Dear Senator Baxley,
About your statement that a Florida Slavery Memorial would "celebrate defeat" -- your opportunity to kill a tribute the entire Florida House voted for:
There are those who are giving you the benefit of the doubt.
I'm not one of them.
If it walks like a Klan member, talks like a Klan member, and legislates like a Klan member, well, let the sheet fit.
You, sir, are legislating like a Klan member.
I get that you are representing your constituents, and that your constituents include a large number of Klan members, however the REST of Florida realizes that the Confederacy lost.
The REST of Florida realizes that all men and women are created equal.
The REST of Florida realizes that there would be no heritage that you seem so proud of, if not for the enslaved people who worked your fields, cared for your ancestors, built your cities, endured your torture, all under the harsh conditions of SLAVERY.
Defeat?
No, that isn't what would be celebrated, although one could be happy that right finally prevailed, and black PEOPLE were finally liberated from your ancestors.
Well, as liberated as could be at the time.
What is celebrated, Grand Dragon Baxley, is the strength and fortitude these people had to live through during the darkest period this country has ever known.
Slavery is a stain on this country and its ramifications and repercussions are still reverberating throughout society to this day.
No one would ever THINK to tell Jewish Americans not to have a Holocaust memorial, and the Holocaust didn't even happen in this country.
WE as a people should NEVER forget that atrocity, or the atrocity of slavery.
If you want to try to compare slavery to anything, that would be the only thing that comes close, Grand Wizard Baxley.
Child abuse? Sexual abuse?
Bite your tongue. And then swallow it. Please.
I am hoping Senate President Negron does the right thing and brings the Slavery Memorial bill to the floor for a vote.
If it fails, so be it. But at least let it be heard.
Leslie Wimes, a Sunshine State News columnist, is founder and president of Women on the Move and the Democratic African American Women Caucus, www.daawc.com. Follow Leslie on Twitter: @womenonthemove1.
