The burning of some Miami police cars, the looting of some stores at Bayside Market Place and the
vandalism of statues at Bayfront Park were the acts of a few. Likewise, in the other two Florida cities. All caught were arrested and charged with crimes because the laws against criminal activity, no matter how or when it takes place, are already in the books.
What DeSantis and his supporting cast of GOP lawmakers are doing with HB1 is perpetuating a system of double standards based on race.
When a police officer acts unlawfully, when he kills or maims, or violates civil rights, we’re told he’s “a bad apple” in a bushel of good public servants. But when African Americans and Latinos protest, and some opportunists, or some hotheads in the crowd, do damage, the knee-jerk reaction is to quash people’s sacred right to protest in a democracy.
It’s wrong and racially motivated thinking — and that’s what this bill is all about, the need to rein in the Black man, the need to criminalize his behavior with legislation a la Jim Crow, whether it’s by keeping people from protesting with threats of arrest or making it harder for them to vote.
This is why these lawmakers can’t muster an ounce of sensitivity at this poignant moment in time.
“Violence discredits the cause of the protests,” Fernandez-Barquin said during the last seconds of his appearance on the Sunday show “
This Week in South Florida” with Michael Putney and Glenna Milberg during a discussion of the bill.
No, it doesn’t.
The cause of long-overdue racial justice in this country — and the fact that the killing of unarmed Black people by police must stop — is greater than the behavior of a few miscreants.
The fact that
Fernandez-Barquin used his last precious moments of air time to say this speaks volumes. Bet he wouldn’t feel the same way if Cubans were burning down Havana to protest the Castro regime.
www.marketwatch.com
www.orlandosentinel.com
