“Circle of Chains” Florida slavery memorial by Steven Whyte in Tallahassee. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)
“There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury.” – Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897), American abolitionist and author
Since he became governor, Ron DeSantis has made anti-Blackness — by way of race-tinged rhetoric, policy, and legislation — one of the major pillars of his administration.
He is not alone.
A persistent narrative spun by a wide swathe of white Republicans is that white people are under attack and suffering harm because of reverse discrimination. The clamor is that white Americans are now the most disenfranchised group in the United States.
The narrative is of rampant anti-white racism, the difficulties and challenges whites encounter in all aspects of their life, and the jobs, housing, and other opportunities denied them because unfair laws, policies, and programs are skewed to benefit African Americans, Latinos, Native American, and other non-white people. All this noise is disingenuous.
Since each man came into office, both the DeSantis and the Trump administrations have partnered on a sardonic crusade, labeling DEI programs as indoctrination and discrimination while forcefully dismantling affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in government, education, and commerce.
Republican operatives have unleashed a groundswell of recrimination that has deepened the already profound racial divisions that have sadly become a routine feature of life in the United States.
Yet this entire premise of Black people being afforded an unfair privilege is built on a centuries-old lie.
Slavery is America’s Original Sin, the perpetual stain that DeSantis, Trump, and other apologists spend inordinate time trying to convince us that none of it really happened. Yet for the more than 400 years since enslaved Africans have been in this country, the dominant majority has erected physical, social, political, psychological, economic, and other barriers to any Black progress.
Struggle
It has been a monumental struggle all these years for African Americans to move past the obstacles set in their way including chattel slavery, Jim Crow, de jure and de facto segregation, and redlining.
The Florida American Civil Liberties Union notes that “throughout his tenure, this governor has used the power of his office to subjugate and control the lives of Black people in Florida. But slavery is over, and we’re not asking for our freedom anymore. We’re taking it.”
DeSantis and his administration, the ALCU said, are “on a crusade this election season to stop progress and keep in place coercive and unfair laws that control the bodies of Black people in Florida.” If they prevail, “the lives of people who are historically the most impacted by these policies will continue to be at risk: Black people.”
The ACLU adds, “The administration of Gov. DeSantis has demonstrated a disdain for Black people and their lives in Florida. His actions as governor demonstrate that under his governance, the lives of Black people are expendable.”
The anti-DEI campaign has targeted Florida’s public schools, teachers, universities, professors, and businesses. To wit: Florida’s 12 public universities have been prohibited from using state or federal funds for DEI programs, following legislation signed by the governor and reinforced by the State Board of Governors.
Recently, Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier launched yet another legal fusillade at what’s left of Florida’s already weakened DEI programs.
In what might be the coup de grâce, Uthmeier released a legal opinion declaring that many of the established DEI and affirmative action measures in Florida’s public and private sectors constitute unlawful race‑based discrimination under federal and state law.
“Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a formal opinion finding that dozens of state laws requiring race-based preferences, classifications, or quotas violate the Equal Protection Clause and Florida’s Constitution. Relying heavily on the Supreme Court’s holding in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the opinion states that Florida will not defend or enforce statutes that mandate race-based decision making,” according to CWC, “a national association of employers committed to effective labor and employment law compliance and the sensible regulation of the U.S. workplace.”
The CWC report notes that “these letters do not change federal law, but they reflect an increasingly aggressive enforcement posture by state officials and reinforce heightened scrutiny of race conscious policies following [the] Harvard [ruling]. It would not be surprising if other state attorneys general weigh in, either echoing these concerns or offering a sharply different view, adding to legal and political uncertainty for multi-state employers.
Republicans, MAGA — perhaps most Americans — love to brag that the U.S. is a meritocracy but that is fiction.
A glance at the racial landscape across America tells a different story. White people comprise 59% of the U.S. population but dominate in just about all spheres of American life.
The real race disparities
A 2014 study by the Women Donors Network found that 95% of the 2,437 elected state and local prosecutors in the United States — who wield tremendous power — were white, with 79% being white men, despite white men representing only 31% of the population. This lack of diversity significantly affects the fate of defendants who are disproportionately Black and Hispanic.
Only 1% of elected prosecutors were non-white women. In 66% of states that elect prosecutors, there were no black prosecutors, while 15 states had only white prosecutors. We can blame the ol’ boys network, which is reflected in the reality that 85% of incumbent prosecutors run for re-election unopposed.
In other fields:
- America’s Fortune 500 corporations with the highest revenue generated employ a mere eight black CEOs.
- 80% of all public-school teachers are white despite the diversity of America’s student population and students of color making up more than half of the student body.
- A white high school dropout has an easier time getting a job than a Black man with a college degree, so Black men’s educational levels do not guarantee equal job opportunities.
And perhaps the biggest data point, massive wealth disparity. Statistics show that wealth disparities between Black and white households in the United States are profound and pervasive, with white households possessing almost 10 times more median wealth than Black households. In 2022, the median wealth for white households was about $285,000, while for Black households it was $44,900.
White households, comprising 60% of the population, held 84% of total U.S. household wealth in 2020, while Black households (13.4% of the population) held 4%.
A RAND study regards the wealth gap as the present-day manifestation of that history of lost income and lost opportunity. The gap has been widening, year after year, for at least the past 30 years. In fact, it has only meaningfully narrowed in recent years during moments of economic turmoil, when housing and stock prices fell.
“You can see how it becomes this baked-in system, with every generation having less to pass down to the next generation,” said Jonathan Welburn, an expert in economic analysis and lead author of Rand’s wealth gap study. “Yesterday’s segregation is today’s wealth gap. We like to pretend that we live in a race-neutral, merit-based society now, that this is all in the past, but you can’t erase history. It shows up in our wealth. For many, it shows up in the lack of wealth.”
Redlining and more
In Florida, the gap between Blacks and whites is driven by institutional and systemic structures that include unequal access to housing and jobs; disinvestment in Black and brown communities; redlining; the unwillingness of banks to give African Americans loans at the same rate and percentage as whites; lower investment returns; and a centuries-long legacy of discrimination.
Palm Beach Post reporter Wayne Washington wrote about the effects of racism, discrimination and segregation on Black Floridians in 2023. He detailed in his story the reality that, “on a broad range of issues — financial, political, social — Black Floridians still lag behind white Floridians and in many areas the gap has grown. In DeSantis’ Florida, he writes, Black residents are sicker, poorer, less educated. It’s getting worse.”
Former state Sen. Bobby Powell, a West Palm Beach Democrat and former chair of the state’s Black Legislative Caucus, said the DeSantis administration is more interested in scoring political points at Black people’s expense than working to improve their lives.
“Right now, we’re under a regime that works to attack the idea of diversity and inclusion,” Powell says in the story. “People are jumping on that bandwagon. We’ve got gaps now that I think will grow even larger.”
Researchers from the United Way argue that “such institutionalized racism will not solve itself. Black babies in Florida are half as likely to see their first birthday. Black men have the shortest life expectancy of any group in the United States.”
More than half of black households in Florida live below the United Way’s Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed (ALICE) threshold.
“Segregation persists. The average black household with an income of more than $60,000 lived in a neighborhood with a higher poverty rate than did the average white household earning less than $20,000. It isn’t getting better,” the report said.
Supporters of affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion point out that one important element of the fight is to reframe these initiatives as benefits to society, individuals, and communities — to highlight attempts to reach parity and equality and eschew preferential treatment. They also advise implementation of new and innovative ways to leverage data proving the return on investment from building a culture that embraces all people.
African Americans and other non-whites can’t give up the fight. They have no choice but to oppose DeSantis, Trump, and the rest on the streets, in the courts, in the voting booth, despite concerted efforts by far-right Republicans to squelch any dissent.