Florida, where racial hatred festers all around us

Gov. Ron DeSantis has acted as if racism no longer exists in America. Another racist murder spree, this time in his state, proves how horrifyingly wrong that is.

Systemic racism is more entrenched and insidious in America now than before Republican politicians began pandering to those who don’t want to hear about it. The internet spreads it like embers from a wildfire.

The deliberate murders of three Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, shot dead by a hate-filled white man in a tactical vest with an assault weapon, is the latest example of random violence by lone offenders that the FBI has rightly defined as the “greatest terrorism threat to the homeland we face today.”

A cancer is eating at America’s soul. It was brewed in the same circle of hell as the murders of Black worshippers in a Charleston church, of Jews at Sabbath services in Pittsburgh, Latinos at a Walmart in El Paso and Black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo. And Jacksonville will doubtlessly not be the last.

White supremacist hatred

Acts of white supremacist hatred are rising every year. The Anti-Defamation League counted 6,751 in 2022. Although relatively few are lethal, every single one fosters that potential.

That the latest such murders happened in a state that just made it the easiest in the nation for death sentences demonstrates not only the futility of that approach, but how far DeSantis missed the point when he twice publicly denounced the killer as a “scumbag” and as a coward for killing himself.

Fla ⁦@GovRonDeSantis⁩ on shootings in Jacksonville pic.twitter.com/vOI24PVpNY

— Gary Fineout (@fineout) August 26, 2023

“Respectfully, Governor, he was not a scumbag,” a Black pastor chided DeSantis at a Jacksonville vigil, “He was a racist.”

The pastor was right. The crude word DeSantis used is a common insult, but it’s beneath the dignity of a governor and it sidestepped the reality of this case. The killer was a white supremacist who hated Black people. To honor the victims and begin the healing, DeSantis must initiate a candid discussion of racial hatred in Florida.

At least he went to Sunday’s vigil near the murder scene, where he was booed loudly before and after he spoke. If he wondered why, state Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, made it plain to MSNBC.

“He has had an all-out attack on the Black community with his anti-woke policies, which we know very well was nothing more than a dog whistle to get folks riled up in the way in which it just happened,” Nixon said.

Nixon: I am a woman who is speaking truth to power to let you all know that this man means us no good. pic.twitter.com/K0OgPQPXsX

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 27, 2023

Perhaps that was a stretch, but not by much.

The malignancy of racism

Physical violence is the predictable outcome of the verbal and symbolic violence that flourishes wherever and whenever people tolerate racism. DeSantis might not be so unwelcome in Jacksonville had he spoken out when Nazis flaunted swastika flags and on an I-95 overpass and littered driveways with antisemitic pamphlets in Jacksonville last year.

Government is the great teacher, as a Supreme Court justice once said. At every opportunity, it should prompt people to resist and denounce the malignancy of racism. DeSantis has not done that.

To the contrary, his laws banning DEI programs — diversity, equity and inclusion — in state universities and the teaching of critical race theory anywhere foster racism by pretending that it no longer exists. A teacher who merely talks about it in a historical or present context risks being punished upon complaint from a student that it made them feel ashamed. DeSantis cowed the College Board into distorting its Advanced Placement  African American History course. His Board of Education approved history standards that stress some Blacks benefitted from slavery.

Two days before the Jacksonville shooting, a committee of the Republican-ruled Jacksonville City Council voted to defund Democratic Mayor Donna Deegan’s new office of Chief of Diversity and Inclusion. Officials claimed dishonestly that the city can’t afford the money, a mere $185,000 in what another councilman called a “drop in a 200-gallon bucket.” The shooting showed why Jacksonville can’t afford not to spend it.

At Jacksonville, DeSantis promised $1 million for security for Edward Waters University, a historically Black institution where a security guard spotted the killer in a parking lot. The guard alerted a nearby deputy, but the suspect drove away.

How did he get his guns?

Where law enforcement failed — not of its own fault — was six years earlier after the killer, 15 at the time, had been held for psychiatric evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act. The reasons are not publicly known, but whatever they were, a Baker Act evaluation should trigger a presumptive ban on weapons purchases. Presently, it does so only when the person is committed for treatment, which shows up in federally required background checks.

The local sheriff said the killer legally bought an AR-15-style rifle and a Glock handgun a few months ago. He fired 11 shots into a car driven by his first victim, whom he didn’t know and chose simply because she was Black. The sheriff said he had written many racist manifestos.

DeSantis called the murderer’s actions “totally unacceptable.” What should also be totally unacceptable are politicians and policies that foster racism by denying its pernicious, persistent existence. If DeSantis wants to stop targeted killings, he could start by banning the rapid-fire weapons the killer carried into a Dollar General.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.