1.1: Of Social Institutions, Race, Ethnicity, Dogs, and Cats

On 9 September 2024, in the lead up to the presidential election, Vice President hopeful, JD Vance, circulated a rumor about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. According to his post on X,

Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country. Where is our border czar? (Vance 2024)

The rumor emerged from a single source: an Ohioan woman that heard the story fourth-hand and posted it on a local Facebook group site. Vance, an Ohio native, framed this woman’s allegations as a threat to American values, a veiled statement about perceived practices of foreigners and their threat to American exceptionalism. Vance would later admit in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, that these allegations were indeed false, yet doubled down by suggesting that news outlets would never report on such incidents if such sensationalism wasn’t brought to fore. The ridiculousness of the original claim, its proliferation by a Vance, and his absurd defense of the whole milieu in getting it into the mainstream media, was amplified further during the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, when Trump echoed the falsehood remarking “in Springfield, their eating the pets” (Thomas and Wendling 2024). In the roughly two-month period between Vance’s statement and Trump’s remark, the mainstream media attempted to unpack the meaning and implications for the lack of veracity of the Trump-Vance Campaign, the state of civility in the face of such accusations, and of course the image of the Haitian Community, both in Springfield and abroad.

What was interesting about this whole incident was that it unfolded squarely within the intersection of race, ethnicity, and a variety of social institutions—dynamics of real sociological significance. Haitians, most of whom have dark phenotypes, their ethnic community as expatriates in the United States, and the political/economic institutions that dictated their circumstances, all come together in a confluence of sociological contexts.

This textbook is primarily a sociological guide to race and ethnicity. As such, the content herein will provide a cursory overview of how race and ethnicity are studied within the discipline of sociology.