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If we demonize Haitians in Ohio, why do we still allow Ohioans in Florida?

Cat Conspiracy: Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaking during his debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Sept.10, 2024.
Alex Brandon
/
AP
Cat Conspiracy: Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaking during his debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Sept.10, 2024.

COMMENTARY If Florida falsehood-mongers want to spread lies about Haitians in Ohio, they should be fair demonizers and push the lie that all Ohioans commit felonies in Florida. What about our pets?!

Donald Trump isn’t the only brute spreading the despicably dehumanizing lie that Black Haitian migrants are eating white people’s cats.

Aside from the former President and current GOP presidential candidate, not to mention his running mate JD Vance, we’ve got our own falsehood-mongers propagating that lie right here in Miami. For starters: notorious Spanish-language radio demagogue Carinés Moncada.

Moncada is a right-wing Venezuelan-American Trump devotee who calls herself a “journalist” the way some astrologers consider themselves astrophysicists. She’s the disinformation diva who once declared the Black Lives Matter racial justice movement a Satanic cult.

READ MORE: Mr. Sessions: Shouldn't what your boss says about Haiti apply to Alabama?

So it’s no surprise Moncada strapped herself into the MAGA wagon this week to trumpet a fraudulent video that accuses Haitian migrants of besieging the town of Springfield, Ohio, and devouring “the pets of the people that live there!” as an unhinged Trump ranted at Tuesday night’s presidential debate.

Or as Moncada posted about the video on the Elon Musk disinformation site known as X: “The police arrive and find this Haitian migrant woman EATING A CAT.”

Moncada the “journalist” of course never bothered, or cared, to find out that the woman in the video is not a Haitian migrant but a U.S. citizen; that she’s not actually eating a cat; that the video wasn’t even shot in Springfield.

Officials there have confirmed quite emphatically that the malicious rumor about Haitians feasting on felines is just that — the kind of shameless crap that hate-hawkers like Moncada transmit as recklessly as COVID-19 at biker rallies.

Here’s Moncada's chance to be a real journalist — to report that the Ohio terror in Florida is a result of DeSantis' open border for white Midwestern men.

But brazen untruths are the incorrigible career path Moncada and her ilk have chosen. So I’ve thought of a way that catty Carinés can build some journalistic credibility — to present herself as a more even-handed insulter, a more equal-opportunity demonizer.

My proposal: Moncada should use her radio pulpit to call on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to keep white Ohio men out of our state — which is home to America's largest Haitian population.

Here's why:

A big reason the malicious migrant myth has taken hold is that last year one of the 20,000 Haitians who’ve lawfully settled in Springfield in recent years caused a school bus crash that killed an 11-year-old boy.

We certainly shouldn’t make light of that heartbreaking tragedy. But, as the boy’s parents themselves are reminding us, it also shouldn’t be exploited to politically satanize an entire group of people.

Since that’s the reality we’re stuck with, though, let’s put that twisted logic to work keeping Floridians — and our pets! — safe.

Key West threats

You see, the “fact” is, Florida’s dealing with an epidemic of violent crime committed by white guys from Ohio.

In just the past year, one Buckeye State Caucasian male after another has been arrested here for felonies ranging from murder to child abuse and pornography, cocaine trafficking, sexual battery — and threatening to blow up a bar in Key West.

Miami radio host Carines Moncada at her former station Actualidad in 2020.
YouTube
Miami radio host Carines Moncada at her former station Actualidad in 2020.

Even an Ohio police chief, named Chad, was collared for attacking a homeless man for no apparent reason.

In her X post, Moncada insists Haitian migrant cat-eating “is the result of open borders.” Well, here’s her chance to be an objective, both-sides reporter — here’s her moment to tell Gov. DeSantis that all this Anglo Ohio male terror in Florida is the result of his own conspiracy to let white men into our peninsula so he can turn them into Republican voters.

READ MORE: Little Haiti VH1 star: Trump’s comments about immigrants eating pets 'hurt a part of my heart'

Many will perhaps argue we shouldn’t use those criminal cases to cast blanket judgment on the more than half a million transplanted Ohioans who call Florida home, most of whom no doubt contribute to the life of the state.

Well, those 20,000 Haitians have been widely credited with helping revitalize Springfield, too. But that hasn’t stopped folks from using one case to portray them all as predatory parasites lurking in the suburban shadows to strangle Grizabella, skin her and roast her for lunch.

There’s just one snag in this plan, though.

As I mentioned, half of the Haitian diaspora in the U.S. resides in Florida. And while they’d have every right to want to turn the tables and keep Ohioans out of our state, the Haitians I know here wouldn’t approve of that kind of bigotry.

Even if they did have as masterful a witch hunter as Moncada on their side.

Tim Padgett is the Americas Editor for WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida. Contact Tim at tpadgett@wlrnnews.org
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