NAACP Issues Travel Warning For Florida

Facts

• The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a longtime advocate for Black Americans, has issued a travel advisory for the US state of Florida.¹
• The NAACP is recommending against “African Americans, and other people of color' — as well as LGBTQ communities — traveling to Florida because of a “sustained, blatant, relentless and systemic attack on democracy and civil rights' there.²
• This is largely in response to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's ban on critical race theory in public schools, his call for restrictions on teaching Black history since 2021, and the state's rejection of the College Board’s new Advanced Placement course in African American studies over what DeSantis called 'woke ideology.'³
• Previously, Equality Florida, a gay rights advocacy group, also issued a travel advisory for Florida after DeSantis signed a law, known by opponents as the 'Don’t Say Gay' bill, restricting how gender identity and related issues could be taught in schools.⁴
• The League of United Latin American Citizens also issued an advisory after the state passed new immigration laws it deemed as 'hostile and dangerous' to Latinos.⁴
• DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern called the advisory 'nothing more than a stunt,' also touting 37.9M tourist visits in the first three months of this year, a state record for a single quarter.⁵

Sources: ¹NPR Online News, ²Independent, ³Washington Post, ⁴CBS and ⁵FOX News.

Narratives

• Democratic narrative, as provided by Yahoo News. It’s important for the NAACP and other organizations to make sure travelers to Florida, which is heavily reliant on the tourism industry, know what they’re supporting with their money. DeSantis and his Republican apparatus are waging war on diversity and inclusion, and organizations and individuals who stand against him must speak out for the world to hear.
• Republican narrative, as provided by Daily Wire. These baseless attacks from Democrats and others on the radical left are clearly intended to hamper DeSantis’s presidential aspirations. Most of what the governor has signed into law has been done to protect children from being medically harmed or educationally indoctrinated by the left. Florida is a perfectly safe place — after all, the Black chairman of the NAACP lives there.