‘Reverse Karen’ Defends Haitian Immigrants With Hilariously Sarcastic Speech At Springfield City Commission Meeting
It's a master class in satire — and underlines how truly stupid the attacks on Springfield's immigrants are.
CiEll | Shutterstock Springfield, Ohio has been going through it. After Donald Trump and JD Vance decided to make the town's Haitian immigrant community a centerpiece of their racist and xenophobic campaign, the town has been besieged by right-wing wackjobs and become a lightning rod for their anger about "illegal immigrants invading America."
Amanda Richardson, a born-and-raised Springfield local, has had enough. She decided to fight back, not with an angry tirade, but rather a satirical speech that hilariously and perfectly laid bare just how colossally stupid this uproar truly is.
Amanda Richardson is being dubbed a 'reverse Karen' for her satirical speech defending Springfield's Haitian immigrants.
To be clear, Trump and Vance's rhetoric about Haitian immigrants isn't just racist, xenophobic, and unsavory — it's become actively dangerous. Springfield has been terrorized in the wake of their accusations that "illegal" Haitians are eating their neighbors' pets, a claim that originated in a resident's disavowed Facebook post that Neo-Nazi groups spun into a viral conspiracy theory.
Shortly after the claim was amplified in the September 10 presidential debate, far-right white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys showed up in Springfield, KKK flyers appeared on lampposts, and more than 30 bomb threats forced the closure of schools and cancellation of events. All because of a bald-faced lie about immigrants who, it's important to note, have come to the United States legally.
So you can probably understand, then, why Springfield residents like Richardson have absolutely had it with their town being a target of dangerous right-wing outrage. So, at a recent city commission meeting, Richardson took the open mic to deliver a speech dripping with sarcasm about the uproar.
"I've lived here most of my life," Richardson, who identified herself as a "childless cat lady," began her speech, "and I just want to say… I can't believe these Haitian immigrants would come here and fill jobs that local Springfield residents would not or could not do." And that was just the opening salvo.
She underlined the positive changes Haitians have made to Springfield — and the utter stupidity of conservatives' outrage about it.
There's no question that the rise of Haitian immigrants in Springfield has come with challenges — that's always the case with any population boom. But as has been widely attested to by everyone from Springfield locals to Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, the town's new Haitian community has been a major economic engine for the struggling town.
In her satirical speech, Richardson pretended to be outraged by all this positive progress as a conservative might be. Her "Reverse Karen" take on how Haitians have raised both wages and "desperately needed" tax revenue in both Springfield and Clark County? "They're making some of the local losers look bad by their example!"
What is the Haitian community's impact on the local real estate market? "[They] buy up all the dilapidated, condemned and boarded up homes in Springfield, then [fix] those houses up to make them livable again… This is raising property values across the city and county… and increases the property tax that's paid to Clark County… How awful!"
The impact Haitians have had on the local business climate was in Richardson's sarcastic sights as well. Immigrants have opened so many restaurants and retail spaces that the trend has caught on to new non-immigrant business owners as well. "What absolute madness!" Richardson exclaimed.
Tellingly, Richardson received no pushback from the assembled crowd — the longer she went on, the more nods and knowing laughs she got from her neighbors, who were obviously as exasperated with Trump and Vance's nonsense as she was. This, notably, is in a rural Ohio county that Trump won in 2020 by more than 23 points.
Richardson also addressed the claims that Haitian immigrants are stealing jobs and taking government handouts.
Richardson next set her sights on a long-held source of conservative outrage — immigrants supposedly taking handouts like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, also known as food stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, also known as welfare, instead of working to pay for their own needs like supposed "real Americans" do.
But Springfield's Haitian immigrants receive these benefits as a temporary stopgap while waiting for work permits to come through, for example — all part of the legal immigration process. Not that that has stopped conservatives from making it a talking point, of course.
Or, as Richardson put it in her perfect "Reverse Karen" character voice, "I have a good-paying job with great benefits, so I don't need SNAP or TANF, but because I have main character syndrome, and the entire world should revolve around me, I want the exorbitant benefits that some of these Haitian immigrants get." She also pointed out that these "exorbitant" temporary benefits add up to just $655 a month, nowhere near enough to live on, even in Springfield, Ohio.
Richardson closed her speech with a pointed joke that really says it all. Addressing the town's mayor and city commission members, she chided, "I hope you sit up there and think about what you've done. Because of your support of the Haitian community... how am I supposed to ruin America if I can't even ruin Springfield first? I am so disappointed in you."
There is certainly room to criticize and reimagine America's immigration policies. But aside from the fact that it was Republicans who killed a bipartisan border security and immigration bill in the first place — at Trump's behest so that he'd have something to run on — what Richardson's speech lays bare is that Springfield, Ohio, of all places, is pretty much the polar opposite of a town that has been "ruined" by immigration.
It's a gambit so dunderheaded that you have no choice but to wonder: If Trump and Vance had literally anything to offer the American people besides stoking racist anger and inflaming ignorant outrage, would they have even brought Springfield up in the first place?
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.