NAACP issues travel warning in Florida: the state ‘has become hostile to Black Americans’

Authored by thehill.com and submitted by DDONH

The NAACP issued a formal travel advisory for Florida on Saturday, saying the state has become “hostile to Black Americans” under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) leadership.

“On a seeming quest to silence African-American voices, the Governor and the State of Florida have shown that African Americans are not welcome in the State of Florida,” the travel advisory reads.

“Due to this sustained, blatant, relentless and systemic attack on democracy and civil rights, the NAACP hereby issues a travel advisory to African Americans, and other people of color regarding the hostility towards African Americans in Florida,” the group added.

The advisory points to several of DeSantis’s controversial policies, including legislation he signed on Monday to prohibit colleges from spending public funds on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The Florida governor also previously signed the Stop WOKE Act, restricting how workplaces and schools can discuss race during required training or instruction, and blocked an Advanced Placement African American Studies course in the state’s public schools, claiming it lacked “educational value.”

“Let me be clear — failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

“Under the leadership of Governor Desantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon,” Johnson added.

definitelytheA on May 21st, 2023 at 11:14 UTC »

From an article in The Florida Times Union: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/entertainment/books/2013/10/06/book-review-beast-florida-history-anti-black-violence/15814001007/

Florida had the highest number of lynchings per capita of all the former Confederate and border states in the period between 1880 and 1930 - more than twice the rate of Georgia, Mississippi or Louisiana. Dunn's book includes a table of the 282 lynched in Florida, including name, date, county location, race and gender. Five African-American women were lynched in this period, including one who was pregnant; black adolescents as young as 15 were among those hanged, immolated, beaten, shot and drowned - some dying after hours of obscene torture.

There were also a number of incidents of what today we would call ethnic cleansing: Mobs of whites would terrorize a black area and force the residents to flee for their lives, some never to return, eventually losing their land and property to the tax man. The Rosewood incident has become familiar in recent years, and the survivors and their heirs have received some compensation from the state because officials admit they did not intervene until it was too late. Other sites of ethnic cleansing include Perry, Newberry, Ocoee and Groveland.

It is unconscionable that our children are not taught this painful and horrific part of history! It’s criminal that it’s not allowed to be taught in state universities.

bigolfishey on May 21st, 2023 at 04:19 UTC »

FTA: “In the initial version, the text explained how Black Americans were affected by Jim Crow laws that arose after the Civil War, but like its updates to the Parks lesson, the second version eliminated almost every direct mention of race. Instead, the lessons were changed to say it was illegal for “men of certain groups” to be unemployed and that “certain groups of people” were not allowed to serve on a jury.”

That is just so impossibly asinine. Literally the first question students will ask is “what certain groups of people are they talking about?”

What is the teacher supposed to say? No, seriously, that’s not a rhetorical question; what do they expect teachers to say when asked that obvious question?

theoldgreenwalrus on May 21st, 2023 at 03:33 UTC »

Florida's corrupt education policies figuratively whitewashed Rosa Parks, removing any mention of her race from textbooks:

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3905312-florida-textbook-altered-to-remove-references-to-rosa-parkss-race-report/