(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) In the wake of the NAACP’s recently-issued Florida travel warning for black Americans, the Florida GOP Chair, Christian Ziegler, noted that Leon Russell, the NAACP’s chairman, lives in Tampa, Florida.
The CHAIRMAN of the @NAACP lives in Tampa, FLORIDA!
True leadership is being willing to do what you ask others to do… time to step up and MOVE.
If you think our state is so bad, the @FloridaGOP will help with moving costs. https://t.co/fhvaiii9iB pic.twitter.com/5NnhQZyc3P
— Christian Ziegler 🇺🇸 (@ChrisMZiegler) May 21, 2023
Ziegler noted that the Florida GOP would be happy to help Russell relocate out of the state that he so deeply detests.
Christina Pushaw, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s communications chief, found the irony particularly amusing:
😂
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) May 21, 2023
The NAACP’s formal travel advisory warns that “under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon.”
According to NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson, DeSantis “should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to stand up and fight.”
Johnson promised not to “back down,” noting that he will ask his “allies” to “join us in the battle for the soul of our nation.”
For Johnson and the NAACP, the state under DeSantis has become “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
The official travel notice warns that the state, which the NAACP boss calls home, is unfriendly to “marginalized” groups.
“Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color,” it says.
The NAACP is just the latest of several woke organizations to issue warnings about the state of Florida to special status groups.
Equality Florida, for example, recently warned LGBT people that in Florida there are “risks posed to the health, safety, and freedom of those considering short or long-term travel, or relocation to the state.”
They also noted that the “Don’t Say Gay” law is of particular concern.
“That law, along with additional proposals being considered, has turned the state’s classrooms into political battlefields and is telegraphing to LGBTQ families and students that they are not welcome in Florida,” the group wrote at the time.
