communities, whether immigrants, ethnic minorities, or refugees, have been specifically targeted for intimidation,” Saintil said. “This may be because some view them as ‘easier’ to attack or harass than men. . . . In this context, when Haitian women are being targeted for threats, harassment or even racial slurs in public spaces, the consequences are far-reaching. This not only creates an atmosphere of terror for women but can also ripple through the entire family.”

Haitian-American anthropologist Gina Athena Ulysse, a professor of humanities at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said that she’s tired of defending her personhood and identity. Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Ulysse wrote a book called “Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle” because she found the dehumanizing remarks about Haitians then disturbing.

“We’re always having to refute as opposed to having an identity that is an affirmed one,” Ulysse said. “There is a profound disappointment that in 2024 that I am listening to someone who is running to be the president of the highest nation in the land say something this surreal, this absurd. But I’m also someone as a Black woman, as a social scientist, as someone who understands race and racial construction, what that is meant to do, and that is to paint Haitians as the ultimate ‘others,’ cannibalists and otherwise, so that it can keep fueling this narrative that’s necessary to strip people of their humanity.”

Ulysse said that the broader immigrant community faces xenophobia, too. One study concluded that the level of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the Republican Party today rivals anti-Chinese sentiment during the late 1800s, a period that restricted Chinese immigration. Chinese immigrants have also been accused of consuming dogs and cats, insults revived during the onset of COVID-19, which Trump called the “China virus.”

“He’s gone from talking about Mexican immigrants as predominantly being criminals and rapists to then talking about immigrants as vectors of disease and and now using similar kinds of dehumanizing language to talk about . . . not just what they eat, but the kind of the social threat they supposedly pose to American society,” Ramakrishnan said. “I think the kinds of emotions it’s supposed to evoke are emotions of disgust, of othering and reduced empathy, and also support for drastic measures like rounding up and deporting people who are not deemed to be American.”

If Harris becomes president, she would not only be the first woman in the Oval Office but also the first person of South Asian and Caribbean heritage. Might that change perceptions and policies related to Caribbean immigrants?

“No matter how well meaning one person may be, they’re part of a social structure and a system that makes decisions,” Ulysse said. “She’s not going to make decisions by herself, so what difference does it make that she’s from the Caribbean? She’s got advisors. She’s got to think about Congress. She’s got to think about the Senate. She’s got to think about geopolitics and history.”

Community members eat at a Haitian restaurant in Springfield, Ohio. — Community members eat at a Haitian restaurant in Springfield, Ohio, on September 12, 2024. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

When Trump took aim at Haitian immigrants during the debate, Harris laughed in apparent disbelief but did not rebuke him. Ulysse finds it disturbing that many people laughed at Trump’s claims because, as absurd as they are, they’re endangering Haitians.

On Friday, President Joe Biden called the attacks on Haitians “simply wrong,” noting that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is “a proud Haitian American.”

Along with being terrified and traumatized, Saintil said the Haitian children and parents impacted by the threats and smears likely feel betrayed.

“You’re getting it from a country that you thought you could be safe in,” she said. “You’re getting it in a country that you’ve been hoping to be in because you thought your life would be better, but now you’re being treated worse than dirt. You’re being called a savage . . . How do you go on from there?”

‘Voting feels like a battle’: In Mississippi, a group of Black women is reimagining voter turnout

The Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable has traveled around the state for “boot camps” aimed at better mobilizing Black women to get out the vote. They face roadblocks in a state with a deep history of voter suppression.

Originally published by The 19th

This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on September 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.

SOUTHAVEN, MISSISSIPPI — The training in northwest Mississippi that Cassandra Welchlin led was focused on get-out-the-vote efforts, but the longtime community organizer wanted to make space to sing.

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around …

“Come on, y’all!” Welchlin told the crowd of nearly 100, who joined in on the next verse. Turn me around …

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around. I’m gonna keep on walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom lane …

“I am so happy to have y’all in the house,” she said at one point. “If y’all could see what I see.”

What Welchlin saw that August morning were the faces of Black women — and a lot of them. Their interests, varied and historically overlooked, are at the center of a new kind of intentional voter engagement training.

“Black women mobilize their communities,” she told The 19th. “They are the catalyst.”

Welchlin is executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, a civic engagement and policy advocacy organization whose members, all of them Black women, have traveled the state for months to host trainings called the “Power of the Sister Vote Boot Camp.”

On paper, their goal with the boot camps is an increase in voter turnout among Black women in the Mississippi counties where they visit. They also want to create a years-in-the-making pipeline to better mobilize Black women, whom Welchin views as the glue holding together democracy, especially in a state and region that continues to be impacted by policies that have historically suppressed Black voters.

“I was raised in a house of Black women — my aunties, my grandma, and then the neighborhood of elders,” she said. “I know the power of Black women taking care of Black women, and taking care of the community.”

At the trainings, Welchlin and her staff dress in military fatigues — a “boot camp” theme that has manifested into the advertisement the group uses to promote the events and the T-shirts they distribute to attendees. But there is a deeper significance.

“Voting feels like a battle in Mississippi,” she explained.

Mississippi is one of just three states that does not offer early voting to all residents, and one of eight states that does not offer online voter registration. The 12-hour window that many residents have to cast a ballot on Election Day can be difficult for people with irregular work shifts, child care responsibilities and challenges to accessing transportation.

Welchlin said she knows Black women overwhelmingly run their households. They also take on the added responsibility of getting their communities to the ballot box.

Yet Black women in Mississippi are the largest group of women in low-wage jobs, face one of the highest rates of poverty in the country and rank among the lowest in elected representation at the statehouse.

“I wanted to do something a little bit more strategic and formal that would bring excitement,” Welchlin said. “I just kind of sat with the idea of, ‘What would make people want to come?’”

Cassandra Welchlin holding glasses in one hand, standing under a tree with a determined expression. She is wearing a bright pink dress, with her long locs draped over her shoulder, and the background features a park setting. — Cassandra Welchlin, executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, emphasizes the role of Black women as catalysts for democracy and community change. (Imani Khayyam for The 19th)

The Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, which has long made issues like equal pay, Medicaid expansion and paid family and medical leave a priority in their work, is an affiliate of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. The organization has programming focused on Black women’s civic participation, including a “Sistervote” initiative.

Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and convener of the national Black Women’s Roundtable programming, credited Welchlin for designing a training theme that not only has the potential to turn out more voters, but could lead to more Black women becoming leaders who run for office. She added that Welchlin is taking their political power “to another level.”

“Having a Cassandra Welchlin in leadership, who’s doing unique things — there could be more Black elected officials in the state of Mississippi, because the demographics are there. But when you talk statewide, it’s not reached its full potential,” she said.

There are about 1.9 million registered voters in Mississippi, where the governor’s office, Senate and House of Representatives are controlled by Republicans. Welchlin’s group estimates that more than 123,000 Black women in the state did not vote in the past three election cycles. The group’s goal is to increase voter participation among these women by 10 percent this November. Black women voters in the counties the group has targeted for boot camps are among those who have voted most infrequently since 2021.

It’s part of why Allytra Perryman, deputy director of the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP, which has partnered to help host some boot camps, also sees such potential in mobilizing them.

“When you train a Black woman on how to do anything, you train a community,” she said.

On the morning of the boot camp, Velvet Scott seemed to be everywhere.

As director of civic engagement and voting rights for the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, she was ready to help roll out attendee tables and chairs; she was there to open boxes and hand materials to roundtable staff. She and Welchlin made sure the check-in table had updated registration lists, lunch was ordered and the child care in a nearby room was set up.

“Today we’re going to go through, of course, important information, but we’re going to have fun while doing it,” Scott told the women, many already wearing the matching boot camp T-shirts.

Their meeting space was attached to a church on a hill — New Hope Missionary Baptist Church — nestled along a road filled with so many churches it’s called Church Road. Among the permanent signage adorning the room were Biblical-themed messages of hope: “We will not fail nor be discouraged, till our mission is complete….”

“We welcome you today to be energized and to be educated,” said Pamela Helton, a leader within New Hope and the wife of the church pastor, in opening remarks.

Earlier, Welchlin seemed determined to shake the hands of every person who walked through the doors. For those she knew, she offered a hug. “So glad to see so many beautiful Black women,” she said at one point. “We comin’.”

When Welchlin helped host the first boot camp ahead of last year’ gubernatorial race, her organization did not collect data about the trainings. Anecdotal feedback showed a clear interest in organizing Black women around voter turnout, but the full scope of the programming’s reach in its pilot run is unclear.

“We realized that we had a gap,” Welchlin said. “But part of it had to do with capacity on our end to collect that data and do the follow-up.”

Scott, who joined the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable late last year, has committed to doing things differently. She honed a data mindset while first working in insurance, a job that brought her into the homes of Black and Brown people who increasingly sought her guidance about available social services. In 2018, Scott began volunteering at a youth-focused civic engagement organization and then joined the staff full-time.

At the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, Scott tries to capture more information about the organization’s approach to community programming. That’s meant more of a focus on spreadsheets, more surveys and more individual follow-ups to ensure attendees have support afterward.

Velvet Scott, director of civic engagement and voting rights for the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, believes in the power of organizing and uplifting Black women in community spaces. (Imani Khayyam for The 19th)

Scott has tweaked the boot camps since they launched in April in order to make them more accessible. She’s made some trainings available on weeknights instead of Saturdays, when people tend to be most busy with family responsibilities. She has sometimes shortened the hours of programming to see if a tighter agenda keeps up engagement. She recently helped organize a virtual training.

As a mother to a newly walking toddler, she tries to think about what the attendees might need. She, like Welchlin, feels strongly about onsite child care. (During the Southaven training, Scott stepped away to breastfeed her child.) She ensures that a meal is provided during the trainings, as well as a gift card. The group set aside roughly $50,000 to run the program this election cycle, according to Scott. They’ve been under budget thanks to partnerships with other civic engagement groups.

Scott believes strongly in the power of Black women organizing their communities.

“We don’t live single-issue lives,” she said. “So to uplift Black women in the room is to say, ‘Hey, I see you. We’re going to work on this together, we’re going to be in community together, and we’re going to be in fellowship together.’”

Scott also wants to find the balance in her work. She’s tried to move away from an unspoken expectation in community organizing that she must be go-go-go. She doesn’t want to burn out, and she wants to be present with her family.

“Rest is resistance,” Scott said, who referenced research on the topic. “And advocates deserve joy.”

When Jessica Orey hears Welchlin’s singing, she perks up. Orey is attending alone, and the music comforts her.

As a young adult, Orey jumped into organizing through a local NAACP chapter. Those meetings also made space for “freedom songs” used at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s why Orey was impressed by its emphasis in Southaven.

“She’s kind of bringing back the old school type-feel of it,” Orey said of Welchlin. “Like, hey, we’re going to sing our way through. This is what’s going to push us to the next level.”

Welchlin said her mentor, Hollis Watkins, the late civil rights activist who founded the voting rights organization Southern Echo, taught her the freedom songs that he once sang at mass organizing meetings.

“It’s teaching a new generation about what the meaning of song is, and what these words mean,” she said. “And so it’s a history lesson, while it’s also a spiritual blessing to our souls.”

Sheneka Bell is also in the room alone, listening along.

At 45, Bell is a longtime voter but has not been active in voter turnout efforts. But politics continues to seep into her life — from the national debate about reproductive rights, to local property rezoning. Last year, Bell joined the local county chapter of the NAACP.

“I have a responsibility to understand what’s going on in my neighborhood and beyond,” she said.

In some ways, Orey felt compelled to be at the boot camp: Her grandmother is Delores Orey, a longtime civil rights activist who worked alongside key leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

“This is all I know. This is what Big Mama taught us,” said the 36-year-old, referring to her grandmother. “This is what Big Mama pushed for. So if any injustice is around me, it’s like, ‘What would Big Mama do?’ A lot of this stuff is ingrained. It’s a part of my DNA.”

After her grandmother died in 2014, Orey stepped back from community organizing. But she wants to get involved again, and she felt like the boot camp was a first step. Orey has since signed up for roundtable updates and alerts from several civic engagement groups. She recently participated in a GOTV event in Jackson.

“I know it’s time for me as a former advocate,” she said. “I need to get my shoes back in the game. There’s work to be done.”

Since the boot camp, Bell has looked into signing up to be a poll worker. She is open to phone banking, and recently showed her nieces how to check their voter registration statuses.

“I’m new to this space,” she said. “I’ve never done any of this before.”

Welchlin is not surprised that women like Orey and Bell are drawn to these endeavors in Mississippi, a state that played a key role in the long fight for universal voting rights. It is home to historic voter registration drives like Freedom Summer, and it is the birthplace of activists like Fannie Lou Hamer.

Civic engagement groups say the struggles continue.

In July, a federal court ordered Mississippi policymakers to redraw some state legislative maps that they established in 2022, after the court concluded that the maps illegally diluted the political power of Black residents.

Among the areas impacted by the racial gerrymandering is DeSoto County, which includes Southaven, the site of the August boot camp.

Some noted a recent state law over the voters rolls and technical issues at precincts during last year’s close governor’s race. Some polling precincts in Hinds County, home to the capital city of Jackson, ran out of ballots. Long lines were reported and some people were seen leaving polling locations without voting. More than 80 percent of Jackson residents are Black.

The state also has one of the most restrictive disenfranchisement bans in the nation, taking away voting rights from people who are convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes.

Welchlin cautioned against ignoring inequity around the ballot box in Mississippi, especially as Republican lawmakers advance voting restrictions around the country. They have increasingly claimed without proof that there is widespread voter fraud, and such policies often appear in states with large Black and Brown populations.

“Mississippi is part of the fabric of the struggles in the South,” Welchlin said. “We have a history, and a muscle, and a foundation in which we have built.”

As the boot camps in Mississippi wrap up this election cycle, its ripple effect is coming into focus. A state lawmaker recently expressed interest in running a boot camp. At least one organization is now trying to offer similar programming targeting Black men. And the umbrella organization’s Michigan affiliate has reached out about replicating some of boot camp programming.

“We know that their data is going to look different, but we’re giving them the template to adjust it the way they need,” she said. “It’s a model, and Michigan is going to be testing it.”

Welchin has tried to lean into the joy of the work ahead, despite the obvious obstacles. With Black women by her side, she feels empowered to find a way.

“Good things do come from the South, and we know that Black women have been a part of making that happen,” she said.

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