Speaker 1: The NAACP has issued issued a travel advisory in response to Ron
Desantis's attempts to ban books about race and LGBTQ identity, reject a new AP class on
African-American studies, ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Florida colleges.
Quote Florida is openly hostile to African-Americans, people of color, LGBTQ
plus individuals. Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida
devalues and marginalizes the contributions of and the challenges faced by African-Americans
and other communities of color. And it also says if you decide to travel to Florida,
be advised, Florida public schools won't teach your children accurate African-American history.
The state of Florida does not value diversity, equity and inclusion. The state of Florida
doesn't welcome the contributions of African-Americans as people of color,
etc., etc., etc.. So a few different things to this. On the one hand, sort of proving the point.
I saw wildly racist responses to this online, including people saying, Hey, Florida's only
dangerous because of the black people. Maybe this will keep black people out of the state.
The right wing subreddit conservative was openly celebrating. Hey, you know what? We should welcome
this. This might make it so fewer black people travel to Florida. Although the Post said less
black people rather than fewer. But I'm giving it to you in a grammatically correct way. So a
couple of different aspects to this. First of all, the very reaction to this advisory by the NAACP
proves much of what the NAACP is saying, period, End of story. Secondly, the fact that in the U.S.
there are travel warnings to different states based on this sort of thing, points to the
retrograde and backwards nature of what's going on in the United States. But lastly, as a little
travel advisory, I don't know, like, for example, the first thing on the list is be aware that if
you travel to Florida, your kids aren't going to be taught X, Y, Z. Most people traveling to
Florida are going on vacation. They're not putting their kids in school. So I hesitate to take this
completely seriously as a literal travel advisory. But I think the point here is to be more than a
literal travel advisory. The idea here is bring attention to what's going on in Florida. Point to
how these policies in Florida disproportionately impact marginalized communities of all kind.
Black folks, folks, LGBT folks, women. When it comes to the abortion ban that has been passed
and their families, of course. So I see this advisory not, as you know, the advisory that the
U.S. State Department has about traveling to the Sinaloa region of Mexico, where they say, listen,
significant cartel activity, if you get into trouble there, you may be beyond help from the
U.S. embassy. This is not that. This is not that. But it is a form of activism that raises awareness
and it encourages dialog and the need for rights and protections and points to many of the things
that are going on, going on and going wrong in the state of Florida. Now, there are people who saw
this advisory and said, this is very unfair. This is very unfair to Florida as a whole,
because you have so many parts of Florida where even if it is the case that on paper teachers are
not allowed to do X, Y, Z, it is actually in the liberal parts of Florida. It is welcomed. Nobody
is blowing the whistle. You look at places like Miami and Miami Beach and other liberal areas. The
LGBT community is welcome. There are absolutely no risk danger whatsoever. Black folks are welcomed.
And I have to tell you, having spent time in those areas, I believe that that's true. But still,
it's really important to understand the underlying message here. Even if state decrees from DeSantis
are being ignored in the liberal parts of Florida, which to a great degree they are.
It is still the case that as a state, Florida is not fostering inclusivity, it's not promoting
equality, it's not combating discrimination. In fact, it seems to be building it. So I think
let's not dismiss this outright because it's not a literal travel advisory per the interpretation
of some. Let's use it to remind ourselves of the right wing hellscape that DeSantis
is trying to turn Florida into. He hasn't yet succeeded, certainly not in all parts of Florida,
but that's not a reason to ignore this. So a very interesting declaration from the NAACP. We're
going to take a quick break. We have a packed program today. I do want to remind you that we
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