WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — As a child, Jozy Altidore faced bullies blocking him from his shortcut home from school because of his skin color. As a professional soccer player, he had to contend with thousands of fans mocking him with monkey chants.
Altidore, a Haitian American, knows how it feels to be targeted. To be denigrated. To be treated less than human. And he feels for his fellow Haitian immigrants who fled danger in their own country only to find themselves thrust into a toxic churn of unsubstantiated allegations in America.
“It’s disappointing,” Altidore, a former U.S. soccer striker, tells NewsNation. “We see the danger it can cause, the embarrassment, the shame and overall insecurity for an entire community.”
Springfield, Ohio, has been propelled into the international spotlight after a baseless assertion Haitian migrants were abducting and eating household pets spread from a Facebook post to leaders of the Republican Party.
Springfield, home to 58,000 people — including 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian migrants — about 45 miles west of Columbus, has faced a barrage of bomb threats since former President Donald Trump amplified this accusation to over 67 million people during his debate on national television against Vice President Kamala Harris despite police and city officials repeatedly rebutting it.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats,” Trump said. “They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
While the threats in Springfield have prompted temporary school and hospital closures, Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance defended the dissemination of the falsehoods Sunday, saying he was willing to “create stories” to get media attention on the issue of immigration caused by the Biden-Harris administration’s “open border” policies.
Altidore, born to Haitian parents in New Jersey and raised in Boca Raton, Florida, condemned the dangerous rhetoric, pleading that compassion should be shown toward the community, regardless of one’s political affiliation.
“There’s a real lack of compassion. We have to be more conscious about what comes out of our mouths,” he said, noting that he has never witnessed or heard of anyone stealing and eating cats or dogs.
Altidore’s childhood in Florida was spent in a community that has one of the highest concentrations of Haitians in the United States. From the language spoken at home to the moral values his parents taught him, Altidore said he appreciated Haitian culture from the very beginning while at the same time integrating as American citizens.
“Every person who has immigrated to the United States from Haiti will tell you that they are fortunate, happy and thankful for the opportunity to come to a place where they can start over and build in an economy that invites people like them,” Altidore said. “But at the same time, you will be looked at and almost frowned upon at times … that’s always been there.”
Altidore said a deluge of racism persisted throughout his life and professional soccer career.
“From an early age, I recognized that there’s tension and adversity when you’re a Black male,” Altidore said. “Educate yourself, have compassion and treat others the way you want to be treated. This is a country that is filled with immigrants and thrives with immigrants.”
NewsGuard, a company that monitors online misinformation, found the viral rumor was sparked by a woman with no firsthand knowledge of the facts. The woman behind the since-deleted Facebook post later told NBC News she feels remorse for the migrants impacted by it.
“I admire her for apologizing,” Altidore concluded of the woman who made the initial Facebook post. “To see her do that — and to hold herself accountable — it is refreshing.”