SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California man was sentenced Friday to 27 years to life in prison for making racist threats against a pregnant Black woman after prosecutors appealed an earlier, lighter sentence, officials said.
Tyson Mayfield, 49, pleaded guilty in a court-offered deal in 2019 to get a five-year sentence that the Orange County District Attorney’s office opposed and later appealed.
An appeals panel rejected the decision, and Mayfield was retried and convicted of making criminal threats with an enhancement for a hate crime.
“Over the last six years we have fought and fought and fought for justice in this case,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “Justice was finally served today against a man who spent decades hating others, and now he will spend decades behind bars where he belongs.”
A message was left at the public defender’s office seeking comment.
Mayfield was accused of threatening and yelling racial slurs at a woman who was eight months pregnant at a bus stop in Fullerton in 2018, prompting her to use pepper spray to protect herself and run for help.
Authorities said Mayfield, who is white and has a swastika tattoo, had prior convictions for attacking bystanders, including punching a man outside a supermarket while yelling a racist slur.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Roger B. Robbins made the offer to Mayfield in 2019, noting no weapon was used or injury caused during the crime. Prosecutors and community advocates said Mayfield shouldn’t have been eligible for the deal because of his prior convictions.
A woman who admitted to hurling racist slurs at a child with autism at a southern Minnesota park — and subsequently raised hundreds of thousands of dollars on a crowdfunding website — will face disorderly conduct charges, the city attorney said Tuesday.
The incident occurred in April at Roy Sutherland Playground in Rochester, and a video of a subsequent confrontation went viral. The Rochester City Attorney’s Office said the case “involved a large amount of evidence and required careful consideration of potential charging options across multiple offices.”
“Given the sensitive and complicated nature of this case, along with the high level of public attention, completing the necessary reviews and conversations with the victim’s family took longer than usual,” the attorney’s office said.
According to a draft criminal complaint, the woman repeatedly called an 8-year-old Somali boy a racial slur after he took an applesauce pouch from her diaper bag. The boy’s father said he is “profoundly and visibly autistic” and “does not understand typical boundaries.”
The boy’s father and the witness who recorded the viral video both heard the racial slurs, and the woman admitted on video to using them, “stating that she can call him that ‘if he acts like one,’” the complaint said. She also called the witness a slur on video, and admitted she was going to hit the boy because “he took my son’s stuff.”
Sharmake Omar
After the video went viral, the woman started an online fundraiser, which garnered more than $700,000. She said she needed the funds to help protect her family.
In the wake of the incident, the boy’s family said they “no longer feel safe” in the community. The Rochester NAACP called for the woman to be charged and started a fundraiser of its own for the family, which raised about half as much as the woman’s.
The woman has not yet been formally charged; a District Court judge needs to review and approve the draft criminal complaint, the attorney’s office said. If and when that happens, she will face three misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct. The complaint states she “wrongfully and unlawfully engaged in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct, or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language that would reasonably tend to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others.”
Note: The video above originally aired May 7, 2025.
U.S. midfielder Weston McKennie was subjected to racist abuse after Juventus completed a 2-0 season-opening win over Parma in the Serie A, the Italian club said Sunday.Juventus posted a statement on social media saying McKennie was the target of “discrimatory racist remarks by individuals in the away section” while he was warming down with teammates on the pitch.Video above: Car drives through crowd of Liverpool soccer fans”Juventus strongly condemns this incident and any form of racism, and will ensure full cooperation with the sporting justice authorities to identify those responsible,” Juventus said in the statement.McKennie, who joined Juventus in 2020, went on as a late substitute in the match in Turin, where Canada forward Jonathan David scored in his Serie A debut for Juventus.In 2023, Fiorentina was hit with a suspended partial stadium ban after fans directed racist and discriminatory chants at McKennie and other Juventus players.Sunday’s incident is the latest in a series of racism allegations in European soccer.FIFA President Gianni Infantino last week described two incidents of alleged racist abuse which marred German Cup games as “unacceptable.”Infantino’s comments were in the wake of allegations Schalke’s Christopher Antwi-Adjei was subjected to racist abuse in a cup game at Lokomotive Leipzig and a Kaiserslautern substitute was racially abused while warming up in a game at RSV Eintracht.British police arrested a man on suspicion of racially abusing Bournemouth forward Antoine Semenyo during a Premier League game on Aug. 16.The man was arrested on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offense after Semenyo, who is Black, reported to the referee that he was racially abused by a spectator in the first half of Bournemouth’s match against Liverpool at Anfield.___AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
TURIN, Italy —
U.S. midfielder Weston McKennie was subjected to racist abuse after Juventus completed a 2-0 season-opening win over Parma in the Serie A, the Italian club said Sunday.
Juventus posted a statement on social media saying McKennie was the target of “discrimatory racist remarks by individuals in the away section” while he was warming down with teammates on the pitch.
Video above: Car drives through crowd of Liverpool soccer fans
“Juventus strongly condemns this incident and any form of racism, and will ensure full cooperation with the sporting justice authorities to identify those responsible,” Juventus said in the statement.
McKennie, who joined Juventus in 2020, went on as a late substitute in the match in Turin, where Canada forward Jonathan David scored in his Serie A debut for Juventus.
In 2023, Fiorentina was hit with a suspended partial stadium ban after fans directed racist and discriminatory chants at McKennie and other Juventus players.
Sunday’s incident is the latest in a series of racism allegations in European soccer.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino last week described two incidents of alleged racist abuse which marred German Cup games as “unacceptable.”
Infantino’s comments were in the wake of allegations Schalke’s Christopher Antwi-Adjei was subjected to racist abuse in a cup game at Lokomotive Leipzig and a Kaiserslautern substitute was racially abused while warming up in a game at RSV Eintracht.
The man was arrested on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offense after Semenyo, who is Black, reported to the referee that he was racially abused by a spectator in the first half of Bournemouth’s match against Liverpool at Anfield.
Picture it, West Hollywood, the tension is high in the air as this year’s Project Drag contestants battled each other, one act after the other. Los Angeles Blade was on hand as guest judge for this particular evening, with TV show characters being the theme of the night. Project Drag, created in 2013 by nightlife personality Tony Moore, is THE drag competition when it comes to representing local drag queens. Even though this evening’s edition marked just a few weeks into the competition, it was clear these queens wanted to win…badly.
LØRELEI, no stranger to a spotlight, took the stage dressed as Smurfette and launched into a frenzy of dancing (backup dancers in tow). Halfway through her act with a dizzying array of jumps and jazz hands, she leapt into the air and smack dab into the DJ! The audience gasped as she teetered on the edge of the DJ’s station. Would she crash into the DJ, taking the whole setup with her? Or would she fall back and crash into the audience? Gravity had its way, and she crashed into the floor in a blurred mess of yellow hair and red high heels. Was this the end of LØRELEI’s time with Project Drag? Like the showperson she is, she turned the moment into a bit, not knowing that weeks later, she would take home the crown.
Even though LØRELEI wanted the win so much, she came to the competition a consummate performer, mixing her theatre world with her drag skills to put on truly unique acts. She is a true drag queen in the sense that she’s not just about looks. She can command an audience, she is a successful podcast co-host of SHABLAM!, and she co-founded and runs Dionysia, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing long-form theatrical works by drag artists. Oh, and did we mention she’s been touring around the nation with the Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Brunch? When did she even have time to do the competition? It’s what she does, she makes the show go on.
We chatted with this fabulous queen after her win, in between cities on her current tour.
What was your first exposure to drag?
I was always a theatre kid since I was 10, and I was introduced to drag in small doses through Musical Theater. A Chorus Line, La Cage Aux Folles, Kinky Boots – seeing queer representation in this particular medium was formative to my understanding of drag, and knowing that one day I wanted to be a famous drag queen. Through high school, I would dress in drag for Halloween, and by the time I got to college, I started to hit club nights that were 18+ in drag.
What was your first professional drag gig? How did it go?
I remember my first “big-time” professional gig was at Queen Kong with the Boulet Brothers back when they produced parties at Precinct in 2018. I competed in their star-search competition, placing 2nd in the Top 3 alongside Kornbread Jete (RPDR S14) and Charles Galin (King of Drag S1). After that, I was added to the rotation as a performer at Queen Kong until they finished producing the party in 2019. My very first booking with them after the competition was a “Satanic Lady Gaga” night, and I performed “Applause” as Charles Manson. I was so nervous, and I was corseting so tight, I think at that age I was corseting down to 21 inches – so I hate to say this, but I threw up onstage during my performance. The audience was shocked – and I was shocked too. But I kept performing and made it work. Around this time, Dragula was picking up speed, and we had seen the likes of Vander Von Odd vomiting on screen as part of the performance, so many thought that what I did was incredibly punk, and I just kinda ran with it. It’s one of my cringiest memories in drag – but I remember after my number, the Boulets came to check in with me and make sure I was okay, and they told me that I did a great job and that they loved the number. The show must go on, I guess!
What sets your drag apart from other Queens?
What sets me apart the most from other queens are my inventive performance ideas. I am a conceptual performer with a sense of humor that I express through writing and staging, and many of my performances feel like short-form theatre shows. My palette of references steers away from conventional drag pageantry, and gears more toward the avant-garde, the meta-theatrical and the bizarre. Every performance has a new character, so you never know what to expect from a Lorelei show – but I guarantee that no matter what you will be entertained.
You are the winner of Project Drag! What did going through this competition teach you most about yourself?
That no matter how cunty you think you are, there is always room to grow. It taught me not to be afraid to try things that might make you uncomfortable. Being in a competition like Project Drag requires you to be vulnerable and receptive to critique, it requires you to risk failing despite your best efforts. There were plenty of times that I fumbled in the competition – literally. One week I fell clear off of the DJ stand (shoutout to my Smurfette performance). But there were also many successes – I won two challenges before hitting the finale, and those were celebratory moments that demonstrated the best of what my drag could be. You have to take the good with the bad, and if you don’t ever swing big, you’ll never get that pay off to celebrate your drag. You have always be a student of the world, and look for ways to constantly improve your craft.
What were your biggest challenges in making it through the competition?
I would say the schedule of the competition was probably the hardest part – this was an 11-week competition, with challenges that are comparable to Drag Race, including group challenges and design challenges. Our weeks were spent crafting, rehearsing, spending, working incredibly hard to stay on top of our game every week, while still balancing life obligations like work or our health.
Personally, I was competing in Project Drag while also traveling out of town every weekend as a cast member in the Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Version brunch show. During the competition, I traveled to cities like Albuquerque, El Paso, Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, and Austin. Every week, I’d fly out after work on Friday, perform brunch shows on Saturday and Sunday, fly back home Monday morning, and then compete in Project Drag that same night. From Tuesday to Thursday, I balanced my day job, other drag gigs, and prepped as much as I could for the next week’s challenge—before hopping on another flight Friday and doing it all over again.
It was incredibly challenging, but that’s how badly I wanted to win. Looking back, I’m truly grateful for the experience. With everything I managed to juggle, I can honestly say this was the most drag I’ve ever done in my life—and I love living a life that’s so deeply connected to my craft.
What do you plan to do with your title?
I will probably leverage this title as rage bait against my haters for the rest of my life! And also — of course, I want to use this title to platform my own personal creative journey of making drag performance pieces, but also I would like to use it to platform other artists I work with. There are so many drag artists who helped me win Project Drag because they believed in my vision, and I want to give back to those friends and the community at large. With this title, I hope I can be a beacon for drag artists who may feel limited by the artistic scope of doing drag in a club or bar and are looking to bring their artistry to new arenas, like stages, art galleries, and alternative performance spaces. I hope to create new avenues for drag artists to incubate their ideas and develop performances that push the limits of our industry.
Theater and drag are two major components of your life. How do your drag and theatre aesthetics complement each other?
I’ve always considered myself a theatre artist, using drag as my medium. Drag has an important role in theatre traditions all around the world, and I think it is the chosen responsibility of a handful of drag artists to continue that performance tradition and innovate upon it as time passes. I’m inspired by artists like Taylor Mac, John Cameron Mitchell, Hibiscus – who use drag and playwriting as a means of distilling their ideas and insights about the world. In the future, I hope I can produce more theatrical work that uses drag as a means of storytelling, and infiltrate the theatre industry with new works that feature drag artists onstage.
What is your biggest mission in running Dionysia?
My biggest mission in running Dionysia is to create a collective of theatre artists and drag artists who help each other in producing more long-form theatrical works that feature queer voices. I would say most theatre queens are known for impersonating or re-creating famous theatre productions onstage, like doing Liza Minnelli or Wicked-themed drag brunch. However, my goal with Dionysia was to make an incubator for drag artists to bring in their own original material and collaborate with others to bring it to life onstage. It’s all about innovating new works to then perform onstage, submit to festivals or grants, and hopefully grow the skill set of each individual artist.
How can the queer community best support the drag community?
The queer community can help support the drag community by joining us at our events, and thus helping us promote our work of creating safe spaces at a time when being queer in public is becoming politicized once again. As drag artists, we do more than just perform onstage: we offer our image and our visibility as a means of indicating to others that we are creating a space that is sacred for our community. As drag artists, we share stories, we contribute to local culture, we help to preserve community and tradition, and we always appreciate audiences who at minimum come to enjoy the show because it motivates us to continue our work. Tipping helps too!
How has being a drag queen changed your life the most?
Being a drag queen has changed my life for the better because it has galvanized my life behind the guiding principle of liberation for obviously queer people, but really of all marginalized people. To me, being able to do drag feels like a proclamation of my freedom – my ability to be whoever I want, when I want. Everyone should have that freedom. I think of that age-old adage “no one is free until we are all free” – and it makes me realize that while I have the liberty to express myself, there are people around the world who don’t have that privilege. I think drag queens in general are especially attuned to the pursuit of justice, and that has helped to guide my life in the direction of being in service to others. Freedom for me means freedom for all – from the USA, to Palestine, no matter who you are or where you’re from.
We also love your podcast SHABLAM! What do you love most about the podcast?
Of course I love the opportunity on SHABLAM! to discuss my thoughts and opinions, but the best part is being able to do it with my co-host Annie Biotixx. Annie and I have been friends and collaborators for a long while now, and she always keeps me motivated to produce my best work. She competed in Project Drag 5, and although she didn’t make it as the winner of her season, she was a rock for me in my season of Project Drag, providing her support and guidance through all the challenges. She was even featured in my winning finale number! She’s an incredible host and drag queen here in Los Angeles, and a high-value theatre aesthete. Collaborating with her is effortless, and makes my job of showing up each week to record very easy.
What do you want listeners to walk away with after listening to SHABLAM?
At the end of the day, I want listeners to walk away feeling like they belong to an online community that supports them. Ultimately it’s a comedy podcast, so I always want people to laugh – but humor is such a great tool for building community. I feel through recording SHABLAM!, we are sharing our jokes, our vocal stims, whatever makes us laugh to build a shared language that we can use to identify who is part of this online community, and who share our values and principles. We create a space for people to find each other!
What are your biggest challenges in being a drag queen in SoCal?
Compared to other cities, I think the SoCal drag scene, particularly in Los Angeles, is uniquely suited to support many different types of drag, thanks to our sprawling geography. From West Hollywood to Downtown, from the Valley to the Inland Empire, there are countless pockets around LA that each celebrate a distinct style of drag. This diversity makes it possible for many people to pursue and succeed in drag.
However, that same strength also presents a challenge: everyone is looking to succeed, and the scene is highly competitive. The geography that fosters diversity also makes it difficult to make a name for yourself across all these different drag communities. Successful drag queens in SoCal know how to navigate between these various pockets. They show up professional, prepared, and with a strong point of view that sustains them over time. It takes patience, tenacity, and a commitment to continually growing your skill set and network.
You are touring with Taylor Swift Eras Tour: Drag Brunch Version! What Taylor Swift song most speaks to you presently and why?
Yes! I’ve been listening to a lot of her music for our show, and I would say that the song that speaks to me the most… on tough days, it’s “Anti-Hero” from Midnights. I think any artist can relate to the feeling of self-sabotage, and as I get older, I realize I have a lot of learning to do. But on good days – I believe in “Karma” from Midnights. I feel at ease in knowing that the universe is working for me, and what is meant for me will not pass me by. Winning Project Drag has amplified both of those feelings, and I know in my heart that this title was meant for me.
Do you get up to any shenanigans (wink, wink) while on tour?
My PARENTS are going to want to read this article, you FREAK! Lol, I’m kidding – yes, of course, there are plenty of shenanigans, and if you are interested, might I direct you to Season 2 of my podcast SHABLAM! Where, in addition to dissecting Project Drag week-to-week in real time, we discuss my escapades while on the road. Last thing I’ll say is get tested, get on PrEP, remember that undetectable = untransmittable! Mwah!
What kind of legacy do you want to create with your theatre and drag? I’d like to leave a legacy as a thought leader in the school of theatre and drag. I want to hybridize performance theory, queer history and drag performance to create innovative works that push the limits of how drag can be used in storytelling. I want to be added to the canon of drag artists who are lauded by the global theatre community, and leave in my legacy a collection of dramaturgically astute, advanced works of drag theatre.
What is your message to the community this Pride season?
Where do I even begin with all the chaos that has ensued in Los Angeles since the election of our current administration? ICE raids terrorizing our communities and kidnapping our neighbors is a crime beyond comprehension. It has rightfully left many of us feeling scared and hopeless, but I encourage the community to remain firm in our pursuit of justice and to fight back against Facism! Donate, Protest, Educate, Engage – do whatever you can to make it clear to any authoritative power that Los Angeles will not be fucked with! Especially the queer community! Today, we stand on the shoulders of queer ancestors who have endured similar treatment of threats and intimidation, and we have persevered. We will always be here! And no human is illegal on stolen land!
Troy Masters was a cheerleader. When my name was called as the Los Angeles Press Club’s Print Journalist of the Year for 2020, Troy leapt out of his seat with a whoop and an almost jazz-hand enthusiasm, thrilled that the mainstream audience attending the Southern California Journalism Awards gala that October night in 2021 recognized the value of the LGBTQ community’s Los Angeles Blade.
That joy has been extinguished. On Wednesday, Dec. 11, after frantic unanswered calls from his sister Tammy late Monday and Tuesday, Troy’s longtime friend and former partner Arturo Jiminez did a wellness check at Troy’s L.A. apartment and found him dead, with his beloved dog Cody quietly alive by his side. The L.A. Coroner determined Troy Masters died by suicide. No note was recovered. He was 63.
Considered smart, charming, committed to LGBTQ people and the LGBTQ press, Troy’s inexplicable suicide shook everyone, even those with whom he sometimes clashed.
Troy’s sister and mother – to whom he was absolutely devoted – are devastated. “We are still trying to navigate our lives without our precious brother/son. I want the world to know that Troy was loved and we always tried to let him know that,” says younger sister Tammy Masters.
Tammy was 16 when she discovered Troy was gay and outed him to their mother. A “busy-body sister,” Tammy picked up the phone at their Tennessee home and heard Troy talking with his college boyfriend. She confronted him and he begged her not to tell.
“Of course, I ran and told Mom,” Tammy says, chuckling during the phone call. “But she – like all mothers – knew it. She knew it from an early age but loved him unconditionally; 1979 was a time [in the Deep South] when this just was not spoken of. But that didn’t stop Mom from being in his corner.”
Mom even marched with Troy in his first Gay Pride Parade in New York City. “Mom said to him, ‘Oh, my! All these handsome men and not one of them has given me a second look! They are too busy checking each other out!” Tammy says, bursting into laughter. “Troy and my mother had that kind of understanding that she would always be there and always have his back!
“As for me,” she continues, “I have lost the brother that I used to fight for in any given situation. And I will continue to honor his cause and lifetime commitment to the rights and freedom for the LGBTQ community!”
Tammy adds: “The outpouring of love has been comforting at this difficult time and we thank all of you!”
Troy Masters and his beloved dog Cody.
No one yet knows why Troy took his life. We may never know. But Troy and I often shared our deeply disturbing bouts with drowning depression. Waves would inexplicitly come upon us, triggered by sadness or an image or a thought we’d let get mangled in our unresolved, inescapable past trauma.
We survived because we shared our pain without judgment or shame. We may have argued – but in this, we trusted each other. We set everything else aside and respectfully, actively listened to the words and the pain within the words.
Listening, Indian philosopher Krishnamurti once said, is an act of love. And we practiced listening. We sought stories that led to laughter. That was the rope ladder out of the dark rabbit hole with its bottomless pit of bullying and endless suffering. Rung by rung, we’d talk and laugh and gripe about our beloved dogs.
I shared my 12 Step mantra when I got clean and sober: I will not drink, use or kill myself one minute at a time. A suicide survivor, I sought help and I urged him to seek help, too, since I was only a loving friend – and sometimes that’s not enough.
(If you need help, please reach out to talk with someone: call or text 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. They also have services in Spanish and for the deaf.)
In 2015, Troy wrote a personal essay for Gay City News about his idyllic childhood in the 1960s with his sister in Nashville, where his stepfather was a prominent musician. The people he met “taught me a lot about having a mission in life.”
During summers, they went to Dothan, Ala., to hang out with his stepfather’s mother, Granny Alabama. But Troy learned about “adult conversation — often filled with derogatory expletives about Blacks and Jews” and felt “my safety there was fragile.”
It was a harsh revelation. “‘Troy is a queer,’ I overheard my stepfather say with energetic disgust to another family member,” Troy wrote. “Even at 13, I understood that my feelings for other boys were supposed to be secret. Now I knew terror. What my stepfather said humiliated me, sending an icy panic through my body that changed my demeanor and ruined my confidence. For the first time in my life, I felt depression and I became painfully shy. Alabama became a place, not of love, not of shelter, not of the magic of family, but of fear.”
At the public pool, “kids would scream, ‘faggot,’ ‘queer,’ ‘chicken,’ ‘homo,’ as they tried to dunk my head under the water. At one point, a big crowd joined in –– including kids I had known all my life –– and I was terrified they were trying to drown me.
“My depression became dangerous and I remember thinking of ways to hurt myself,” Troy wrote.
But Troy Masters — who left home at 17 and graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville — focused on creating a life that prioritized being of service to his own intersectional LGBTQ people. He also practiced compassion and last August, Troy reached out to his dying stepfather. A 45-minute Facetime farewell turned into a lovefest of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Troy discovered his advocacy chops as an ad representative at the daring gay and lesbian activist publication Outweek from 1989 to 1991.
“We had no idea that hiring him would change someone’s life, its trajectory and create a lifelong commitment” to the LGBTQ press, says Outweek’s co-founder and former editor-in-chief Gabriel Rotello, now a TV producer. “He was great – always a pleasure to work with. He had very little drama – and there was a lot of drama at Outweek. It was a tumultuous time and I tended to hire people because of their activism,” including Michelangelo Signorile, Masha Gessen, and Sarah Pettit.
Rotello speculates that because Troy “knew what he was doing” in a difficult profession, he was determined to launch his own publication when Outweek folded. “I’ve always been very happy it happened that way for Troy,” Rotello says. “It was a cool thing.”
Troy and friends launched NYQ, renamed QW, funded by record producer and ACT UP supporter Bill Chafin. QW (QueerWeek) was the first glossy gay and lesbian magazine published in New York City featuring news, culture, and events. It lasted for 18 months until Chafin died of AIDS in 1992 at age 35.
The horrific Second Wave of AIDS was peaking in 1992 but New Yorkers had no gay news source to provide reliable information at the epicenter of the epidemic.
“When my business partner died of AIDS and I had to close shop, I was left hopeless and severely depressed while the epidemic raged around me. I was barely functioning,” Troy told VoyageLA in 2018. “But one day, a friend in Moscow, Masha Gessen, urged me to get off my back and get busy; New York’s LGBT community was suffering an urgent health care crisis, fighting for basic legal rights and against an increase in violence. That, she said, was not nothing and I needed to get back in the game.”
Staff of Gay News City in New York City, which Troy Masters founded in 2002.
“We were always in total agreement that the work we were doing was important and that any story we delved into had to be done right,” Schindler wrote in Gay City News.
Though the two “sometimes famously crossed swords,” Troy’s sudden death has special meaning for Schindler. “I will always remember Troy’s sweetness and gentleness. Five days before his death, he texted me birthday wishes with the tag, ‘I hope you get a meaningful spanking today.’ That devilishness stays with me.”
Troy had “very high EI (Emotional Intelligence), Schindler says in a phone call. “He had so much insight into me. It was something he had about a lot of people – what kind of person they were; what they were really saying.”
Troy was also very mischievous. Schindler recounts a time when the two met a very important person in the newspaper business and Troy said something provocative. “I held my breath,” Schindler says. “But it worked. It was an icebreaker. He had the ability to connect quickly.”
The journalistic standard at LGNY and Gay City News was not a question of “objectivity” but fairness. “We’re pro-gay,” Schindler says, quoting Andy Humm. “Our reporting is clear advocacy yet I think we were viewed in New York as an honest broker.”
Schindler thinks Troy’s move to Los Angeles to jump-start his entrepreneurial spirit and reconnect with Arturo, who was already in L.A., was risky. “He was over 50,” Schindler says. “I was surprised and disappointed to lose a colleague – but he was always surprising.”
“In many ways, crossing the continent and starting a print newspaper venture in this digitally obsessed era was a high-wire, counter-intuitive decision,” Troy told VoyageLA. “But I have been relentlessly determined and absolutely confident that my decades of experience make me uniquely positioned to do this.”
Troy launched The Pride L.A. as part of the Mirror Media Group, which publishes the Santa Monica Mirror and other Westside community papers. But on June 12, 2016, the day of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., Troy said he found MAGA paraphernalia in a partner’s office. He immediately plotted his exit. On March 10, 2017, Troy and the “internationally respected” Washington Blade announced the launch of the Los Angeles Blade.
Troy Masters and then-Rep. Adam Schiff. (Photo courtesy of Karen Ocamb)
In a March 23, 2017 commentary promising a commitment to journalistic excellence, Troy wrote: “We are living in a paradigm shifting moment in real time. You can feel it. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Sometimes it’s toxic. Sometimes it’s perplexing, even terrifying. On the other hand, sometimes it’s just downright exhilarating. This moment is a profound opportunity to reexamine our roots and jumpstart our passion for full equality.”
Troy tried hard to keep that commitment, including writing a personal essay to illustrate that LGBTQ people are part of the #MeToo movement. In “Ending a Long Silence,” Troy wrote about being raped at 14 or 15 by an Amtrak employee on “The Floridian” traveling from Dothan, Ala., to Nashville.
“What I thought was innocent and flirtatious affection quickly turned sexual and into a full-fledged rape,” Troy wrote. “I panicked as he undressed me, unable to yell out and frozen by fear. I was falling into a deepening shame that was almost like a dissociation, something I found myself doing in moments of childhood stress from that moment on. Occasionally, even now.”
From the personal to the political, Troy Masters tried to inform and inspire LGBTQ people.
“Just recently he invited us to participate with the LA Blade and other partners to support the LGBTQ forum on Asylum Seekers and Immigrants. He cared about underserved community. He explored LGBTQ who were ignored and forgotten. He wanted to end HIV; help support people living with HIV but most of all, he fought for justice,” Zaldivar says. “I am saddened by his loss. His voice will never be forgotten. We will remember him as an unsung hero. May he rest in peace in the hands of God.”
“It pains me to know that my dear, beautiful and amazing friend Troy is no longer with us … He always gave me and many people light,” Salcedo says. “I know that we are living in dark times right now and we need to understand that our ancestors and transcestors are the one who are going to walk us through these dark times… See you on the other side, my dear and beautiful sibling in the struggle, Troy Masters.”
“Troy was immensely committed to covering stories from the LGBTQ community. Following his move to Los Angeles from New York, he became dedicated to featuring news from the City of West Hollywood in the Los Angeles Blade and we worked with him for many years,” says Joshua Schare, director of Communications for the City of West Hollywood, who knew Troy for 30 years, starting in 1994 as a college intern at OUT Magazine.
“Like so many of us at the City of West Hollywood and in the region’s LGBTQ community, I will miss him and his day-to-day impact on our community.”
Troy Masters accepting a proclamation from the City of West Hollywood. (Photo by Richard Settle for the City of West Hollywood)
“Troy Masters was a visionary, mentor, and advocate; however, the title I most associated with him was friend,” says West Hollywood Mayor John Erickson. “Troy was always a sense of light and working to bring awareness to issues and causes larger than himself. He was an advocate for so many and for me personally, not having him in the world makes it a little less bright. Rest in Power, Troy. We will continue to cause good trouble on your behalf.”
Erickson adjourned the WeHo City Council meeting on Monday in his memory.
Masters launched the Los Angeles Blade with his partners from the Washington Blade, Lynne Brown, Kevin Naff, and Brian Pitts, in 2017.
Cover of the election issue of the Los Angeles Blade.
“Troy’s reputation in New York was well known and respected and we were so excited to start this new venture with him,” says Naff. “His passion and dedication to queer LA will be missed by so many. We will carry on the important work of the Los Angeles Blade — it’s part of his legacy and what he would want.”
AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein, who collaborated with Troy on many projects, says he was “a champion of many things that are near and dear to our heart,” including “being in the forefront of alerting the community to the dangers of Mpox.”
“All of who he was creates a void that we all must try to fill,” Weinstein says. “His death by suicide reminds us that despite the many gains we have made, we’re not all right a lot of the time. The wounds that LGBT people have experienced throughout our lives are yet to be healed even as we face the political storm clouds ahead that will place even greater burdens on our psyches.”
May the memory and legacy of Troy Masters be a blessing.
Veteran LGBTQ journalist Karen Ocamb served as the news editor and reporter for the Los Angeles Blade.
WASHINGTON — Racist text messages invoking slavery raised alarm across the country this week after they were sent to Black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, prompting inquiries by the FBI and other agencies.
The messages, sent anonymously, were reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. They generally used a similar tone but varied in wording.
Some instructed the recipient to show up at an address at a particular time “with your belongings,” while others didn’t include a location. Some of them mentioned the incoming presidential administration.
It wasn’t yet clear who was behind the messages and there was no comprehensive list of where they were sent, but high school and college students were among the recipients.
The FBI said it was in touch with the Justice Department on the messages, and the Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the texts “alongside federal and state law enforcement.” The Ohio Attorney General’s office also said it was looking into the matter.
Tasha Dunham of Lodi, California, said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages Wednesday evening before her basketball practice.
The text not only used her daughter’s name, but it directed her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, where Dunham said they’ve never lived. When they looked up the address, it was the location of a museum.
“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everybody’s just trying to figure out what does this all mean for me? So, I definitely had a lot of fear and concern.”
Her daughter initially thought it was a prank, but emotions are high following Tuesday’s presidential election. Dunham and her family thought it could be more nefarious and reported it to local law enforcement.
“I wasn’t in slavery. My mother wasn’t in slavery. But we’re a couple of generations away. So, when you think about how brutal and awful slavery was for our people, it’s awful and concerning,” Dunham said.
About six middle school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, received the messages too, said Megan Shafer, acting superintendent of the Lower Merion School District.
“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, made even more so by the fact that children have been targeted,” she wrote in a letter to parents.
Students at some major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. The Clemson Police Department said in a statement that it had been notified of the “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.
Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling the messages that targeted some of its students “deeply unsettling.” It urged calm and assured students that the texts likely were from bots or malicious actors with “no real intentions or credibility.”
Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said Black students who are members of the organization’s Missouri State University chapter received texts citing Trump’s win and calling them out by name as being “selected to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeastern Missouri city of Springfield, home of the university, have been notified.
“It points to a well-organized and resourced group that has decided to target Americans on our home soil based on the color of our skin,” Chapel said in a statement.
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland also sent an email to parents stating “many students” received text messages containing “racist threats.”
“Local law enforcement and the FBI are aware of these messages, and law enforcement in some areas have announced they consider the messages low-level threats,” the email said.
Nick Ludlum, a senior vice president for the wireless industry trade group CTIA, said: “Wireless providers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are aggressively working to block them and the numbers that they are coming from.”
David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that they aren’t sure who is behind the messages but estimated they had been sent to more than 10 states, including most Southern states, Maryland, Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. The district’s Metropolitan Police force said in a statement that its intelligence unit was investigating the origins of the message.
Brody said a number of civil rights laws can be applied to hate-related incidents. The leaders of several other civil rights organizations condemned the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, “Hate speech has no place in the South or our nation.”
“The threat – and the mention of slavery in 2024 – is not only deeply disturbing, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the Jim Crow era, and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — Racist text messages invoking slavery raised alarm across the country this week after they were sent to Black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, prompting inquiries by the FBI and other agencies.
The messages, sent anonymously, were reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. They generally used a similar tone but varied in wording.
Some instructed the recipient to show up at an address at a particular time “with your belongings,” while others didn’t include a location. Some of them mentioned the incoming presidential administration.
It wasn’t yet clear who was behind the messages and there was no comprehensive list of where they were sent, but high school and college students were among the recipients.
The FBI said it was in touch with the Justice Department on the messages, and the Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the texts “alongside federal and state law enforcement.” The Ohio Attorney General’s office also said it was looking into the matter.
Tasha Dunham of Lodi, California, said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages Wednesday evening before her basketball practice.
The text not only used her daughter’s name, but it directed her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, where Dunham said they’ve never lived. When they looked up the address, it was the location of a museum.
“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everybody’s just trying to figure out what does this all mean for me? So, I definitely had a lot of fear and concern.”
Her daughter initially thought it was a prank, but emotions are high following Tuesday’s presidential election. Dunham and her family thought it could be more nefarious and reported it to local law enforcement.
“I wasn’t in slavery. My mother wasn’t in slavery. But we’re a couple of generations away. So, when you think about how brutal and awful slavery was for our people, it’s awful and concerning,” Dunham said.
About six middle school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, received the messages too, said Megan Shafer, acting superintendent of the Lower Merion School District.
“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, made even more so by the fact that children have been targeted,” she wrote in a letter to parents.
Students at some major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. The Clemson Police Department said in a statement that it had been notified of the “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.
Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling the messages that targeted some of its students “deeply unsettling.” It urged calm and assured students that the texts likely were from bots or malicious actors with “no real intentions or credibility.”
Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said Black students who are members of the organization’s Missouri State University chapter received texts citing Trump’s win and calling them out by name as being “selected to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeastern Missouri city of Springfield, home of the university, have been notified.
“It points to a well-organized and resourced group that has decided to target Americans on our home soil based on the color of our skin,” Chapel said in a statement.
Nick Ludlum, a senior vice president for the wireless industry trade group CTIA, said: “Wireless providers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are aggressively working to block them and the numbers that they are coming from.”
David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said that they aren’t sure who is behind the messages but estimated they had been sent to more than 10 states, including most Southern states, Maryland, Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. The district’s Metropolitan Police force said in a statement that its intelligence unit was investigating the origins of the message.
Brody said a number of civil rights laws can be applied to hate-related incidents. The leaders of several other civil rights organizations condemned the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, “Hate speech has no place in the South or our nation.”
“The threat — and the mention of slavery in 2024 — is not only deeply disturbing, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the Jim Crow era, and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized.”
____
Associated Press reporter Summer Ballentine contributed to this report from Jefferson City, Missouri.
After 50 years, the cast and writers of Saturday Night Live have continuously evolved to reflect the times.
Marking the milestone anniversary, founding cast member Garrett Morris recently reflected on his experience as the NBC sketch comedy show’s first Black performer and the racism present in the writers’ room in when it launched in 1975.
“I will say to the end of my days: Lorne’s writers had a lot of racism going on,” he told The Guardian. “Lorne himself? Zero racism. Because, remember, when I was hired I was the only Black writer. Lorne wanted to have somebody Black on TV at night-time. People didn’t want that. They were clamoring to make it all white. He didn’t.”
During his five-year run on the show from 1975 to 1980, Morris pushed back at attempts to pigeonhole him into stereotypical Black roles.
“It really threw me when we were going through the first show,” he recalled. “I didn’t have a skit, but I was watching another one. I said to Lorne, ‘There’s a doctor in this skit. Why don’t I play the doctor?’ And he says, ‘Garrett, people might be thrown by a Black doctor.’ Now mind you I had come from New Orleans, where you’re surrounded by Black medical doctors and Black PhDs. In all big cities down south, for that matter.”
Saturday Night Live‘s Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd in 1975.
NBC /Courtesy Everett Collection
Having paved the way for such cast members as Eddie Murphy, Maya Rudolph and Kenan Thompson, the Emmy nominee added, “I feel proud that I was a minuscule part of the beginning of SNL, that I created the chair for the non-white performer.”
Garrett was recently portrayed by Lamorne Morris (no relation) in Jason Reitman‘s Saturday Night, which takes place on Oct. 11, 1975, as a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers change television forever. Formerly titled SNL 1975, the film tells the true story of what happened behind the scenes that night in the 90 minutes leading up to the first-ever broadcast of SNL.
London — There are almost 4,000 emojis to help people express themselves online, but a group of young design students in London says none of them feature Black or mixed-race hairstyles, and they’re determined to change that.
“As a Black creative and someone who’s constantly changing their hair, this campaign is really personal to me,” said Olivia Mushigo, senior creative on the Rise.365 team.
The London youth group is determined to break down beauty stereotypes with the first ever emojis featuring afros, braids, cornrows and locs.
Designer Vanita Brown looks at the final version of one of the Afro hair emojis at the Concorde Youth Club in Hackney, east London, England, Oct. 21, 2024.
Catarina Demony/REUTERS
“I feel like there’s a negative stereotype around coarser hair textures, among like, Afro hair,” project designer Jayzik Duckoo said.
Team member Chavez agreed, adding that, “especially in a school environment, things like people wanting to touch your hair, talk about your hair — it will make you feel like you don’t belong.”
The students started sketching styles — revealing how they’d like to be seen in the digital space to tackle “texturism,” a form of discrimination that perceives afro hair as unprofessional, unattractive or unclean.
“There were so many different designs, it was so hard to just narrow it down to just four,” said Mushigo, “because Black and mixed-race hair is so diverse.”
Difficult work, but Duckoo said the creative process — designing the emojis, “was really fun… it was nice to see how it came out.”
Emojis were first created in Japan in the 1990s. The advent of smart phones and the increased use of text messaging led to a global surge in their use over the last two decades, and this isn’t the first time there’s been a push to make emojis more inclusive. In 2015, Apple created 300 new emojis, some highlighting different races and professions, in response to a backlash from consumers.
The London team’s four new emoji designs will be submitted in April to Unicode, the California-based organization that approves or rejects all new emojis.
“There’s a lot of history behind our hair,” said Joyclen Brodie-Mends Buffong, the founder of the Rise.365 community interest company behind the project. “We take a lot of time to do our hair, so for us it’s important to want to be seen in a positive light.”
Rise.365 has asked others to help promote their cause by searching “Afro hair emoji” on social media and search engines, to boost data around the query, which will help their bid when they submit their proposed emojis in the spring.
For now, they can only wait, and hope their creative and inclusive emojis will make the cut.
Google added that part of the problem it faces in generating AI Overviews is that, for some very specific queries, there’s an absence of high quality information on the web—and there’s little doubt that Lynn’s work is not of high quality.
“The science underlying Lynn’s database of ‘national IQs’ is of such poor quality that it is difficult to believe the database is anything but fraudulent,” Sear said. “Lynn has never described his methodology for selecting samples into the database; many nations have IQs estimated from absurdly small and unrepresentative samples.”
Sear points to Lynn’s estimation of the IQ of Angola being based on information from just 19 people and that of Eritrea being based on samples of children living in orphanages.
“The problem with it is that the data Lynn used to generate this dataset is just bullshit, and it’s bullshit in multiple dimensions,” Rutherford said, pointing out that the Somali figure in Lynn’s dataset is based on one sample of refugees aged between 8 and 18 who were tested in a Kenyan refugee camp. He adds that the Botswana score is based on a single sample of 104 Tswana-speaking high school students aged between 7 and 20 who were tested in English.
Critics of the use of national IQ tests to promote the idea of racial superiority point out not only that the quality of the samples being collected is weak, but also that the tests themselves are typically designed for Western audiences, and so are biased before they are even administered.
“There is evidence that Lynn systematically biased the database by preferentially including samples with low IQs, while excluding those with higher IQs, for African nations,” Sears added, a conclusion backed up by a preprint study from 2020.
Lynn published various versions of his national IQ dataset over the course of decades, the most recent of which, called “The Intelligence of Nations,” was published in 2019. Over the years, Lynn’s flawed work has been used by far-right and racist groups as evidence to back up claims of white superiority. The data has also been turned into a color-coded map of the world, showing sub-Saharan African countries with purportedly low IQ colored red compared to the Western nations, which are colored blue.
“This is a data visualization that you see all over [X, formerly known as Twitter], all over social media—and if you spend a lot of time in racist hangouts on the web, you just see this as an argument by racists who say, ‘Look at the data. Look at the map,’” Rutherford says.
But the blame, Rutherford believes, does not lie with the AI systems alone, but also with a scientific community that has been uncritically citing Lynn’s work for years.
“It’s actually not surprising [that AI systems are quoting it] because Lynn’s work in IQ has been accepted pretty unquestioningly from a huge area of academia, and if you look at the number of times his national IQ databases have been cited in academic works, it’s in the hundreds,” Rutherford said. “So the fault isn’t with AI. The fault is with academia.”
That was the message of the “Catalyzing Change” event hosted by the Independence Blue Cross Foundation on Tuesday at the Kimmel Center. Attempt to right the wrongs built up by years of racial and gender discrimination in the health care system, so that the next generation doesn’t have to deal with those same issues.
It’s part of an ongoing effort to educate the public and emphasize to those who control the purse strings how critical this is.
“The important thing is to level the playing field so everybody can participate,” IBX Foundation President Lorina Marshall-Blake said. “We have to find a way for them to all be at the table.
“It shouldn’t matter your race, creed, gender, sexual orientation. Stop talking about what you’re going to do and do something. … Make sure those who don’t have it will have it.”
Her remarks followed two panel discussions that detailed the barriers at the local and national levels. The first featured three health care professionals who talked about everything from the way health care workers are assessed, to the joys of working with people from birth to death, to the fact that only one penny of every dollar given philanthropically goes to nurses.
“I think we’re worth more than that given our value and our mission,” said Roberta Waite, dean and professor at Georgetown School of Nursing, who was joined on the panel by Eliza E. Heppner, acting Deputy Associate Administrator for the Health, Resources and Services Administration, and Dr. Leon McCrea II, vice dean for educational affairs at Drexel University. “We have inequity right now because that’s what we have designed.
“That’s what our policies have to bear. We have an obligation to look at it.”
Following that came a national panel featuring Anna Heard, senior policy analyst for the National Governors Association and Gindhar Maliya, senior policy officer, of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. They talked about the obstacles faced in overcoming inequity, especially in today’s polarized political climate.
Jon Marks/For PhillyVoice
Roberta Waite, dean of Georgetown School of Nursing; Leon McCrea II, vice dean for educational affairs at Drexel University; Eliza Heppner, acting deputy health administrator for the Health Resources and Services Administration; and TaRhonda Thomas, a 6ABC reporter, take part in a panel discussion at the ‘Catalyzing Change’ health care forum hosted by the IBX Foundation on Tuesday.
“Our policies have been fundamental to racial inequities dating back to slavery and Jim Crow,” said Maliya. “States are laboratories of democracy sometimes for better or worse.
“Every state has increased access to health care and there’s evidence to show it is good investment.
“But when it comes to the focus on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) there is a concerted, very well-funded effort in this country to portray it as divisive, illegal and un-American. Our people are dedicated to show that’s a misconception. When DEI works, it has potential to benefit all of us.”
Stephen P. Fera, executive vice president of public affairs at IBX, said things need to change now. He noted the IBX Foundation expects to have awarded more than $85 million by the end of the year, dating back to its inception in 2011.
“What we do with this is critical,” Fera said. “If we don’t, we’ll be having the same conversation three, five or more years from now with no better results for the health care system.
“We’d better get busy.”
Otherwise, the panels stressed, the playing field will continue being more and more uneven.
NEW ORLEANS — A federal appellate court is reviewing a civil rights lawsuit alleging a south Louisiana parish engaged in racist land-use policies to place polluting industries in majority-Black communities.
The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard oral arguments on Monday for a lawsuit filed by community groups claiming St. James Parish “intentionally discriminated against Black residents” by encouraging industrial facilities to be built in areas with predominantly Black populations “while explicitly sparing White residents from the risk of environmental harm.”
The groups, Inclusive Louisiana, Rise St. James and Mt. Triumph Baptist Church, seek a halt to future industrial development in the parish. They say they have suffered health impacts from pollution, diminished property values and violations of religious liberty as a result of the parish’s land use system.
The plaintiffs say that 20 of the 24 industrial facilities were in two sections of the parish with majority-Black populations when they filed the complaint in March 2023.
The parish is located along a heavily industrialized stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, known as the Chemical Corridor, often referred to by environmental groups as “Cancer Alley” because of the high levels of suspected cancer-causing pollution emitted there.
The lawsuit comes as the federal government has taken steps during the Biden administration to address the legacy of environmental racism. Federal officials have written stricter environmental protections and committed tens of billions of dollars in funding.
“The decisions made in this courtroom will resonate far beyond our borders, impacting frontline communities nationwide who are yearning for acknowledgment and accountability,” said Shamell Lavigne, a St. James Parish resident and a leader with Rise St. James, a local environmental justice organization. “We are advocating for our future and the wellbeing of our children.”
In November 2023, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana had dismissed the lawsuit against St. James Parish largely on procedural grounds, ruling the plaintiffs had filed their lawsuit too late. But he added, “this Court cannot say that their claims lack a basis in fact or rely on a meritless legal theory.”
Barbier had accepted the parish’s argument that the lawsuit hinged on its 2014 land-use plan, which generally shielded white neighborhoods from industrial development and left majority-Black neighborhoods, schools and churches without the same protections. The plan also described largely Black sections of the parish as “future industrial” sites, a classification described by the plaintiffs as a form of “racial cleansing.”
Regardless, the plaintiffs had missed the legal window to sue the parish by not filing their lawsuit within one year after the land-use plan was formalized, as required by statute of limitations laws, the judge had ruled.
During the appeals hearing, Fifth Circuit Court Judge Catharina Haynes said that the argument raised by the parish “basically makes it sound like if you didn’t sue within a year, well, heck, you can be discriminated against in a bunch of different ways for the rest of eternity.”
Carroll Devillier, Jr., a lawyer representing the parish, responded that residents had already had the opportunity to challenge the 2014 land use plan when it was being formulated. He also said the plaintiffs “have nothing” to prove they suffered from harms from discrimination in the year before they filed their lawsuit in March 2023.
Haynes also observed that parish officials, including those representing majority Black areas, had voted to support the 2014 land-use plan. “Why would you vote to discriminate against yourself?” she asked.
Pamela Spees, a lawyer for the Center of Constitutional Rights representing the plaintiffs, said the land-use plan could be approved by government officials but still reinforce discrimination.
After the hearing, Spees said that the approval of the land use plan had to be understood in the context of ongoing structural racism.
At its core, the lawsuit alleges civil rights violations under the 13th and 14th amendments, stating the land-use system in the parish allowing for industrial buildout primarily in majority-Black communities remains shaped by the history of slavery, white supremacy and Jim Crow laws and governance.
The parish’s 2014 land use plan is just one piece of evidence among many revealing persistent and ongoing discrimination by the parish, Spees said.
As evidence of more recent alleged discrimination, the lawsuit highlights the parish’s decision in August 2022 to impose a moratorium on large solar complexes after a proposed 3,900-acre (1,580-hectare) solar project upset residents of the mostly white neighborhood of Vacherie, who expressed concerns about lowering property values and debris from storms. The parish did not take up a request for a moratorium on heavy industrial expansion raised by the plaintiffs, the lawsuit states.
The parish’s lawyer, Devillier, Jr., told judges the solar moratorium had applied to the entire parish and that the plaintiffs’ request for a moratorium on industrial expansion, which initially came in the form of a letter sent by the plaintiffs in 2019, was “never formally considered” by the parish.
The lawsuit also argues the parish failed to identify and protect the likely hundreds of burial sites of enslaved people by allowing industrial facilities to build on and limit access to the areas, preventing the descendants of slaves from memorializing the sites. The federal judge tossed out that part of the lawsuit, noting the sites were on private property not owned by the parish.
Lawyers for St. James Parish have said the lawsuit employed overreaching claims and “inflammatory rhetoric.” Victor J. Franckiewicz, who has served as special counsel to St. James Parish for land-use matters since 2013, declined to comment after the hearing. St. James Parish did not respond to a request for comment.
“How can a judge rule a statute of limitations on clean air, clean water and clean soil? There should be none,” said Gail LeBoeuf, 72, a life-long St. James resident and a plaintiff in the case who co-founded Inclusive Louisiana.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found in a 2003 report that St. James Parish ranked higher than the national average for certain cancer deaths. Both majority Black sections of the parish are ranked as having a high risk of cancer from toxic pollutants according to an EPA screening tool based on emissions reported by nearby facilities, the complaint noted.
___
Jack Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96.
‘If we have to change the rules, let’s change them,’ says conservative Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau.
France’s interior minister has signalled he will push for tighter immigration policies as the far right seeks to use a gruesome murder to put pressure on the government.
Addressing the arrest of a Moroccan man for the murder of a 19-year-old female student, Bruno Retailleau said on Wednesday that the “abominable crime” required not just rhetoric, but action, as far-right parties demanded when commenting on the case.
“It is up to us, as public leaders, to refuse to accept the inevitable and to develop our legal arsenal, to protect the French,” Retailleau said. “If we have to change the rules, let’s change them.”
The hardline rhetoric on migration is not new from Retailleau, a member of the conservative Republicans party who has previously advocated for stricter immigration rules and quicker deportations.
Outgoing French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is applauded by newly-appointed Bruno Retailleau during a handover ceremony in Paris, September 23 [Stephanie Lecocq/Reuters]
The suggestion is in line with the demands of the far-right National Rally (RN) party, which has threatened it could topple France’s fragile governing coalition if its immigration concerns are not addressed.
“It’s time for this government to act: our compatriots are angry and will not be content with just words,” RN chief Jordan Bardella said of the murder of the student, identified only by her first name Philippine.
Greens lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau pushed back against the anti-migrant rhetoric, warning that the far right was using the murder case to “spread its racist hatred”.
Bungled deportation
The unnamed suspect in the killing has been identified as a 22-year-old male Moroccan national.
He was arrested on Tuesday in the Swiss canton of Geneva, according to the AFP news agency.
According to the prosecutors, the suspect was convicted in 2021 of a rape committed in 2019, when he was a minor.
The suspect had been due to be deported from France after serving time in jail for the crime, Le Monde newspaper reported.
He was sent on June 20 to a detention centre for undocumented migrants pending his removal.
However, a judge set him free on September 3, noting that the deportation process faced administrative delays, under the condition that he check in regularly with police.
Three days later, the paperwork to deport him was completed, but the man had disappeared, they said.
France routinely issues deportation orders, but only about 7 percent of them are enforced, compared with 30 percent across the European Union.
(CNN) — A student athlete is no longer enrolled at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania after they allegedly etched a racial slur onto the chest of a teammate, school officials say.
Several students were attending an informal gathering of the swim team at an on-campus residence on September 6 when one of them used a box cutter to scratch the n-word on another student’s chest, according to statements made by the college and the family who says their son was the victim.
“The reprehensible act was committed by a fellow student-athlete, someone he considered his friend, someone whom he trusted,” the family said in an anonymous statement published last week by the college’s student newspaper, The Gettysburgian.
It’s unclear whether the swimmer was expelled or faced other disciplinary action from the college. Jamie Yates, a spokeswoman for the college, told CNN she could only describe the student’s status as “no longer enrolled” due to student privacy laws. None of the students involved have been identified.
The liberal arts college in southern Pennsylvania and the family said in a joint statement Monday the investigation into the incident is still ongoing, adding they “recognize the gravity and seriousness of this situation and hope it can serve as a transformative moment for our community and beyond.”
Bob Iuliano, the president of Gettysburg College, condemned the student’s actions in message sent to the campus community last week, and thanked the swim team’s upperclass students for first reporting what happened.
“No matter the relationship, and no matter the motivation, there is no place on this campus for words or actions that demean, degrade, or marginalize based on one’s identity and history,” he said.
In a letter to the school community Monday, Iuliano said the college found the incident was “not a byproduct of an unhealthy athletic team culture or a reflection on the team itself.”
“We are upset. We need to acknowledge the harm the incident has imposed on members of our community who by virtue of their identity, race, culture, and history have long been marginalized in our society through language and actions precisely like those that took place,” he wrote in the letter.
Iuliano said the college’s chief diversity officer will be leading an effort to reflect on the incident and take “concrete actions.”
The family has not filed a complaint with local police as of Monday, Gettysburg Police Chief Robert W. Glenny Jr. told CNN.
“Campus Safety advised that the victim was ‘encouraged’ (by the college) to contact law enforcement, the victim had chosen not to and to let the college disciplinary process handle this matter,” Glenny Jr. said.
The family said in their Monday statement they are aware “they retain the right to pursue local, state and federal criminal charges in this matter.” Last week, the family said they had filed complaints with the local and state NAACP and the Pennsylvania Commission on Human Relations.
CNN has reached out to the NAACP groups. The state commission told CNN it was aware of the incident but noted it does not publicly confirm or comment on any complaints.
The college had said last week that the students involved in the incident would not participate in swim team’s activities pending a conduct review, according to a statement shared with the student newspaper.
The family who says their son was the victim said he was “interviewed by the members of the coaching staff and summarily dismissed (not suspended) from the swim team.”
In their Monday joint statement, the college and family did not indicate whether any involved students, including the victim, have been allowed to resume swim team activities. CNN has reached out to the college for comment about the students’ status.
There are 2,207 full-time undergraduates enrolled at Gettysburg College this fall. Among the students from the United States, 62% identify as White and 21% identify as people of color, according to the school.
Video shows Israeli middle schoolers dancing and chanting hate messages at a Palestinian classmate who called for a free Palestine and accused Israeli forces of being “murderers”.
At least two students at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania were suspended from the swim team after a report that a racial slur was scratched onto a student’s body, officials said.
School administrators received “a deeply concerning report of a racial slur being scratched onto a student using a plastic or ceramic tool,” officials at the 2,200-student private liberal arts school in Gettysburg said in a statement last week.
“This is a serious report, which is being actively assessed through the student conduct process,” the college said. “At this point, the students involved are not participating in swim team activities.”
The school declined to release further details, citing that process, as well as privacy laws.
The family of the student who was targeted told Gettysburg College’s student newspaper, The Gettysburgian, that their son was the victim of a hate crime. They said the perpetrator, someone he “trusted,” used a box cutter to cut the N-word onto their son’s chest, according to the newspaper.
The alleged victim is among the students barred from participating in swim team activities as the college investigates the incident, said the family, who said in a statement to the newspaper that, within two days of the incident, their son “was interviewed by the members of the coaching staff and summarily dismissed (not suspended) from the swim team.”
The Gettysburgian did not identify anyone by name.
The incident is believed to have happened during an “informal social gathering at an on-campus residence” and was first reported by upper-class students from the swim team, Gettysburg College President Robert Iuliano said. The family said it happened on Sept. 6.
“Two weeks ago on the evening of Friday, Sept. 6, our son became the victim of a hate crime. The incident took place at a gathering of swim team members,” the alleged victim’s family said in their statement to The Gettysburgian. “It is important to note that he was the only person of color at this gathering. The reprehensible act was committed by a fellow student-athlete, someone he considered his friend, someone whom he trusted. This student used a box cutter to etch the N-word across his chest.”
It was not immediately clear how the slur was allegedly scratched on the student’s chest. Neither the school administrators nor the family elaborated in their statements.
Iuliano described feeling “profound distress about what happened” and the impact on those long underrepresented on the campus, as well as the implications “for a community continuing its evolving efforts to create a truly inclusive environment.”
“No matter the relationship, and no matter the motivation, there is no place on this campus for words or actions that demean, degrade, or marginalize based on one’s identity and history,” he said in a statement that also cautioned against speculation “based on fragments of information that may or may not be accurate.”
The city’s police chief, Robert Glenny Jr., said he contacted the college after hearing news reports and was told the victim chose to handle the matter through the college’s internal process, despite college officials encouraging the person to take the matter to police, WGAL-TV reported.
WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump on Thursday decried antisemitism hours after an explosive CNN report detailed how one of his allies running for North Carolina governor made a series of racial and sexual comments on a website where he also referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson vowed to remain in the race despite the report, and the Trump campaign appeared to be distancing itself from the candidate while still calling the battleground state a vital part to winning back the White House. Trump has frequently voiced his support for Robinson, who has been considered a rising star in his party despite a history of inflammatory remarks about race and abortion.
Trump did not comment on the allegations during his Thursday address to a group of Jewish donors in Washington. His campaign issued a statement about the CNN story that did not mention Robinson, saying instead that Trump “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country” and that North Carolina was a “vital part of that plan.”
Robinson’s reported remarks — including a 2012 comment in which he said he preferred Adolf Hitler to the leadership in Washington — clashed with Trump’s denunciations of antisemitism in Washington and his claim that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, sympathized with enemies of Israel. The story also could threaten Trump’s chances of winning North Carolina, a key battleground state, with Robinson already running well behind his Democratic opponent in public polls.
“This story is not about the governor’s race in North Carolina. It’s about the presidential race,” said Paul Shumaker, a Republican pollster who’s worked for Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and warned that Trump could risk losing a state he won in 2016 and 2020.
“The question is going to be, does Mark Robinson cost Donald Trump the White House?” Shumaker added.
After allegations against Robinson became public, a spokesman for Harris’ campaign, Ammar Moussa, reposted on social media a photo of Trump and the embattled candidate. “Donald Trump has a Mark Robinson problem,” he wrote.
The North Carolina Republican Party issued a statement standing by Robinson, noting he “categorically denied the allegations made by CNN but that won’t stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.”
Trump has angled to make inroads among Black voters and frequently aligned himself with Robinson along the campaign trail, which has more and more frequently taken him to North Carolina. At a rally in Greensboro, he called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” in reference to the civil rights leader, for his speaking ability.
Robinson has been on the trail with Trump as recently as last month, when he appeared with the GOP nominee at an event in Asheboro, North Carolina.
Recent polls of North Carolina voters show Trump and Harris locked in a close race. The same polls show Democrat Josh Stein with a roughly 10-point lead over Robinson.
Both Trump and Harris, the Democratic nominee, were making appearances meant to fire up their core supporters, with Harris participating in a livestream with Oprah Winfrey.
Trump appeared Thursday with Miriam Adelson, a co-owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and widow of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
“My promise to Jewish Americans is this: With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House,” Trump said during the donor event in Washington, titled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America.”
“But in all fairness, I already am,” Trump added.
Trump also has been criticized for his association with extremists who spew antisemitic rhetoric such as far-right activist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. And when former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke endorsed Trump in 2016, Trump responded in a CNN interview that he knew “nothing about David Duke, I know nothing about white supremacists.”
But during his four years in office Trump approved a series of policy changes long sought by many advocates of Israel, such as moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.
In his remarks, Trump criticized Harris over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and for what he called antisemitic protests on college campuses and elsewhere.
“Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you or to protect your children,” Trump said. He also repeated a talking point that Jewish voters who vote for Democrats “should have their head examined.”
Multiple attendees at the event said they weren’t familiar with the story about Robinson or declined to discuss it. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a conservative North Carolina Republican who was asked about the CNN report beforehand, told reporters she wasn’t taking questions.
Later Thursday, Trump was scheduled to address the Israeli-American Council National Summit to honor the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. That summit will also focus on the fight against antisemitism.
Harris on Thursday faced pressure from parts of her liberal base over the war. Leaders of the Democratic protest vote movement “Uncommitted” said the group would not endorse Harris for president, but also urged supporters to vote against Trump. The group, which opposes the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.
“Uncommitted” drew hundreds of thousands of votes in this year’s Democratic primaries, surfacing a rift within the party. The group has warned that some Democratic voters may stay home in November, particularly in places like Michigan.
Harris’ campaign did not directly address the group’s announcement, but said in a statement that she will “continue working to bring the war in Gaza to an end in a way where Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”
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Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
Racism is a generational obstacle that is still affecting Black Americans today. Black people have persevered through this obstacle, but the encounters of discrimination and harm have taken a toll on people. One group under this umbrella who isn’t considered enough regarding racism’s toll is young Black boys. Young men are often told to man up and get over it when it comes to pain and discomfort. In regards to racism, studies have shown that they have either acted out or internalized it when they have been exposed to it.
Dr. Assaf Oshri is a College of Family and Consumer Sciences professor at the University of Georgia. He is the lead author of the report about racism’s toll on young Black boys. He shares how racism has led to increased rates of depression in Black youth and illustrates why now is the time to step in for their mental health.
“I’m very interested in the emotional well-being of our youth. I think stressors that come from the environment, including cultural stress, discrimination, and socioeconomic stress, accumulate. It becomes chronic and has implications on how we develop,” said Dr. Assaf Oshri, a developmental psychologist and director of the Georgia Center for Developmental Science at the University of Georgia.
“The youth is our future, and this is when you can target, intervene, and help. You don’t do it when somebody already has mental health issues or finds himself in jail and then put the blame on them,” said Dr. Oshri.
The University of Georgia released the report in June 2024. Dr. Oshri co-authored the study with Dr. Sierra Carter of Georgia State University. Researchers collected data from 1500 young men over three years. The young men’s responses to feeling mistreated or unaccepted because of their race were measured by Dr. Oshri and company.
The results uncovered the youth have been internalizing and externalizing their emotions. Dr. Oshir explains that internalizing involves withholding their feelings, which leads to depression and anxiety. Externalizing deals with expressing their emotions, which can resemble aggression, acting out, and other forms of delinquency.
“I’m aware that cultural stress has dire consequences. We have hard evidence that we have something that we need to pay attention to. I want to study and document the mechanism of this stress so I can help prevent it,” said Dr. Oshri.
The UGA professor depicts the psychological effects happening inside the youth’s mind. A part of the brain called the amygdala detects threats and regulates emotions. According to Dr. Oshir, the data from the study reveals the amygdala of young Black boys shuts down when they are faced with these negative images of racism.
This shutdown causes the youth to internalize these emotions. The research shows that the suppression of brain activation in that area was correlated to less problematic behavior in the boys. On the other hand, High activity of the amygdala during exposure to negative racial experiences saw problematic behaviors. Both sides take an emotional toll on the youth.
Dr. Oshir suggested talking to children is a way to combat the problem. He elaborates that asking how they feel emotionally can make a difference. For the young boys who internalize the pain, some signs parents can be aware of are withdrawal, quietness, anxiety, feeling sad, and depression. A follow-up step is to prepare them for potential racial bias they may encounter. Dr. Oshir shares that parents who teach their children to be proud of being black can guard against some of the harmful effects of racism.
Young Black boys do not have to bear the emotional toll of racism alone. If people step in and support them and provide a space for them to express their feelings when they experience it. We can have a lot more emotionally healthy child around us. Dr. Oshir encourages everyone to take this matter seriously, or it can grow into a more significant problem for everyone.
“We are all paying for the cultural assault our kids are experiencing. We’re paying it emotionally in terms of the family and the community. We will pay for it financially because people who experience mental health stress will eventually have to treat it. That will have financial consequences for society,” said Dr. Oshir.
At Tuesday’s presidential debate, Donald Trump launched into a rant about Haitian immigrants kidnapping and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. “They’re eating the dogs!” he bellowed. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats! They’re eating the pets of the people that live there!” No spectators were allowed inside the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where the debate was held, which meant Trump’s live audience consisted primarily of Kamala Harris, two stone-faced moderators from ABC News, and the cavernous silence of the auditorium. He looked and sounded unwell, like a man who had totally lost control of himself.
Observers were quick to assume that Trump had fallen for a right-wing conspiracy theory that began as a rumor simmering in the bowels of Facebook and was later pushed by, among others, his own vice-presidential candidate, J.D. Vance. But that impression was somewhat misleading. Though Trump had spent much of the evening spiraling off-topic, his rant about Haitians was made at least partially by design. The point was not whether the claims were true or false but to snatch at any excuse to proclaim that brown and Black immigrants should be ostracized — and to use a cadre of conservative influencers and memelords to encourage a conspiratorial frenzy that could easily spill into violence.
It was Vance who first brought the Springfield rumor to Trump’s attention. Since the pandemic, the city has attracted as many as 20,000 Haitian immigrants with promises of warehouse jobs and manufacturing work. Last year, one of them veered a minivan into oncoming traffic and struck a school bus, killing an 11-year-old boy. The boy’s father has since insisted his son’s death was an accident and implored people not to exploit it for hateful ends, but that is precisely what happened. There remains no evidence that Haitian migrants have been killing and eating pets — a fact that has been confirmed by both the police and countless reporters who have investigated the rumor. Yet on Monday, the day before the debate, Vance posted about it on X: “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
The post soon began percolating throughout the conservative web. Ted Cruz and Elon Musk posted memes of kittens begging to be saved from Haitian dinner plates, racking up hundreds of thousands of reposts. Even after local authorities had confirmed the claim was baseless, Vance was undeterred, inviting his followers to “keep the cat memes flowing” anyway. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked him, “Why push something that’s not true?” Vance replied with a slight smirk, “Whether those exact rumors turn out to be mostly true, somewhat true, whatever the case may be, this town has been ravaged by 20,000 migrants coming in.”
When Trump boosted the story at the debate, the reverberations were felt instantly. A so-called social-media war room that included the notorious conspiracy theorists Laura Loomer, Jack Posobiec, and Chaya Raichik spammed the web with defenses of Trump and attacks on Springfield’s Haitian population. Google Trends reported that the top search in 49 states during the debate was “abortion” — except in Ohio, where it was “immigration.” The day after the debate, Musk responded to Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris on X by pledging to “give” her a child and “guard” her cats. On Thursday, bomb threats in Springfield containing what the city’s mayor, Rob Rue, described to the Washington Post as “hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians” prompted the evacuations of City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Springfield Driver’s Exam Station, an Ohio License Bureau, and two schools — the Springfield Academy of Excellence and Fulton Elementary.
“We want to move forward together,” Rue told the New York Times of the unwanted attention Trump’s rant has brought to his city, “and it just makes it more difficult to do that when we have violent actions and threats.” The chaos continued on Friday, when police announced they had received unspecified “information” that led them to close an additional middle school and evacuate two more elementary schools. At a press conference in California, Trump said “mass deportations” of immigrants could begin in Springfield if he is elected president.
It was all emblematic of the former president’s ability to turn whole communities upside down with just a few words. For all the ways Trump has declined of late, he remains masterful at reading and cultivating his base, which wants stories about immigrants so grotesque that their xenophobic paranoias feel not only sane but righteous. Somewhat new are the droves of conservative influencers descending on Springfield and spreading viral videos of residents calling immigrants “sand monkeys.”
It’s worth remembering that we’ve seen Trump make this play before. His lies about endemic migrant crime date back to his campaign announcement in 2015 when he characterized all Mexican immigrants as “rapists.” Ahead of both the 2018 midterms and the 2020 general election, the then-president induced panic about invading migrant caravans that abruptly disappeared from his rhetoric after votes were cast. Haiti itself has made a previous appearance on Trump’s reported list of “shithole” countries whose denizens he sought to deny immigration protections.
Trump’s brand of conspiratorial lying transformed his unfounded claims of election theft in 2020 into a rabid mob that descended on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Now, the question of whether Trump’s lies lead to actual violent behavior is no longer conjectural. And as Vance helpfully articulated, the point of the lying is to capture and channel a desired mood, a rallying cause that motivates people to action.
The Republican ticket’s exploitation of that mood has now sent hundreds of Springfield children fleeing from their schools, led to the terrorization of countless city employees, reopened the psychic wounds of a grieving father, and placed a target on the backs of a migrant minority that was already regarded with suspicion. It reaffirms that Trump’s vision for returning to power will likely require an indiscriminate range of casualties. What we saw onstage on Tuesday was not merely a meltdown but a vision of the future: an angry man howling at hordes of disciples he does not see, who await his signal to spring into action.
President Joe Biden has denounced election-season attacks on the Haitian American community in the United States, calling out Republican leaders for fear-mongering.
Speaking on Friday at a White House brunch billed as a “celebration of Black excellence”, Biden warned that Haitian Americans were a “community that’s under attack in our country right now”.
His remarks were a rebuke to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick JD Vance, both of whom have spread unfounded rumours about Haitian migrants and asylum seekers in the US.
“It’s simply wrong. There’s no place in America” for that kind of rhetoric, Biden said, without naming Trump directly.
“This has to stop, what he’s doing. This has to stop.”
Trump — a former Republican president — and Vance, a senator from Ohio, have campaigned on a largely anti-immigrant platform, stirring fears of mass migration and crime at rallies across the US.
In recent weeks, both men have zeroed in on the blossoming Haitian American community in Springfield, Ohio, where racial and ethnic tensions have simmered.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at a press conference at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on September 13 [David Swanson/Reuters]
Springfield, part of the country’s industrial Rust Belt, has sought to bolster its local economy in recent years by welcoming newcomers to the city.
But as the Haitian American community grew, so too did the backlash. An estimated 15,000 Haitian immigrants have moved to the area — though officials on the city commission last year cited a lower estimate, between 4,000 and 7,000.
Some longtime residents called on the city commission to “stop them from coming”.
Tensions further escalated in August 2023, when a Haitian national was involved in a car crash that overturned a school bus and killed an 11-year-old child on the first day of school.
While the boy’s family has called on residents to stop the “hate”, attacks on the Haitian American community have continued to spread, attracting national attention.
In recent weeks, unfounded rumours have ricocheted across the internet that Haitian Americans are eating pets, echoing an anti-immigrant trope with a long history in the US.
The rumour appears to have originated from a screenshot, supposedly taken from a private Facebook group. And city officials have publicly denied there was any basis for it.
Even Vance acknowledged the murky nature of the allegations. “It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false,” he wrote in a social media post on September 10.
A counter-protester in Palo Alto, California, references Trump’s fear-mongering about pets being eaten in Springfield, Ohio, on September 13 [Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters]
But Trump and Vance have since repeated the rumour multiple times, including at high-profile events like the September 10 presidential debate.
“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in,” he said at the televised debate, viewed by 67 million people. “They’re eating the cats.”
The increased scrutiny on Springfield has led to multiple threats, reportedly linked to anti-immigrant sentiment. On Thursday, city hall was evacuated after a bomb threat. On Friday, other city buildings were likewise emptied after emails warned of an explosive device — including several schools.
Nevertheless, that same day, Trump revisited his attacks on the Haitian American community in a news conference at his golf club outside of Los Angeles, California.
“In Springfield, Ohio, 20,000 illegal Haitian migrants have descended upon a town of 58,000 people, destroying their way of life,” he said. “Even the town doesn’t like to talk about it because it sounds so bad for the town.”
He said the city — as well as Aurora, Colorado — would be a centrepiece for his immigration crackdown, should he be re-elected in November’s election.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” he said. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora.”
