By Carma Henry
Trails in the Sand by Peter Traciet, the Street Detective
The sand is wet and hard to tread, but Ol’ Pete is making progress.
The Detective warned readers that Governor Ron DeSantis is like a dog on a bone when it comes to individuals and organizations challenging his position in the sand. His moves on the chess board are quite predictable, but no one has figured a way to stop or slow down his progress.
During the pandemic, a state data analyst, Rebekah Jones, clashed with DeSantis and accused him of deflating COVID cases and deaths. Jones was fired as a state worker but allegedly continued accessing data and exposing what she termed as “data manipulation” as ordered by DeSantis. Ol’ Pete read tweets where Jones vowed that she would listen to the science and exercise her right to free speech. Jones was later arrested for continuing to access state data after being fired, and her character was also assassinated with what some call unsubstantiated personal attacks. Despite Jones’ battle cry to not be silenced, has anyone heard from her since her arrest? The Detective has been dredging the sands and there is no sight or sound of Rebekah Jones.
Jones is an individual, but what of the Disney Corporation? The Detective has sleuthed that the Disney Corporation CEO, Bob Chapek, felt pressure from his employees and community about DeSantis’ education bill that was named “Don’t Say Gay”. Chapek dragged his feet in the sand, but eventually caved to the pressure and made a public statement against the bill. Pete slid through pages of DeSantis’s book, The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for American Revival which revealed that Chapek privately complained to DeSantis about the pressure he was getting from the “woke” left, and DeSantis forewarned him to remain neutral. Chapek would have been better off following his conscience of his employees and stakeholders. However, his private conversations had turned into a public dragging of the Disney Corporation as only DeSantis can execute, a war has been declared on Disney. DeSantis has used every power at his disposal to weaken the monstrosity of power, privilege, independence and self-governance once held by the corporation.
And Ol’ Peter warned College Board of what was settled in the sand when the company sparred with DeSantis about his dismantling of the AP African American History course. Ol’ Peter heard that a College Board tried to make good with the governor by scaling back some of the course content, removing references to CRT and eliminating readings by specific Black authors. These efforts were like a whistle in the wind for DeSantis. He threw dirt on their efforts and responded that the College Board should not be the only game in town when it comes to offering rigorous courses to high school students.
And just like that DeSantis has publicly announced that he is looking for an AP course alternative and a SAT alternative for Florida students. It appears to Ol’ Pete that College Board and Disney are in the same storm of sand dune proportion as they fight to successfully serve two masters: their stakeholder groups and DeSantis.
DeSantis couldn’t be DeSantis without knowing he has the support of a large subset of constituents.
Look to your left and to your right. Ol’ Pete is here to tell you, everyone who sits next to you and says they are for you ain’t really for you or the cause. Stay woke or Florida will be the place where woke goes to die.
Don’t allow others to redefine what’s ours. “Stay Woke” is OURS.
You “stay woke” and Ol’ Pete will be woke right along witcha, dragging the sands in search for clues.
