*There are lots of reasons to love Florida: The weather, its many beaches, and beautiful people walking around mostly naked are at the top of the list. But these days the political climate in Florida is causing many people to rethink spending time or money in the sunshine state. One of them is Florida’s Modern Day Fugitive Slave Act.
Among the issues are new legislation being passed by state legislators and co-signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. There’s the law that makes it a felony offense to have an illegal immigrant riding in your vehicle, living in your home, employed at your company, or worshiping in your church.
Never mind that you might not know their immigration status. In these days of ride-sharing and short-term rentals, it’s not unusual for people to be in the presence of strangers. So now before Floridians pick up a rideshare fare, or agree to do business with a short-term renter or before they invite anyone to worship with them at church essentially they have to do a background check on that person. Otherwise, they could be risking their freedom. DeSantis and the state of Florida have created their own version of the Fugitive Slave Act.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 stated that anyone who had knowledge of the whereabouts of escaped slaves (i.e. illegal immigrants) had an obligation to report it, making everybody else responsible for doing the government’s job.
While I don’t think illegal immigrants should live unchecked and unchallenged in a foreign country, it shouldn’t be the responsibility of its citizens on the back end to do what customs and immigration have failed to do on the front end.
Then there are the new laws that allow discrimination against people in the LGBTQ community. One of the new laws allows healthcare providers and insurance companies to deny patient care and healthcare coverage on the basis of religious, moral or ethical beliefs. That means a physician, who took an oath to provide care, NOW could be allowed to withhold care because of who that person is sleeping with. And that means certain people could lose their health insurance if that insurance company decides to inject a morals clause into policies. The possibilities of the ridiculousness this could lead to are endless.
Desantis was one of the first governors to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory from Florida classrooms, even though it was never officially being taught to begin with. Then came the threat to hold teachers criminally responsible for having in their possession any books on a ‘banned book’ list. How do books end up on that list? It’s subjective, based on who approves or disapproves of what is discussed in the book.
And since that’s not enough of an education debacle, DeSantis and Florida legislators plan to re-write history to push the lie that slavery was good for slaves because it taught them a trade. If your child or family member attends public school in Florida this new viewpoint of slavery could be coming to a history book in their school district in the Fall.
Some people who live in Florida claim the politics of Florida are not the reality of residents who live there. I believe it’s just a matter of time before it is. If these Floridians allow state legislators to take their tax dollars, use them to create discriminatory laws, and eventually enforce them without fighting for their rights and the rights of others, it’s just a matter of time before the rights they think they have will be taken away.
It reminds me of the story about the frog and the pot of water: If you put a frog in lukewarm water and gradually turn up the heat the frog won’t realize it’s being cooked to death until it’s too late. Sometimes people get complacent in the face of discrimination because it’s subtle or it doesn’t directly affect them. So they ignore it. By the time they decide to fight it, it’s too late. Their silence was consent.
Some of you who are reading this might tell yourself this has nothing to do with you because you don’t live in Florida. When you really should do some homework to find out if the same things are going on in your state legislature. And while you’re doing your homework, if your organization is searching for a place to hold a convention, Don’t do it in Florida. Let them know we oppose discrimination against anybody. And we oppose a history curriculum that claims slavery benefited slaves because it didn’t.
If this is how DeSantis governs Florida, imagine what he has planned for America if he becomes president of the United States.
Steffanie Rivers is a freelance journalist living in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. Email her at info@SteffanieRivers.com with your comments, questions, and speaking inquiries. Follow her @tcbstef on Instagram, Thread, and Twitter.
OTHER NEWS ON EURWEB: Finally! Tim Scott Showing Some Cajones: Not Buying DeSantis’ BS Florida Curriculum: ‘No Silver Lining’ in Slavery | WATCH
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