Trisha James (C) black shirt), Sabrina Rozier (Red hair white shirt) and Ieasia Gallion (4-year-old daughter of one of the victims), all family members of Jereld Gallion, one of the victims of a deadly shooting that took place in Jacksonville, Florida on August 27, 2023. | Source: The Washington Post / Getty
First, let’s just be real about one thing: Ron DeSantis shouldn’t have even shown up at the vigil in Jacksonville to honor the victims of the racist mass shooting that took place Saturday.
Obviously, the governor of Florida has to make some kind of public statement addressing an event like this, especially once it has drawn national attention.
MORE: The Jacksonville Shooting Wasn’t ‘Racially Motivated,’ It Was Racist. There’s A Difference
But the patron saint of anti-Black policies disguised as race neutrality should have made his little obligatory statement—which, as usual, went out of its way not to explicitly call a racist thing racist—from a safe space for barely-even-closeted white nationalists, not around a predominately Black crowd that was mourning deaths that were a direct result of the racism DeSantis uses his position to forcefully downplay (or outright deny).
Of course he got booed and heckled.
What exactly did DeSantis think was going to happen here? Did he think the man who is essentially running his presidential campaign on anti-Black racism was going to be embraced by the very people his propaganda harms? Did he honestly believe the man who promoted a bill that would essentially it legal for motorists to hit Black Lives Matter protesters was going to be invited to the proverbial cookout? Were Black folks supposed to forget that, this year alone, his state approved “educational” standards that require teaching that enslaved people benefitted from slavery, and approved learning materials produced by PragerU, which was founded by a loud and proud racist—all of which it did after it rejected an AP African American studies curriculum because it wasn’t completely stripped of everything white conservatives consider “woke”? Did DeSantis think we forgot how he led the charge in racist bastardization of the word “woke,” which is a product of Black vernacular?
DeSantis should expect that no matter what elected position he holds, anytime he opens his mouth to address a racist incident, Black people are going to hear a hollow message from a guy who moved to redistrict his state’s congressional map to dilute Black voting power and also deployed an election security task force that—surprise, surprise—resulted in the arrests of mostly Black voters who didn’t realize they were ineligible (in a state that appears to try its hardest to make as many Black voters intelligible as possible).
We’re going to remember that when the NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida as a direct response to DeSantis’ policies and how they make the Sun Shine state unsafe and uninviting to Black people, the good governor responded by scoffing at and dismissing the advisory as divisive and, of course, “woke.”
Now, here he comes trying to speak at a vigil for dead Black people who were victims of the racism he and his state foster.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that Ryan Christopher Palmeter, the 21-year-old who shot and killed three Black people in Jacksonville, happens to be a Florida resident. Or maybe DeSantis—for all of his political posturing about ending the division in America—is helping to influence anti-Black hate in the state he’s supposed to be leading.
Either way, here’s a photo that perfectly encapsulates Black people’s attitude toward DeSantis:
Enough said.
SEE ALSO:
Jacksonville HBCU Was Racist Gunman’s ‘Original’ Target, Edward Waters University Says
No ‘Joke’: Jacksonville Racist Shooting Spotlights How DeSantis Downplayed NAACP Travel Advisory
