Dumbest publicity stunt of the year? NAACP warns blacks not to visit Florida.

In my writing, I try not to go after low-hanging fruit — utterances and actions by the left so ridiculous that they require no commentary. However, I can’t resist making an exception for the NAACP’s issuance of a “travel advisory” for the state of Florida.

The State Department issues travel advisories when it believes that traveling in a particular country or region has become too dangerous for Americans. An increase in terrorist activity, a revolution, or an epidemic might prompt such an advisory.

Mere disapproval of the policies of a country will not.

The NAACP’s “travel advisory” is simply a smart-ass way of expressing disapproval of Ron DeSantis’ policies. In particular, the NAACP disagrees with the governor’s decision to ban the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) at the K-12 level and to limit somewhat the teaching of it in college. It characterizes these actions as “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.”

It warns anyone who might still take the NAACP seriously that:

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 NAACP’s president, Derrick Johnson, adds:

Let me be clear - failing to teach an accurate representation of the horrors and inequalities that Black Americans have faced and continue to face is a disservice to students and a dereliction of duty to all. Under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans. . . .

But a ban on CRT is not a ban on teaching black history, including the contributions of African-Americans and the horrors they faced in the past. Instead, it’s a ban on teachers indoctrinating students by extrapolating from black history dubious theories about the central organizing theme of American history and America’s present — in particular the view that America is incorrigibly racist.

One can agree with this view or simply disagree with any ban on teaching it. But the NAACP fails to explain how the ban manifests “open hostility” towards African Americans or any other group, much less how it endangers blacks visiting or living in Florida.

If anything, it’s CRT that is openly hostile to a particular race — white Americans. Indeed, it’s possible that teaching impressionable students that white America is racist and that all whites are racists, at least subconsciously, could endanger the physical safety of some white students.

Is this concern far-fetched? I think so. But it’s not as far-fetched as the NAACP’s claim that refusing to teach CRT’s radical interpretation of American history and society endangers blacks.

These days, it’s fashionable, and maybe even obligatory, to cast disagreement with radical leftist theories as threats to personal safety, especially the personal safety of blacks (and, all the while, to insist that it’s whites who are “fragile”). But the NAACP could at least have had the decency to urge blacks to bring Play-Doh along when they visit Florida, rather than to avoid the Sunshine State altogether.

There are, to be sure, areas of the country that are unsafe for blacks. Parts of Chicago, for example. And parts of Washington, D.C., where black teenagers are being gunned down regularly by thugs. If the NAACP wanted to enter the travel advisory business, it should have focused on places like these.

Florida is relatively safe for blacks. According to the Washington Free Beacon, “black Floridians enjoy lower unemployment, higher median incomes, and lower rates of both hate crimes and police killings than their counterparts in other states.”

Focusing on physical safety, it notes:

Blacks have enjoyed a higher degree of safety [in Florida] than elsewhere. Florida law enforcement recorded 127 hate crimes in 2020, compared with 1,537 in California and 466 in New York.

Three years into DeSantis’s first term as governor, the state saw a significantly lower amount of hate crimes than California. The reported hate crime rate in Florida was 0.6 per 100,000 people, according to the FBI, and 3.1 per 100,000 people in California.

There is also evidence that blacks are far less likely to be killed by police in Florida than California or Washington, D.C. A 2019 study published in science journal The Lancet concluded that the black mortality rate due to police violence was lower than California, Oregon, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and others.

Will changes in the way American history is taught reverse these numbers? Of course not.

The Free Beacon also points out that the NAACP’s board chairman lives in Tampa. And at least five of his colleagues have traveled to Florida for vacation since DeSantis was first elected in 2018.

In fact, the black population of Florida continues to grow. And, says the Free Beacon, it supports Ron DeSantis in higher percentages than are typical for Republican candidates.

Meanwhile, the NAACP continues to lose relevance. There was a time when anyone who followed American politics closely knew who headed that organization. Today, who recognized the name of its president, Derrick Johnson, when I mentioned it above?

In this context, I view the NAACP’s “travel advisory” as mainly a publicity stunt. Perhaps it will marginally and temporarily improve this once-great organization’s status among far leftists. But every time a black American sets foot in Florida, the NAACP’s lack of relevance in the serious world will be reaffirmed.