On September 10, in the middle of a debate against his opponent, Kamala Harris, Donald Trump made an exit that was surprising to say the least. “In Springfield, they eat the dogs, the people who come, they eat the cats. They eat the residents’ pets”asserted the American presidential candidate. « Ils »these are the Haitian immigrants living in this small town in Ohio. Since then, although this assertion has been formally denied by the local police, the mayor and the governor of Springfield (both Republicans), the Haitian community of the city has suffered an increase in insults and threats. While the misinformation went viral on social networks, the CBS channel revealed, on Sunday September 22, a survey according to which 69% of the former president’s voters considered this fake news to be “probably/definitely true”.
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Mr. Trump’s strategy is paying off all the more as Americans have a particularly strong bond with their pets. Thus, according to a study conducted in July 2023 by the Pew Research Center, 62% of them live with at least one pet. Among them, 97% say they consider them a member of their family. “Donald Trump hits right into the racist imagination of the barbaric immigrant, explain au MondeGrace Ly, writer and anti-racist activist. The idea is to say: they can live here, work, but deep down they are savages, they will never be like us. » This type of stigma does not only concern Haitians.
As a Frenchwoman of Chinese-Cambodian origin, Grace Ly recounts in her book Young girl model (Fayard, 2018) the many preconceived ideas concerning, in particular, the diet of Asians, suspected of eating domestic animals. These prejudices are common in the United States and Europe. “My parents ran a Chinese restaurant, and I was often asked what was in the spring rolls, if it was true that there was dog in them, she says. Many people have in mind the “ravioli apartments” of the M6 reports, with immigrants clandestinely cooking meals in unsanitary accommodation, in deplorable hygienic conditions. »
From there to thinking that Asians clandestinely cook our favorite furballs, there is only one step, taken by some. Thus, in a village in Isère, a woman of Vietnamese origin and her husband filed a complaint against their neighbor for harassment. She, convinced that they are trying to capture her cat to eat it, has been knocking on their door every day for four years, shouting: “Cat thieves!” »
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