During his presidential announcement forum, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) travel advisory warning minorities not to come to Florida was “a total farce.”
The NAACP claimed that Florida was undertaking “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.
“Under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said.
Asked about these claims during his presidential announcement on Twitter, DeSantis called the claims “a total farce.”
“Claiming that Florida is unsafe is a total farce,” DeSantis said. “I mean, are you kidding me? You look at cities around this country, they are awash in violent crime.”
By contrast, he noted that Florida is currently enjoying a 50-year low in crime. Likewise, he noted that no Florida city makes the cut for the list of the top 25 most dangerous cities in the U.S.
He also criticized the NAACP for being silent on falling educational outcomes for minority children in metropolitan areas.
“If you look at cities like Baltimore and Chicago, you got kids more likely to get shot than to receive a first-class education,” he said. “Yet I don’t see the NAACP batting an eye about all the outrage and the carnage that’s happening in those areas.
By comparison, he said: “Black students in Florida perform much higher than black students in most other states. We ranked number three in fourth-grade reading and number two in fourth-grade math amongst our black student population.”
“So this is a political stunt,” DeSantis ruled. “These left-wing groups have been doing it for many, many years. And at the end of the day, what they’re doing is colluding with legacy media to try to manufacture a narrative.”
DeSantis also said that similar efforts to portray Florida as dangerous had failed in the past.
“Any of these travel advisories—because they’ve been doing this for a while, these left-wing groups—have any of them worked well? We’re the number one state for net migration and have been every year since I’ve been governor. We just had the highest quarter for tourism in the history of the state of Florida.”
DeSantis said he refused to divvy up people by race: “Our view is we want everybody to succeed regardless of their skin color.”
He claimed that Florida also boasts more black-owned small businesses than any other U.S. state and that more black people have had leadership positions in his administration than in any other administration in Florida’s history.
“But they’re there because of merit, not because we’re trying to play identity politics,” he said.
“Oh, by the way,” he added. “The head of the NAACP lives in Florida, and a lot of their board members have put out on social media—during my governorship—Florida vacations where they seem to be having an awful good time.”
