Miami Herald: White supremacy claimed three lives. But Florida would rather fight acronyms
Source: Miami Herald
White supremacy claimed three lives. But Florida would rather fight acronyms ǀ Opinion
the Miami Herald Editorial Board
Mon, August 28, 2023 at 3:08 PM EDT·4 min read
Racism, hatred and white supremacy aren’t facts of the past, and speaking about these persistent evils in American society isn’t meant to instill guilt or impose a political agenda.
What happened over the weekend in Jacksonville isn’t a talking point. It’s senseless, yet increasingly common, violence that claimed the lives of three Black Floridians, targeted because of their race, according to law enforcement.
The Dollar General shooting shouldn’t be treated as an outlier, an act carried out by a mad man. If mental illness were a factor, as it seems to have been, it’s not the full story. The Justice Department is investigating the shooting as a hate crime. The racist writings by the suspected gunman and the swastikas drawn on his AR-15-style rifle should be treated with the same urgency with which Florida lawmakers treated mental health after the 2018 Parkland school massacre.
Were the mass shooting to serve as a lesson for Florida policy makers, they would quickly launch task forces to address the white supremacy that’s latent in Florida. This is the state where neo-Nazis boldly marched outside Disney World in June with flags bearing swastikas. Just as disturbing, some flags bore Gov. Ron DeSantis’ image. Last year, Florida hosted the America First Political Action Conference, a white supremacist event that took place in Orlando. And the state is home to many Proud Boys, a group that harbors white supremacists within its ranks.
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CRT, DEI and “woke” don’t kill people. White supremacy does, as it did in mass murders in Jacksonville, Buffalo, Charleston, El Paso and Pittsburgh.
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Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/white-supremacy-claimed-three-lives-190841873.html
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