Hundreds of people gathered Sunday at prayer vigils and in church, in frustration and exhaustion, to mourn yet another racist attack in America: this one the killing of three Black people in Florida at the hands of a white, 21-year-old man who authorities say left behind white supremacist ramblings that read like “the diary of a madman.”
Following services earlier in the day, about 200 people showed up at a Sunday evening vigil a block from the Dollar General store in Jacksonville where officials said Ryan Palmeter opened fire Saturday using guns he bought legally despite a past involuntary commitment for a mental health exam.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — who is running for the GOP nomination for president, who has loosened gun laws in Florida and who has antagonized civil rights leaders by deriding “wokeness " — was loudly booed as he addressed the vigil.
Ed Waters is a HBCU, one of only four in Florida, and the only one in Duval County. Jacksonville is only 120 miles from Rosewood. Put those two facts together and it is possible that at least one person in that audience was a direct descendant of a Rosewood survivor, or personally knows people that are.
Ed Waters is also less than three miles from Hemming Park; it’s even more likely that at least one person in that audience is a direct descendant of someone who was in attendance on Ax Handle Saturday, or was even there themselves.
Have I mentioned nearby St. Augustine and swimming pools yet?
And that’s just three incidents out of many in North Florida. This list goes on.
But Meatball Ron thinks if Florida doesn’t allow civil rights and black history to be taught, everyone will just forget.
It’s been decades since I lived in Florida, I’m not a person of color, and even I remember these things.
Nobody’s forgetting jack shit, except those racists who need to forget because they want to engage in more of the same and not have to be face to face with the daily knowledge of what horrendously shitty people they truly are.
I applaud the massive self-restraint of every person there, because I don’t know if I could have done the same. Ron’s very lucky all he got was booed.