The Plight Of Erika Lee

​         I feel sorry for Erika Lee. Then I don't. Then I do. I mostly do.
         Erika Lee is the unwise and unfortunate Facebook user from Springfield, Ohio who posted a bit of idle gossip she'd heard from a neighbor who heard it from her daughter who heard it from a friend that Haitians had been seen carving up the neighbor's daughter's friend's butchered cat to eat it while it hung from a tree branch. Ms. Lee also shared that she'd been told that Haitians were likewise butchering and eating dogs and the ducks and geese in the park.
        That outlandish and totally made-up nonsense, which should have been laughed off then blown off as the stuff of urban legends - in this case one with a racist, anti-immigrant twist -  was instead posted by Ms. Lee on a Springfield community Facebook page.

       The post was discovered by individuals who roam the metaverse mining for just such gems of potential propaganda, and it went viral on right-wing social media sites until it was snatched up by JD Vance, who has spewed its fear-mongering poison far and wide,

...and by Donald Trump, who has repeated, preached, stoked, and doubled down on the lie about the Haitians of Springfield killing and eating the town's animals.

     The result has been, as most of the sentient world by now knows, that life in the small town Springfield, Ohio has been upended, thrown into a turmoil of fear and confusion marked by bomb threats, school and business closings, the arrival of anti-immigrant hate groups marching in the town,​

...threats to and harassment of  Haitians now living in fear of their neighbors, fear for their children, fear of going out in public. So great is the racially-charged community unrest and fear that some businesses have hired security guards and the Governor of Ohio has sent highway patrol troopers to Springfield to guard the schools. 
       And the match that set off this powder keg was struck by Erika Lee when she posted that one thoughtless post.
​       Which she now bitterly regrets, and for which she feels great guilt.
       “I was not raised with hate,” she tearfully told The New York Times. “My whole family is biracial. I never wanted to cause problems for anyone.”     
        Which makes one wonder: If Erika Lee's whole family is biracial, shouldn't she, of all people, have known what problems such an accusation as she made would cause for the people of color against whom she made it?
       “It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” she said  to NBC News. "I didn't think it would ever get past Springfield."
         Which begs the question: What exactly did Erika Lee mean to happen from that post? Mayhaps just a little local excitement, a little neighborly outrage over the city's Haitian population? Was there not even a touch of malicious mischief  in her heart when she posted those words?  Maybe just a little?
        Possibly at this point not even Erika Lee can say what was in her mind and heart  when she pressed the little "send" icon that would detonate a firestorm in her city and in her life.
        On the other hand, at least Erika Lee now feels sincere contrition for the conflagration she inadvertently caused, unlike those who are truly to blame for the harm to Springfield  brought on by that dumb Facebook post that will live, at least for a little while longer, in infamy.

       Erika Lee has lived and learned. The true culprits have not and likely never will.