Black Florida Business Owner Demolishes NAACP for 'Travel Advisory,' Buries the Race-Baiting Narrative with Just Three Words
An African American Florida business owner said the NAACP’s travel advisory issued earlier this month warning black people not to come to his state is not grounded in reality.
Mike Hill, an Air Force veteran and owner of an insurance and financial services agency in the Pensacola area for over 30 years, told Fox News the NAACP’s outlandish move earlier this month is likely grounded in two things, and blacks should “simply ignore it.”
First, it’s political and aimed at Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who officially entered the race for the presidency last week, but had been widely expected to do so for months.
Further, Hill believes the NAACP also issued the advisory as a means to fundraise.
The May 20 travel advisory reads, in part, “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.”
The advisory cites DeSantis directly saying he’s attempting “to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.”
In April 2022, the governor signed a bill into law banning critical race theory.
“We believe in education, not indoctrination,” DeSantis said at a news conference the time, NBC affiliate WPTV reported. “We believe an important component of freedom in the state of Florida is the freedom from having oppressive ideologies opposed upon you without your consent.”
“We are not gonna use your tax dollars to teach our kids to hate this country or to hate each other,” he added.
Hill said that he’s lived in Florida since 1985 having originally come to the Sunshine State while in the Air Force.
He’s raised three children in the state, who now are grown and have families of their own living in Florida. “And they’re all doing very well,” Hill said.
“Florida has proven for me, my family and those who I know to be a place of opportunity and prosperity,” he recounted.
Hill noted that Leon Russell — who is chairman of the board of the NAACP and quoted in the travel advisory — has lived in Tampa most of his adult life.
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
According to the most recent Census information, 17 percent of Florida’s residents are African American, which is higher than the 13.6 percent of blacks who make up the U.S. population overall.
“I would tell black people who have seen this advisory to not come to Florida to simply ignore it,” Hill said.
“You don’t come to Florida because you’re concerned about the state of Florida not teaching the falsities of critical race theory, and the 1619 Project, and the nonsense of diversity, equity and inclusion,” he argued. “That’s not why people come to visit Florida.”
“They come to Florida because of our beaches, because of the sunshine, the excellent food, the hospitality that is here,” he said.
Hill predicted the advisory will “backfire on the NAACP and show just how irrelevant they have become as an organization.”
Florida schools actually do teach black history, despite what the NAACP might try to say.
DeSantis pointed out during an interview with Fox News host Mark Levin in February that Florida education standards require it.
For the advanced placement curriculum in Florida high schools, DeSantis said colleges were trying to impose in a black studies course, queer theory, intersectionality, and effectively “neo-Marxism.”
“If that’s something you want to do on your own time, you’re free to go pursue that, but for our taxpayers to be supporting that type of indoctrination, that is not something that we want to do,” he explained.
DeSantis: Florida, our standards require teaching all aspects of black history and we think it is important. pic.twitter.com/JpmmDKlkqP
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 27, 2023
The Florida Department of Education website says among the topics that are required to be taught by state law are the development of slavery, the passage to America of slaves from Africa, the enslavement experience, abolition, and the history and contributions of African Americans.
“Students shall develop an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping on individual freedoms, and examine what it means to be a responsible and respectful person, for the purpose of encouraging tolerance of diversity in a pluralistic society and for nurturing and protecting democratic values and institutions,” the Florida guidelines state.
The legislature “acknowledges the fundamental truth that all persons are equal before the law and have inalienable rights.”
Further students are to be taught, “No person is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex.”
And that meritocracy is a good thing and “not racist, but fundamental to the right to pursue happiness and be rewarded for industry.”
Finally, “A person should not be instructed that he or she must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress for actions, in which he or she played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.”
Sounds like freedom over the guilt-ladened Phariseeism that Jesus Christ aggressively opposed in his day.
As he promised, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Hill gave some sound advice “simply ignore” the NAACP and go have a good time in the Sunshine State!
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