This piece was originally published in Florida Phoenix, and syndicated in Raw Story, Miami New Times, and The Miami Times.
The misshapen world that Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Leonard Leo, and other MAGA extremists are attempting to cement into every aspect of American life is deeply rooted in racism, sexism, and ethnonationalism.
As governor, DeSantis has arrogantly manipulated the instruments of political and legislative power not just to deride and disparage African Americans, but also to disassemble Florida’s relationship with the Black population while propagating lies about white European victimhood.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (ACLU) notes that “throughout his tenure, this governor has used the power of his office to subjugate and control the lives of Black people in Florida. The administration of Gov. DeSantis has demonstrated a disdain for Black people and their lives in Florida. His actions as governor demonstrate that under his governance, the lives of Black people are expendable.”
DeSantis sows distrust of Black people in ways not seen so blatantly since the Jim Crow era. As the ACLU’s Joey Francilus explains: “Black people in Florida are endangered by the whims of this same governor who, using the levers of his power, greatly diminished the last citizen-led Amendment 4 campaign to expand voting rights to nearly a million formerly incarcerated Floridians. This is the same governor who chilled Black protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.”
Francilus adds that DeSantis is “the same governor who used his power to eliminate a Black-access congressional district in North Florida. This is the same governor who removed the only Black woman state prosecutor from office, replacing her with an acolyte. This is the same governor who sought to censor Black history in classrooms and called slavery ‘beneficial’ for Black people.”
African American school building in Leon County, 1957. (Photo via State Library and Archives of Florida)
Racial Hierarchy
DeSantis has waged his war on Black people for several reasons, including to bolster his cred when he ran for president and because it’s a central feature of the far-right wing Republican Party’s culture wars. DeSantis isn’t alone, with Republican leaders of at least 18 states hopping on the retrenchment bandwagon.
The governor, and those who share his viewpoint, are “fixated on returning the country’s social order to its antebellum racial hierarchy” and seeks “to reimagine slavery as a benign institution, Francilus argues.
Issues of race percolate into every aspect of our lives — in schools, businesses, in our homes, communities, and neighborhoods. In the past, as now. DeSantis seeks to use race to bludgeon African Americans into compliance.
Florida has a repugnant history of harm against its Black residents as they sought to live their lives, working to block their attempt to exercise their legal and democratic right to vote, live where they want, pursue a quality education and good jobs.
For about 20 years, I lived, worked, and earned degrees in community college and university settings in Miami and Tallahassee. I saw the racial damage and trauma on individuals and systems up close.
I grew up in the U.K. and Jamaica but learned a great deal about Florida and Southern history from my African American friends, historians, griots, politicians, and close watchers of the state’s and region’s social, economic, and political storylines. It has never been easy to be a Black person in places where just below the surface racism festers.
African Americans and other Black residents faced barriers to employment, health care, quality education, and continuing problems with law enforcement.
Despite certifiable social, legal, and economic progress by Black people, the shadow of the confederacy and depraved racism continues to hang heavily over Florida. Men, women, and children endured ghastly behavior from defenders of the American apartheid system. Folks were murdered, raped, debased, spat upon, and brutalized merely for the color of their skin.
Unaccountable
Female friends shared stories of their childhood in the South and having to always keep an eye out for random white men and boys who routinely kidnapped and raped young girls, teens, and women. One friend spoke of barely escaping predators who attempted to snatch her off the street several times.
Rarely, if ever, were these brutes ever held accountable for their crimes. Black people were unprotected and knew not to look to the vast majority of sheriffs, police, or judges for protection or justice because they stood squarely on the side of the transgressors.
African American homes in Tampa, 1927, during the Jim Crow era. (Photo via State Library and Archives of Florida)
Redlining and other measures ensured that Black people lived in segregated communities where local and state governments routinely under-investigated anti-Black crime. Often, Black residents in these communities couldn’t obtain credit or loans; they were forced to accept substandard jobs for considerably less wages and salaries; and their schools couldn’t compete with those in white communities because of the withholding of financial support because of in lower property taxes in their school districts, which resulted in inferior schools.
Examples of redlining can be found in several financial services, including mortgages, student loans, credit cards, and insurance. Although the Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977 to help prevent redlining, critics say discrimination continues to occur.
Targeting African Americans in the present is a noxious game that DeSantis, MAGA, and far-right elements of what used to be the Republican Party have weaponized. It is part of their putrid narrative of white victimhood and pervasive gaslighting.
No Different
One of the ironies of life as a Black person in America is that, if asked, they would tell you that, at the end of the day, they are no different from any other American. They want to be treated like human beings and desire the same things to which others here aspire — freedom from police occupation of their neighborhoods, brutality and murder; access to decent, well-paying jobs; a quality education; affordable housing and health care.
But it’s specifically because they are Black that they continue to incur wrath from DeSantis, Donald Trump, and a society that has been fed a steady diet of damaging lies, stereotypes, distortions, and half-truths. The wider society is told Black people are criminals; lazy; uneducated; simple-minded; oversexed; savage; in need of white sympathy, pity, and guidance.
DeSantis, attorney and talk show host Dean Obeidallah explains, is a purveyor of toxic white-identity politics. He and his MAGA supporters are crusaders for racial domination by the proportionately shrinking white population in the United States.
DeSantis’ primary concerns are to position himself to run for president in 2028 by showing white people that he’s standing up for them and their interests.
Since DeSantis ran for president, the country has supposedly moved further to the right and, with Project 2025 and Elon Musk, white nationalist extremists have launched all-out, multipronged assaults on Black history, civil rights, DEI, EEOC, affirmative action, and other programs, policies, and initiatives, all with the intention of dragging the country back to the Jim Crow era.
As Obeidallah notes, despite intense criticism, lawsuits, and protests, DeSantis’ primary concerns are to position himself to run for president again in 2028 by showing white people that he’s standing up for them and their interests.
Unfortunately, we will continue to be lectured about morality and patriotism by a man who possesses neither. The state will have to continue to endure the rantings of a menace and a bully. Past is prologue: There’s no commitment to fairness, no obligation to redress past ills, and no acknowledgement of the theft of Black lives, jobs, and resources as a direct result of white racism and bigotry.
Expect little or nothing to change. Florida’s Black residents be damned.
