FCB Faith is your rhythm and prey station. I listen, my mom listens, pretty much the whole family. I cannot, I cannot. I can. Said, don't, don't and no joke, don't. Listen to FCB Faith on iHeartRadio, Odyssey at faith dot com, or tell your smart speaker to play FCB Faith on iHeartRadio. This is the FCB podcast network. Area masoda that we won't say, then we won't to say, oh we gott it does? No one can tag that owen gonna be okay? Areas that we won't with say then we won't to say, oh we got it does. No one can take that owen. Be okay. The topic to day is Springfield Cats, dogs, and the truth is absolutely bananas out there. Darvo from from the debate the other night to springs at Ohio the whole issue with cats and dogs. Before we get started, why don't we just do a quick recap just in case there's somebody who, for whatever you'd of living under a rock for the last three days and hasn't seen a single meme. Why don't you break down what everybody is so upset about today? Okay, so this really entered the public consciousness. I guess as a result of the debate, the presidential debate, when former President Trump brought up what was going on in Springfield and he said that they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats, and referring to the influx of Haitian refugees, and that stirred up a whole bunch of controversy, obviously, so right, and then it kind of went from there, and we're going to get kind of into the nuts and bolts of what's actually going on down there. I have talked to several people in Springfield. I interviewed one on on our Shorty Outlaws, and and did some research myself. I'd actually began looking into this prior to the debate, so I've kind of been paying a little bit of attention to this from the beginning. So we're gonna get into the nuts and bolts of what actually what actually is happening, what isn't happening, and and all of that good stuff. But basically, that's how this thing became a big controversy. And then there was a bunch of memes and was a TikTok song with the and that beat for the TikTok song is actually kind of. I've got bad about it. I well, this is the thing. When this came up, it sort of came up out of the blue, really, and we're complaining about South America immigrants and even Middle Eastern and Chinese immigrants sort of piercing at border. This sort of popped up out of the blue as far as what we're talking about when we're talking about immigration these days. And but I think I think the reason why. It's captured the public consciousness so much is I don't even think it's a race angle, though of course the left was always going to make it a race angle. I don't even think it's a race angle that's really capturing. The public attention. It's that this is yet another example of citizens standing up and saying, hey, we're frustrated no one's listening to us. We can't get any help for all of these issues that our elected officials are dumping on us. And then the response from our politicians, the political class, the elite class, and then of course the progressive lefts the response has been you're not really seeing that, you know, And this is just another example of that. For instance, Darvo, if anybody says to a liberal these days, gosh, inflation, it's really bad. They'll say, actually, inflation has gone down, and here's the percentage point, and it's like, no, I'm living this. I'm living this in real time, and you're telling me it doesn't exist. Joe Biden saying the energy crisis doesn't exist even though we all know this. Or for my position of being a. Parent in public school here in California and running for school board because everybody was telling me that there is no problem with transiting the kids in public school. It doesn't exist. That's a right wing talking point. Of course it did. So this is just another example of that. And even though it's been reduced to this whole oh they're eating dogs and cats thing, I think it's more. I think it's larger than that. I think the reason why we can't let this go, and by we, I just mean the collective American social media plane, we can't let it go because it feels like another example of real regular Americans saying, hey, something that's happening, and then the progressive left going, it's just your imagination. Don't believe you're lying. Eyes well, and I think too, even more so than that, when I really started to dig into it and you can you can read more on my new article at Newsweek in Springfield, migrants have taken a toll well, the city's most vulnerable, which is out right now by the way cheap plug there. When you really look and examine what's been going on in Springfield, this is a situation where these people have been abandoned by the government. These are people this city. In nineteen eighty three, Newsweek deemed Springfield one of America's dream cities. That's how good Springfield was at the time. It was a picture perfect example of Americana wrong middle class that was supported by a strong manufacturing base. And of course, as a result of things like Natain and some of the other things that took place, that disinvestment and that de industrialization made that city plummet to the point where right now, right now, it's twenty two it has a twenty two percent poverty rate, and the median income is twenty seven thousand dollars a year. Geez. So this is a population of people that exactly that is what is distressing about this and that story, Darvo, that you just told could be told about so many small and big towns in the Midwest and the Roust Belt. As you well know, we're from Gary, same kind of story there, right, middle class steel town and then all that, all the stuff happened, you. Know, the crash now absolutely and the same here of course. You know you know this heir at FCB is headquartered in Cleveland, so we're very familiar. Which is one of the things that kind of inspired both of us to do this this space is we're very familiar with the issues that have taken place because we've seen We've both seen it with our own eye, right. So this is what I need people to understand. And I know that progressive leftists who are probably not listening to this, but just in case, this is what I need people to understand. That forget about the race angle for a minute. We can go back to it if you want, or if you want to just pretend that Donald Trump's a racist and people like me are racist. I'm actually okay with that too, if you want to pretend. But let's look at the logic of this, let's. Reason it out. Let's take all of this to its logical conclusion. We're let's pretend that everybody in this situation is purple, but one group of purple people is from the beach, and one group of purple people are from the mountains. And when you take the people from the beach and you put them in the mountains, and you take twenty thousand people from the beach and you drop them in the middle of a town with sixty thousand people, that's a culture shift. Suddenly you've got beach culture going on there. Right. It doesn't matter where their people are from or if their culture is moral or valid. The point is that it's a culture shift. So that's point number one. Point number two, what is the culture you're asking to absorb them? What's that culture like? Is it a place like. Martha's Vineyard where people have one hundred room mansions, or is it a place like Springfield, Ohio, where as you say the median income is twenty seven thousand people, most of these people are meant not most, but many of these people are on welfare. Probably most of them are on some type of assistance from the government. Now you're asking these sixty thousand people to absorb twenty thousand new people with there are reports that it might be as high as thirty five thousand over half this town. It's a culture shift. So of course now, and you're adding people who don't live there, So where are they going a racial issue? This is a practical issue. I think I'm more offended by the fact that we're not allowed to discuss the practicalities of this because the left has to make everything about Donald Trump. Well, and I think the issue too is and you know, I'm always talking about the political ping pong game because we see one side go crazy, and then you see people on the other side go crazy in response to that side, and then we end up losing sight of what the actual problem is. One of there were several reasons why I really started digging into this situation. Last week, one of my followers, who know I'm in Ohio asked me, Hey, what do you know about Springfield? And my response was like, well, I've heard a little bit, but I've actually not done a lot of research on this, So let me go do the research and see what's going on and see about getting sources on the ground and things like that. And then of course everything got super charged after it got mentioned during the debate. But really the truth of the matter is it's it's not about all of the stuff that people are fighting over right now. I don't want to fight about the dogs and the cats because I can't prove it. And the people who I've talked to who are in Springfield saying they haven't seen any proof of it either. Now they have seen proof of geese and ducks coming up missing. They've seen that there's actually there was actually a police report in a nine one one call about geese, so we can prove that. But the cat, the cats and the dogs stuff has been unproven. I've been told that from multiple sources in Springfield. But to me, that's not even the most important thing. The most important thing is the fact that you have twenty thousand people in a city of sixty thousand in the last three and a half plus years, while the federal government basically told these people figure it out, how is that gonna work. First of all, that's not fair to the Haitians. You're putting them in situations where you're creating this environment where you are provoking conflicts between them and the residents. Because of that, of course, you are going to be resentful. If you live in a city of sixty thousand people and the median income is twenty seven thousand dollars a year, the poverty rate is twenty two percent, and the refugees are getting more assistance than the residents do. Of course you're going to and. Let's say this, Darvio. No one is mentioning this, but from the few statistics I've seen, the majority of this Haiti population is young military age men. These are families, These are families. So these are young, young strong men who have not been raised in Western culture. So they have their own ideas about things like how we treat women and how we treat the police. And all of that. They and they've just arrived here, so they haven't a chance to assimilate. So we've got all of these we're dumping them in the middle of this town, and we don't think people are going to be frightened or you know, young women are going to be under dress. They've seen several videos from young women in Springfield, Ohio saying how they don't go out and walk anymore. And a town of sixty thousand people is not that big of a town. You should be able to go anywhere in that town. Like that's crazy to me. But this is this is You're exactly right, DARVYO. This isn't about the cats of the dogs saying, sure there's a discussion there, you know, is it true? Are there rumors? Why would it be? But we're not even having the discussion if these immigrants aren't in that town force already. The point isn't the cats and the damp dogs everybody. We're going to their city council meetings and begging for help because they don't know what to deal with this problem that has been thrust upon them. But I need y'all to focus well. And here's the thing too, And here's the thing that frustrates me about this conversation is there's so many nuances, there's so many layers to it, and it's hard to have that conversation in sound bites and snapshots and tweets because it's a complicated issue. Here's the thing. Springfield has been a place that is welcoming immigrants at least since twenty fourteen. The issue is not them being able to welcome immigrants. They've been willing to do that the entire time. So the issue is that there's too many at one time, and they haven't been given the re sources to be able to integrate these folks, and now it's causing clashes at the end of the day, I'm not anti immigration, and anybody who knows me knows that. I've said then multiple times. I clash with people who are anti immigration. But I don't think like you can be a welcoming country and still question whether it's practical to bring twenty thousand people in a city of sixty thousand within three and a half years and expect there not to be anything. The other thing. Okay, go ahead, and here's and here's the other thing too. And I really want to make this point because I don't hear many people making this point. And I say this over and over and over again, going back to this is a poor area where the where the median income is low, there's a high poverty rate. One of the things that I try to tell people all the time. If you want to eliminate clashes like this, then maybe you should pay more attention to bringing economic opportunities to poor neighborhoods, because guess what, if those people are making money, if those people are not struggling, then they don't view these folks as competition. They don't view these folks as a threat. But when you take a bunch of new people, I don't care who it is. The lady that I interviewed on the show was like, they could have been from Sweden and we would have had the same problem. When you bring in all of these people and you put them right into a place that is poor and struggling, it's not fair to anybody. It's not fair to the immigrants or the rate. I'm sorry I have to push back on that. Let's just draw this out to the logical conclusion. If it did happen to be twenty five thousand people from Sweden dropped into the middle of this town. Would it be the same, would we be getting these reports or would these be people? Would these be people figure out how to support themselves, Like what's the population of Sweden? Like, you know what I'm saying, It's not like Sweden. There's something about the culture too that we're shipping in. Not all cultures are equal. So I don't think I do. I hear your point, but I don't think it behooves us to pretend that there's not this other part of it too, which is why I'm saying. You have to be able to assimilate people, welcome people. But there it used to be you had to go through the program, and you know, you had to learn the constitution and learn English, and none of these people are doing that anymore. They don't have to, especially with the refugee status. So I so my only pushback to the pushback is you'd still have that same issue if they didn't assimilate, but still an issue of. People going, I don't feel safe walking around like a Swedish. Know, well, let me tell you what I've you know, the pushback that that I've heard from the residents isn't even mainly that it is the issues where it's the economic issues largely, which would have been that would have been an issue no matter where the population. But that's what I'm saying, because that this area is very poor. But if you if you're importing a population from a from a country that doesn't have a poverty class like Sweden, if you you know, if you're reporting that population, they're not coming to be homeless, right. And we've seen what we've seen before. Though we've seen before that you still had issues, particularly when you have unscrupulous business owners and unscrupulous land uh landlords that take advantage of that. Because there's several things that are taking place right now. So for example, the residents are being priced out of rental properties and things like that because there the landlords are renting to the Haitians and jacking up the price. So now not only are they taking advantage of the Haitians, but they're also taking advantage but they're also pricing out the residents. That's going to be an issue, right, So. You could look at your flood of immigrants as gentrification immigrants or criminalization immigrants, right changing. Correct, correct, correct. So a lot of the conversations, a lot of the conversations that I've had with people in Springfield has revolved around that also the issues that they're having in the school system. So you have three hundred kids that are recently in and they were also from according to the interview I conducted forty new kids a week that were coming in last year. And you have issues. You have issues, not cultural, not necessarily cultural issues, but you have issues just for the fact that they don't speak English. Right. So now, because they don't speak English, that adds more of a burden onto the school system. And according to the interview that I conducted, it was it costs an additional ten thousand dollars per year per student with these new students coming in, so now you have a budgetary issue, you know what I mean. In the school there's there's pressure in the school systems, there's pressure in the hospitals, there's so there's all of these different things that are happening. And of course I'm sure that there are people that have, you know, crime concerns and things like that, but the majority of the conversations that I have been having have been largely surrounding economics and what are. People saying quality of life and the people you're. Talking to, what are they saying about the city council. We keep bringing the residents into this as if they're the problem, right, like, oh, they're the racist, or they're the complainers, or they're the fearful ones or whatever, or they're the ones that have to deal with this. But what's what about the politicians? The citizens have nothing to do with this. FCB Faith is your rhythm and preystation. I listen, my mom listens, pretty much the whole family. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot, I can. And that you said you don't. Don't don't I know, Jill, come. Know that. Listen to FCB Faith on iHeartRadio Odyssey at fcbfaith dot com or tell your smart speaker to play FCB Faith on iHeartRadio. So here's and it's very interesting that you asked this question because they have a very I'm not gonna say unique, because I've seen other cities in Ohio have this form of government. But I don't know if this is the form of government that you guys are familiar with. But the ways they have their form of government, they have what's called a manager in council form of government city manager and council form of government. So they have a mayor, but the city manager has more power than the mayor does, and the city manager is unelected. That sounds like a Tiffany Henyard situation right there. You know, something they got in there or some city somebody some along the way change that some mayor that is getting put out of office and he was like, well, shoot, I'll change this on the way out and I'll just go be the city manager. Right Well, and it's the form of government, and I know that there are a lot of cities that have them, at least in Ohio. There have been a lot of cities that have There are some that are switching to a more traditional route, because when you have that that city manager and council form of government, the mayor technically is a member of council, and so there's no the mayor doesn't really have a ton of power. There really isn't any separation of powers, and the most important person in your government is an unelected bureaucer. That's a problem. So now they're kind of in a situation where it's hard. They can throw they can throw the whole council out if they want to, but if the issue is with the city manager, you're gonna have to change the form of government. Yeah. Yeah, Well, this is what I've been telling this why I wrote my book, Darby. This is why I've been telling people. You're you can't just sit back and depend on your friendly politician to do the things that you want them to do. They're not doing it. You have to stay on top of it. But not only that, you're gonna have to get involved. You have to be involved in some way, and so you need to take some of these positions. So you know what's going on. Again, Let's take it back to Dalton, Illinois. How the hell will be henyrid get how is she's still the there by the way, she just threw one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. Block party for herself last month. Like that woman is still there. So that's because a lot of people left the city council stuff to what they thought were better folks. They didn't get involved, they weren't at the meetings, they didn't know what was happening until it was too late. So it's really hard to get these people out once they're in trench. So you've got to always know what's going on. I it does break my heart to see those citizens at that city council meeting, and some of them are so heartfelt, and some of them, like the one guy that works with the veteran homeless and he's saying, you know, you guys know me. I've worked with the homeless for twenty years here and our veterans are on the street and you're doing nothing about it. What's going on here? So you have to get involved because this isn't just an issue of politics. This is an issue of what's going on every day right in your little local city council. Go ahead, go ahead, no well, And that's one of my one of my frustrations with this conversation is like going back to what you said about the person with the homeless beds. Like Americans generally speaking, now I'm not talking about everybody, but generally speaking, Americans can be very generous, yes, and could be very compassionate. And there are people who are willing to accept folk who are coming from terrible situations. But if you're asking them to bring in folks and you treat them better than you treat the residents that are already there, I don't care if they're black, white, green, purple, or polka dot, there's going to be a problem. And that's the thing that frustrates me so much. One of the reasons why I spend a ton of time most of my engagement politically is talking about economic issues and issues that not only impact the black community, but also impact working class people overall and poor people overall. Is because there is so much There is so much of the strife and all of these issues that take place that can be addressed if we just took a minute to start giving a damn about the conditions that Americans are living in. This is what I'm saying, Darvia. I think. I think it is past time for us to start looking at this as a situation of well, there are some people who just they don't understand what the right solution is. I'm actually beyond that. I look at this and. I'm not the smartest person out there. I have a degree in theater, you know, Like I'm not a rocket surgeon, you know, I talk for a living. But even I can look at this stuff and say, Okay, I know that if you dump thirty thousand people into a town of sixty thousand people, no matter where they're from, they're going to be troubled. That's probably they know too. This is what I'm saying. They know too. This is not an accident. And this is what I keep trying to tell black folks, y'all are being replaced, and it's on purpose. It's on purpose. And it's funny you said that, because when I was I did an interview this morning on Chicago Radio and one of the hosts, Damn Proff, he's a white guy, and I've been on the show a couple of times, but he was like, we were talking about these issues. He was like, it's so incompetent. It's so incompetent that it makes you wonder if it's deliberate. This is so a five year old could predict that this reaction would happen. Yeah, but you saw Nancy Pelosi out there saying, Okay, I think these people are here now, they should have the right to say how our country works. I think we should give them a right to vote. So they're not even China. Hide in California. You can already vote if you're illegal. You just see a library card. So these are the things that are going to cause issues, and we end up in this conversation where it's like the people who dominate, the voices who dominate this conversation are either the let them all in or lack them all out, and we lose. Like there's levels to this. There are people who are willing to welcome in you're an immigrant technically, you know what I mean. There are people the right, you know what I mean, Like, there are people who are willing to welcome in folks from other countries. But is it too much to ask that you do it in an orderly way, that you don't cause chaos to the communities that are impacted. And maybe if you're going to cause chaos and swing a bunch of people in this small city. Maybe you should get your butt on the ground and help these folks to try to Like, they don't have the resources to help these new folks. They don't have it. That's the point. That is the point, due I I because look, they've shipped all those people in markets Vineyard, and what those folks do. They got them on a bus and ship them right on out. You know. They they figured out how to pull their resources and make the problem go away. Who can't pull their resources people on the South side of Chicago, and who doesn't ever listen to them? Everybody? Right? Well, and that's I'm glad you brought that up because a buddy of mine that I was talking to about this mentioned he said, Look, he said, when it comes to when it comes to this, it's not about black or white, it's about poor they do this's the poor neighborhood. Because poor neighborhoods can't do anything about it. You know what I mean. If one of my one of my followers had tweeted, tweeted to me earlier and they said, wouldn't it make more sense to send them to rich communities where they have the resources to help take care of these people? Of course it would. The reason why they don't do that is, in the words of my grandmother, that sounds too much like right, that's why he don't do it. I would say that when. It comes to here in California, you know the rolling blackouts and brownouts that you all hear about because we insist on, even though they were the most populous state in the nation, we insist on switching to solar energy by twenty thirty, so no one can charge their electric cars in the summer. It's just ridiculous. So we have rolling brownouts and blackouts when it gets too hot because the power companies can't keep up with the demand. So whenever that happens inevitably, I call fighting. How you doing, Kira? You hot out there? Did they turn your power off? And my answer is, Allah's not. Oh, I live in the wealthy suburb. They're not shutting my power off, because these people complain, they're shutting the power off of the of the community next door to me, which had which has a lot of illegal immigrants and suffers a lot of poverty, and people are scraping to get by. And those are the people who are the voiceless people. These people around here are rich, like they can. I live next to rich people, so no, my power is not going out. Newton would never make these people mad. They're his donors, the poor people he could get about. And that's the problem that that is the problem, and this is why most of these conversations that I end up having goes back to that because we see, we see not only do we see, I mean I know I grew up poor, so I know I've seen the difference. I know how how they treat you on when you on one side of the tracks versus the other. I know the difference. But this is the problem. The problem is we have people in positions of leadership who do not care about folks who can't give them money or organize votes for them, and the issue then becomes like you are It's almost like, like the person I talk to this morning said, it's like you're intentionally doing this in the most divisive way possible. And that's the unfortunate thing about it, because guess what, there are some good Haitians in that group. There are some people who really were we saw the chaos and hat and said what was going on Americans exactly exactly? So we so we know that there are some good people were there's some good people in there. But what's happening is you are intentionally putting everybody in the worst situation possible. Yes, because you're causing conflicts, You're making it harder for everybody. That's on purpose. That's what I'm saying. I think. I think this whole racial angle is always on purpose, the idea. That's why why the media to focus they they of all the things Trump said on the other night, you know, they want to focus on the cats and dogs thing, like that's a fun clip. I get it. I'm not against that. But what I'm saying is they've the moderators and the media have exhibited absolutely no curiosity as to why he would say that in the first place. You know, there were no follow up questions. There was like, well, is there something going on there that would cause Trump to be so weird like this, or like what is he talking about? Let's investigate so we can prove them wrong. There's none of that. But they went immediately to, oh, these are Haitian immigrants, by the wayvo this is not new. We had the same discussion in two thousand and eight when Obama was running with the Haitian migrants. And we had the same discussion with Haitian migrants in two thousand and two, We had the same discussion with Haitian migrants in nineteen ninety six. This is and it's the same one every time. You guys just don't want them because they're black and brown. Originally, we tried to halt the Haitian vote because they were bringing in AIDS, which we were already struggling with, so we didn't need to be importing the poverty class and the sick right, we're already So this is nothing new. This is strategy because if you hate your neighbor, you're going to be easier to control. If you hate your neighbor, you're not going to stand up for your neighbor. If you hate your neighbor, you're not going to stand up for them against the government when they come for your guns, or they come for your vote, or they come for your house, or whateverything they're they're trying to take. I'm sick of pretending. I'm sick. You can hear it in my voice, Jarvey, I know I'm sick of pretending that these are just incompetent people that just haven't heard the truth yet, because you know, on this show, that's all I do is talk about the truth and how can we how can we spread the truth, and let's logic through it. But I'm tired of trying to logic with people who have evil intentions, and I'm not going to pretend anymore that they don't. They want to keep you sick, and they want to keep you angry, and they want to keep you separated, and this is all designed to do so. And I need everyone to nut up and stop being so whippy about this and being well, I'm a good conservative. I really love we know, we get it, stand up for these people. Well. And the unfortunate thing about it, you know, a friend of mine listened to my show and he was like, you know, he heard the interview and he said, man, you know what stood out to me is how normal this person sounds. It wasn't like the some of the hair on fire weirdos. It wasn't she didn't call them saying monkeys and all that stupid stuff like in that one video. This was a person who was just like, we don't know what to do. We're just we're out of rea. We don't have a lot of resources to begin with. We're trying to survive, We're struggling, and we don't know what to do. We don't have the resources to take care of these people. And so for me, part of and part of my interest in this in the first place is, like I said, this is kind of my beat, right, the working class issues, poor issues and all that kind of stuff. It's kind of my beat. That's how I got to Newsweek in the first place. But what really kind of stood out to me even more as I listened to her talk and as I heard her perspective as well as some of the other people that I talked to, is that we we have an obligation to make sure that this conversation doesn't go off the rails, because if it goes off the rails, we can't get no help for these people. And when you talk to them, because that's the most important thing to me, I want to let me talk to the people who live there. Let me see what's going to tell me your perspective, right, And when you talk to the people, they tell you that they're struggling, and that's the issue. It's not about the fact that that they're Haitian or that they're black. It's not even about the fact that they're immigrants. They've been welcoming immigrants into Springfield at least since twenty fourteen. It's the fact that it's twenty thousand people in a city of sixty thousand with no help from the federal government and no assistance whatsoever, and all of the havoc that that causes in a place that is twenty two That is a twenty two percent poverty rate, and the median income is twenty seven thousand dollars a year. I can't think of a better way to end. That's a great note to end on. I think you've wrapped it up succinctly. Darvo and I we're gonna actually put this out on our respective podcast. So if you want to re listen to this, you want to send it to somebody, just go subscribe to just listen to yourself or the Outlaws show. Darvo tell everybody how they can learn more about you and find you online. So you can subscribe to the gall Laws Radio Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow me at d the Kingpin, and you can read my work in news Week and of. Course you can sign up for my podcast, so just listen to yourself wherever you find your audio podcast, search for me on YouTube, rumble, or just hit my link tree link here in my Twitter x whatever we're calling it bio and just follow us there. But I do I agree with Darvio. Let's keep this conversation and everyone and let's keep talking about let's not let leave these people behind, delivered or not, what's being done to them. It doesn't change the fact that they need help. And maybe we can't go there and put up tents and put up soup kitchens, but we can do our little part, which is keeping this discussion open and keeping their story on the radar of America. So God bless everybody, God bless America. Please opread is all masodad that we won't with say, then we won't to say, oh we got is? Does no one get dig that? O? And it's gonna be okay. O Bread is all masoda that we won't with say and then we won't to say, oh we got is? Does no one gets dig that? O? Andy, It's gonna be okay. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where Real Talk lives, visitors online at Fcbpodcasts dot com.
