After the racist killings in Jacksonville, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who claims his state is “where woke goes to die,” faced boos and widespread condemnation.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was loudly booed Sunday while attending a vigil for the three Black people gunned down by a white man at a Jacksonville store the day before.
Through his administration’s assault on inclusive learning plans that may make white students feel uncomfortable, its efforts to dilute Black voter power, its efforts to whitewash racist massacres against Black people and its efforts to tout the purported benefits that slavery afforded Black people, DeSantis has arguably become Florida’s most prominent face of anti-Black rhetoric.
The governor, who’s vying for the Republican presidential nomination, routinely claims that his state is where “woke” — that is, the term denoting Black consciousness — “goes to die.”
And with that reputation in mind, he was the last person many Black Floridians wanted to hear from after three Black people were killed at a Dollar General store by a shooter who authorities say was motivated by anti-Black hate.
