I live in Florida for those that haven’t been following me. Florida is an absolutely beautiful state that has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In Florida we have all kinds of environmental concerns from pollution runoff from the sugar plantations to Green Algae to Red Tide. We are a State that is right in the crosshairs of climate change because of rising seas to stronger hurricanes. All of these environmental and climate issues will affect all of America but it may just be felt the worst right here. I was reading an article on the web from the Independent and it wrote about how bad climate change is going to be for the State of Florida. Trump has joked about the seas rising 1/100^th of a inch over the next 300 years and that all climate change is doing is creating more beachfront property. Neither one of those statements is true but the real problem is that people will actually believe him, which in turn, will make it harder to get anything done. I drive around the destruction from Ian everyday so I know the threat is real. DeSantis has designated one billion dollars in grant money that communities can apply for infrastructure change to start preparing for the rising seas. I wouldn’t be surprised if that money wasn’t actually coming from the Federal Government and DeSantis is just distributing it and taking credit for it. With all the issues with the Red Tide, Climate Change and the huge task of recovery after Ian what do you think is the biggest issue is for our Governor? Not any of those problems but DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

I wish everyone would do a little bit of research on what DEI is and how our Governor thinks that it is harming our Educational System and our children. To understand what DEI is I didn’t turn to some left leaning web site. I turned to the US Chamber of Commerce. They state that “Diversity refers to people’s race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, language, disability, age, religious commitment or political perspective.” They state that “Equity promotes justice, impartiality, and fairness within the procedure, process, and distribution of resources by institutions or systems.” They state that “Inclusion ensures people of all diverse backgrounds are welcome and have a seat at the table.” None of this seems to me to be very radical stuff or something that I would ever consider divisive but then that’s me. DeSantis must feel differently than I do. Wink News has stated that our Governor stated Jan. 31, 2023 that he wants ban all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, including Critical Race Theory at all Florida Colleges. He stated that his goal is to eliminate all DEI and CRT programs in the entire state of Florida. The governor’s office released a press release about the legislation, calling diversity, equity and inclusion programs as “discriminatory”. It says that the 2023 proposal “prohibits higher education instruction from using any funding, regardless of the source, to support DEI, CRT, and other discriminatory initiatives.”

Diversity was the thing that made him go after Disney with a vengeance. Disney is a very diverse business attracting a very diverse set of customers. When you go through their “It’s a Small World” ride you can understand the diversity that is necessary in their business. To thick otherwise to me is just ignorant.  I always thought that diversity was a good thing. A diverse school was a non- segregated school. A diverse education was a well-rounded education that prepared you for the real world. Whether DeSantis wants to admit it or not the real world is a very diverse place and it is the job of education to be preparing our students to the diverse world. Every advancement that we have made from trains, to automobiles, to airplanes, to jets, to the Internet has made the world get smaller and smaller. Diversity has to be one of the things that bring us forward in the future. The more business that we do online the more the people on the other end become faceless. A well-rounded business is the one that accepts the diversity of the world and works that to their advantage which is exactly what a company like Disney does. Let me put it another way. I have always wondered what a Black person must feel when they walk into a restaurant, and they are the only Black people there, and every eye in the room turns and looks at them like what are they doing here. That happens because many in society have not grasped the idea of diversity. Too many still grasp the idea of segregation whether they want to admit it or not. I think that our Governor wants to pretend that he is “color blind”. I think just the opposite about him. I believe that he has played a race card and that card is white.

Equity is to me one of the most important things that needs to happen in our Educational System. What it does is promotes fairness in our by making sure that the distribution of resources is done fairly. Black, and handicapped services are just a couple of things that the our educational system should be striving for the leveling of our educational system. Does a student with a disability in reading be denied recorded textbooks because they have a visual impairment? Is our education system ignoring the special needs of any student that does not conform with the definition of a normal student whether it is a emotional, mental or physical handicap? Some of the greatest mind in the world have had emotional, mental or physical handicaps. Would they be denying the next Steven Hawkins because he had a physical handicap that would need special needs? Would we deny the contribution that can be made by the next John Nash a Noble Peace prize winner in economics because of mental problems that can be controlled with the proper environment? Would we deny the necessary recourses from the next Einstein because he was poor and not what would be considered an ethnic background that was something other than White? I fear in DeSantis’s world of education we will be denying many that could contribute greatly to education and society.

Inclusion is meant to insure that every type of person is given a seat at the table. Every color from White, Black, Yellow, or Red, all would have a seat at the table. Christian, Muslim, Jew or Atheist, everyone should be welcome and comfortable in our educational system. Gay, Straight, Woman, Man or Transgender, all should have a voice that can be heard without being shouted down. If they need a wheelchair to get to the table so be it, they still should have a seat. If they need a Seeing Eye dog or a white cane with a red stripe to get there, so what, they still deserve a seat at the table. If they have a hearing impairment that should not deny them their place at the table also. Inclusion should be important to everyone so all of our children can survive and prosper. Those people need to included because no matter what Governor DeSantis thinks Disney is right, “It is a small world after all”.

I have saved Critical Race theory to last, intentionally, because in education we must be educating people what the truth is. No matter how hard a person tries to tell you that two and two equals three the truth will always be that it equals four. Our educational system cannot be built on lies. It can only be built by truths and that includes our History. We have a history that has been built on the backs of many different races with one of the biggest ones being Black. Our White House was built by Black slaves. Black slaves have been here just about as long as the White English settlers have. You may want to say that the first real import to America was slavery. We can’t hide that by just saying you can’t teach that in our schools. DeSantis has stated that there is no value in Black Studies. No value? Everyone in America should be insulted by that not just Black people. He has gone way beyond the Critical Race Theory argument to outright introducing bigotry in our educational system by stating that the contribution that Black people have made to America have no value. There is no other way of looking at what he has said. A book on one of the greatest Baseball Players ever to put on a uniform, Roberto Clemente, has been banned because of the discrimination that he faced early in his career but, we can’t have books on discrimination in our school libraries in Florida. Discrimination is part of American History and it has to be learned. I have heard it said that an all an intentional omission is just a lie. If you are not going to include Black History and the contribution that they made then all you are doing is teaching a lie. In today’s digital age all our libraries are open pretty much 24/7 and we can check out a book anytime of the day or night. To hide, try and hide, the truth is just showing your hate and bigotry. Remember our history in not just American History but also part of World History. We have to make sure that we know our own history better than the rest of the world if we want to command anyone’s respect.

We need to make our educational system as great as we can make them because if we don’t we will be the followers and not the leaders of the world. Maybe if DeSantis tried looking at Florida with smarter eyes he would see that Florida needs real solutions to real problems and not just issues made up issues that you think will help him springboard to the White House.