When I was a teenager back in the 1950s a Black friend whose family was planning a trip to visit relatives in Florida showed me what they called the Green Book. Almost all Black families that travelled had a copy. It told them how they could safely travel through the South; where it was safe to eat, where you could stay the night. As I held it and read it I was appalled. This was America and I was revulsed that my friend, and other Black families like his, had to travel in this way. It was one of the things that prompted me to become an active participant in the Civil Rights Movement. Today 66 years later I was appalled once again that the NAACP has felt it had to issue an advisory warning Black people about traveling to Florida. That’s what DeSantis and the White GOP state legislators have done to a state that depends on visitors and agricultural workers. Living in a Red state if you are an LGBTQ or person of color, or a fertile woman of any race, is becoming highly problematic, and I expect it will get worse.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the NAACP Board of Directors issued a formal travel advisory for the state of Florida. The travel advisory comes in direct response to Governor Ron DeSantis’ aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.
The formal travel notice states, “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. 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.”
“Let me be clear – failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all,” said NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson. “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. He should know that democracy will prevail because its defenders are prepared to […]
I wonder if the voters of Florida who are responsible for making Ron DeSantis their governor realize the damage he is doing to their state. It doesn’t seem to be having any effect, and I see this as another example of how MAGAts simply are not influenced by facts.
Corporate conventions flee Florida over ‘openly hostile’ political climate: report. Credit: SnapSaintPete / Shutterstock
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ discriminatory policies and culture war tactics are starting to negatively impact the Sunshine State financially, Orlando Sentinel reports.
Two organizations recently decided to remove upcoming conventions from Florida, which Orlando Sentinel notes is “the latest economic blow to the region, coming in the wake of Walt Disney Co.’s decision to drop plans for a nearly $1 billion corporate campus in Orlando with 2,000 high-paying jobs.”
This comes after the NAACP issued a travel advisory last month saying, “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
California-based AnitaB.org, a technology group of female and nonbinary employees, boasts around 16,000 attendees for its annual Grace Hopper Celebration — usually held in Orlando — which is lauded the “world’s largest gathering of women in computing.”
The group emphasized, “[W]e will not return until this legislation is overturned, and the state becomes more welcoming to all,” attributing its reason for relocation to “laws that banned […]
Mark Olalde and Umar Farooq | Anna V. Smith, Staff Writers - ProPublica and High Country News
Stephan:
The white Republican legislature of Arizona, once again is screwing native Americans in that state. The members don’t seem to be capable of thinking in a manner that fosters wellbeing for all. Arizona has a poor future because of both rising temperatures and lack of water. The cities of Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Tucson, are going to have to be radically reconfigured. The native Americans are facing crisis. The only way the people of Arizona are going to get through climate change as anything like a functioning state is for the White Republicans to recognize that they must give up their racism, greed, hate, and resentments and work to create a society that fosters wellbeing for everyone. The alternative is mass emigration, suffering, violence, and death.
The Dilkon Medical Center, a sprawling, $128 million facility on the Navajo Nation in Arizona, was completed a year ago. With an emergency room, pharmacy and housing for more than 100 staff members, the new hospital was cause for celebration in a community that has to travel long distances for all but the most basic health care.
But there hasn’t been enough clean water to fill a large tank that stands nearby, so the hospital sits empty.
The Navajo Nation has for years been locked in contentious negotiations with the state of Arizona over water. With the tribe’s claims not yet settled, the water sources it can access are limited.
The hospital tried tapping an aquifer, but the water was too salty to use. If it could reach an agreement with the state, the tribe would have other options, perhaps even the nearby Little Colorado River. But instead, the Dilkon Medical Center’s grand opening has been postponed, and its doors remain closed.
For the people of the Navajo Nation, the fight for water rights has real implications. Pipelines, […]
This is the latest in the Homo Superior Trend that few outside of science will even talk about. This worries me much more than AI, because I do not see how Homo Sapiens will be able to deal with Homo Superior except as a subordinate species.
The pace of discoveries in this field and the growing sophistication of these models have alarmed bioethics experts as they push closer to the edge of life. Credit: yacobchuk / iStockphoto /Getty
A team of researchers in the United States and United Kingdom say they have created the world’s first synthetic human embryo-like structures from stem cells, bypassing the need for eggs and sperm.
These embryo-like structures are at the very earliest stages of human development: They don’t have a beating heart or a brain, for example. But scientists say they could one day help advance the understanding of genetic diseases or the causes of miscarriages.
The research raises critical legal and ethical questions, and many countries, including the US, don’t have laws governing the creation or treatment of synthetic embryos.
The pace of discoveries in this field and the growing sophistication of these models have alarmed bioethics experts as they push ever closer to the edge of life.
“Unlike human embryos arising from in vitro fertilization (IVF), where there is an established legal framework, there are currently no […]
The Republican Congress submissives who have been rented like whores by the oligarchs are trying to change the U.S. Tax structure to save the richest 1% billions of dollars. And how does it treat average Americans? The poorest 20%, they’ll get to save about $40. This is what corruption looks like and what it achieves for the corrupter.
Tax cut legislation that House Republicans are set to consider this week after pushing the global economy to the brink of disaster would deliver more than $28 billion to the richest 1% of Americans next year—and just $1.4 billion to the poorest fifth of the country.
That’s according to a new analysis of the legislation by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), which estimated Sunday that the poorest fifth of Americans would receive an average tax break of just $40 next year under the three new Republican bills, one of which is titled the Tax Cuts for Working Families Act.
By contrast, ITEP showed, people in the top 1% of the income distribution would see an average tax cut of $16,550 under the legislation.
The wealthiest 20% of Americans would receive a total of $60.8 billion in tax cuts next year under the new bills, which are unlikely to pass the divided Congress.
The three measures, which the House Ways and Means Committee is set to mark […]
