The book that explains how the Springfield cat rumors put people at risk

Knopf's Rumors, Race, and Riots (1975) remains one of the best works on how misinformation fuels and sustains hate.

There’s been a lot of writing and thinking about the rise of false rumors about Haitians in Springfield eating cats. Surprisingly, however, I haven’t seen anyone reference the academic work which was foundational in this area: Terry Ann Knopf’s 1975 book Rumor, Race, and Riots.

Knopf’s premise will be familiar to those who read my work, as I have borrowed heavily from her thinking. In thinking through the relation of rumors and what were called back then “race riots” she posits that opposing factions have a “hostile belief system” that consists of a set of beliefs — varying from well-supported to mostly fictitious — about the other. White populations she studied believed, for example, that Black men were uniquely dangerous, and that Black people as a whole were seditious, looking to overthrow the existing order. Black populations had their own beliefs about white people, more grounded in reality but also often exaggerated in scale.

For Knopf, the hostile belief system precedes the creation of rumor. It is not created by it. Rather, the belief system creates a market for rumors that help to support, maintain, and activate it.

Think of it this way. You’re an individual that holds a view that Black men are violently seditious. Over time, however, in the absence of evidence this view begins to feel a bit silly. If this is the case, where is all the sedition? Hence, when a rumor comes along that Black men have seized control of a local armory, and are planning a takeover of large swaths of the city, you eagerly adopt and spread that rumor. It justifies your belief, and allows you to maintain it. And of course it can do more than that — while it may not change the belief it can intensify it, make it more salient, and make one feel more justified on acting on it. That in turn can lead to tensions that are long simmering in erupting in violence.

Knopf is insistent that rumors don’t cause violence on their own. Her process model has three elements — existing social tension (often around a series of current events), a hostile belief system, and the rumor. When these three elements interlock, the rumor or set of rumors can ignite violence. Think of it this way — the existing tension creates a rumor-favorable environment, the hostile belief system creates a deep language, and the rumor creates justification and motivation.

Using this model we can cut past the the usual chicken and egg arguments about whether rumors matter to political violence or not. In Knopf’s model, as harmful as the hostile belief system is, it often remains latent. You may believe that immigrants threaten public safety and bring dangerously un-American values into your community. But if that was enough to sustain belief or motivate action there would be no need of rumors at all. Without the rumor (or for that matter, a legitimate, focusing news event) the belief remains an abstraction, and abstractions do not start riots or motivate police crackdowns on their own. Sometimes the news provides a lightning rod for action, whether that is a police shooting or the traffic death of a child. But when the news does not meet the demands of those looking to justify or act on a belief system made salient by social tension, people turn to rumor to provide what they desire.

Does this mean that slowing the flow of rumor will solve underlying problems? No, of course not. But rumor is not incidental to what happens either. People often dismiss rumor as a “demand-side phenomenon”, but the flip-side of demand is necessity. People seek and spread these rumors for a reason, and any addressing of these issues must address both the underlying conditions that spur that demand as well as the unchecked spread of rumors that turn abstract belief systems into ugly realities.