Ron DeSantis scoffed when the NAACP issued a travel advisory this spring warning Black people to use “extreme care” if traveling to Florida
Ron DeSantis scoffed when the NAACP issued a travel advisory this spring warning Black people to use “extreme care” if traveling to Florida.
The leading civil rights group argued that the state’s loose gun laws and the Republican governor’s “anti-woke” campaign to deny the existence of systemic racism created a culture of “open hostility towards African Americans and people of color.»
Just three months later, DeSantis is leading his state through the aftermath of a racist attack that left three African Americans dead. Black leaders in Florida — and across the nation — say they’re outraged by his actions and rhetoric ahead of the shooting.
“Gov. DeSantis has created and pushed a narrative of division and hate that is anti-Black,” said Rev. Jeffrey Rumlin, pastor of The Dayspring Church in Jacksonville, where three Black people were gunned down at a Dollar General store over the weekend by a white man with a swastika emblazoned on his assault rifle.
Rumlin criticized DeSantis for not explicitly describing the killer as a racist at a Sunday vigil in Jacksonville. DeSantis was booed at the vigil, where he called the shooter “a major-league scumbag” and said, “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race.”
The Florida governor, also responding this week to a tropical storm bearing down on much of his state, has confronted multiple challenges on race since launching his presidential campaign. He has been criticized by Republican rivals on Florida’s new education standards on slavery while losing ground against former President Donald Trump, the front-runner in the GOP primary.
Ever defiant, DeSantis’ team rejected suggestions that he did not adequately condemn the weekend shooting and has more broadly ignored the concerns of the state’s African American community. The Republican governor scored an overwhelming reelection last fall that included flipping the traditional Democratic stronghold of Miami-Dade County, which has a majority Latino population. He made modest gains among Black voters.
“This shooting was a terrible tragedy, and it is reprehensible that The Associated Press has decided to collect and amplify false talking points as ‘reporting’ on this horrific event,» said DeSantis campaign spokesman Bryan Griffin. «Ron DeSantis has condemned these racially motivated murders repeatedly in the strongest language possible. … He will not tolerate racial hatred or violence in Florida, and we reject your politicization of this horrible event.
