MSNBC PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton joined Morning Joe on Thursday to recap his Wednesday vanity protest against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s education policies where he showed his usual lack of nuance and good faith, by comparing DeSantis to those who perpetuated slavery and segregation.
Recalling Wednesday’s events, Sharpton claimed to be shocked that people who agree with him, agree with him, “Well, what I learned is that people are genuinely incensed by what the governor's doing because for the governor and the College Board to decide, to say what part of black history is comfortable to Floridians, basically white Floridians, is as offensive as you can get.”
Reaching for whatever the slavery equivalent of Godwin’s law is, Sharpton continued:
Where you must remember one of the most effective ways of dehumanizing blacks in slavery was it was against the law for us to read and write and then it was against the law for whites to teach us. So, education was always something we always saw as our key to coming out of being enslaved. Because of our ability to read and white. Now you're going to limit what we can read and white in AP classes? Like, people won't be able to handle watching movements like the Civil Rights Movement, like the Black Lives Matter movement, like LGBTQ rights, and it is not to condemn the country. It's to show how the country evolved.
At this point it would’ve behooved Sharpton to cite where in Florida law it forbids teaching about the Civil Rights Movement and if Sharpton thinks not uncritically his talking points is like slavery, then it is no wonder “we had no engagement” from DeSantis’s office.
After Sharpton over-emphasized his own importance by hilariously claiming “every major pastor from all over Florida” was at the protest, he continued, “He’s looking at now, not looking at history. He wants to be Baby Trump. He's going to use race like Trump did.”
Following some crosstalk from the table about “Baby Trump” being a better name for DeSantis than “Meatball Ron,” Sharpton got weird, “He’s a miniature Trump trying to grow up, be like daddy, and daddy spanks him and they’re having a little inside fight and family fight.”
Moving from weird back to the outrageous, Sharpton next compared DeSantis to a segregationist, “If he can get away with this and cement this in Florida, it will be used in other states. Because he is basically trying to do a state's rights movement. ‘We'll decide in this state who gets an abortion, we decide in this state how education goes’ and the whole Civil Rights Movement was against states’ rights. We needed federal protection against state segregating us.”
No, the Civil Rights Movement was against Jim Crow and violations of the Fourteenth Amendment, not the Tenth Amendment per se, but such statements only serve as more evidence in the case for DeSantis’s reforms.
This segment was sponsored by AllState.
MSNBC Morning Joe
2/16/2023
6:59 AM ET
AL SHARPTON: Well, what I learned is that people are genuinely incensed by what the governor's doing because for the governor and the College Board to decide, to say what part of black history is comfortable to Floridians, basically white Floridians, is as offensive as you can get.
And they're not limiting just to black studies, but LGBTQ rights as well as women and we’re talking about -- and you have Meacham here, we're talking about a period where we have history of this.
Where you must remember one of the most effective ways of dehumanizing blacks in slavery was it was against the law for us to read and write and then it was against the law for whites to teach us. So, education was always something we always saw as our key to—
MIKA BRZEZINSK: Yes.
SHARPTON: --coming out of being enslaved. Because of our ability to read and white. Now you're going to limit what we can read and white in AP classes? Like, people won't be able to handle watching movements like the Civil Rights Movement, like the Black Lives Matter movement, like LGBTQ rights, and it is not to condemn the country. It's to show how the country evolved.
We need to know we went from slavery to electing Barack Obama and to try and eliminate that, I think, is un-American, as much as it is racist.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: So, Reverend Sharpton, I'll leave the importance of the history to Jon Meacham. But the politics of it. Two parts, first, did you have any engagement from Governor DeSantis’s office yesterday in the wake of this event and then how concerned are you that other states might follow his lead?
SHARPTON: No, we had no engagement, and there was a couple thousand people there, every elected official just about in the Black Caucus and Latinos in the state legislature there. And every major pastor from all over Florida. No engagement. Wasn't looking for it.
Because I think he is playing petty politics, as the social philosopher Joe Scarborough says, he’s a day trader. He’s looking at now, not looking at history. He wants to be Baby Trump. He's going to use race like Trump did. Don't forget, the entry of Donald Trump into presidential politics was birtherism--
LEMIRE: Oh yeah.
SHARPTON: -- and he Baby Trump, “I’m going to use this against blacks. I’m going to use this against migrants—”
BRZEZINSKI: That might be better than Meatball.
LEMIRE: Meatball Ron.
SHARPTON: Yeah that, Baby Trump fits him.
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah. Yeah.
SHARPTON: He’s a miniature Trump trying to grow up, be like daddy, and daddy spanks him and they’re having a little inside fight and family fight--
BRZEZINSKI: Oh my gosh.
SHARPTON: -- but they're the same thing and I think the fear is what you raised.
If he can get away with this and cement this in Florida, it will be used in other states. Because he is basically trying to do a state's rights movement. "We'll decide in this state--
LEMIRE: Yeah.
SHARPTON: -- who gets an abortion, we decide in this state how education goes and the whole Civil Rights Movement was against states’ rights. We needed federal protection against state segregating us.
