Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ obsession with something that’s of curiosity to minorities or marginalized teams has gone previous disturbing. In his worldview, the one discrimination that issues is something that advantages deprived communities. The most recent goal of his anti-woke diatribes is the NHL. On Feb. 2, the NHL marketed a job convention in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which is able to launch a variety initiative known as the Pathway to Hockey Summit. The occasion was described on Linkedin as being unique to feminine, black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latino, LGBTQ, disabled people, and veterans.

As if an NHL commercial wasn’t already an apparent invite to white People, Florida’s governor educated his concentrate on the league’s efforts to draw candidates from completely different backgrounds. DeSantis’ press secretary Bryan Griffin launched a press release, which mentioned:

“Discrimination of any kind isn’t welcome within the state of Florida, and we don’t abide by the woke notion that discrimination must be missed if utilized in a politically fashionable method or in opposition to a politically unpopular demographic.”

Added Griffin, “We’re preventing all discrimination in our colleges and our workplaces, and we are going to struggle it in publicly accessible locations of assembly or exercise. We name upon the Nationwide Hockey League to right away take away and denounce the discriminatory prohibitions it has imposed on attendance to the 2023 ‘Pathway to Hockey’ summit.”

The NHL’s variety downside

An inside report executed by the NHL in 2022 discovered that their staff had been 83.6 p.c white. All these phrases to stoke fears that the NHL is about to purge white individuals en masse from their workforce are indicative of the clown present DeSantis runs. DeSantis’ minions are turning on the theatrics to focus on minority-targeted efforts is previous hat.

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He’s a meretricious political huckster serious about advancing his personal private ambition on the expense of individuals of shade. It’s why he’s latched onto his celebration’s obsession with Important Race Principle with legislative vindictiveness in direction of African-People or the state’s Don’t Say Homosexual legal guidelines vilification of the LGBTQ neighborhood. Subsequent in his crosshairs are throwing a wrench within the gears to sluggish efforts by faculties to enhance variety and inclusion.

If there’s anybody DeSantis and Co. must be taking a look at critically, it’s themselves within the mirror. The criticism of the NHL’s (ahem) “discrimination” is rooted in an ongoing effort to keep up the great previous boy community that has hindered minority candidates for many years since legalized segregation ended. He’s additionally a hypocrite.

After successful the governor’s race in 2018, DeSantis himself made vacuous overtures to the black neighborhood, touting his personal administration’s variety efforts throughout an handle to constituents at a traditionally black church on his first MLK Jr. Day within the workplace.

“I don’t wish to simply be placing individuals in from some good ol’ boys community. I wish to be placing individuals in from all walks of life,” DeSantis advised a largely black viewers at First Baptist Church Piney Grove’s sanctuary. “And I feel in case you take a look at my whole appointments, I don’t suppose there’s any peer lately, at the very least in Florida, of the variety of African People we’ve put in.”

The NHL ought to pull the All-Star Recreation from Florida

Three years later, his reversal tells you the whole lot it’s worthwhile to learn about his expedient slide additional proper to cater to the unconventional bigots inside his celebration who’ve wrangled away management of his celebration’s presidential nomination course of.

Florida has set itself up as a hub for the New Southern Technique that makes use of canine whistles to generate antipathy for equality. If the NHL has any dignity or respect for minorities, they’d take away their upcoming All-Star Recreation from the state. In addition to, it’s Florida. They gained’t even miss it or discover it’s gone.

Halfway via 2022, the San Jose Sharks employed Mike Grier to be the first Black NHL normal supervisor within the league’s 105-year historical past. The league’s wokeness agenda may end in a second black GM being employed within the NHL someday within the subsequent century, and that’s a bridge too far for some.

Utilizing DeSantis’ twisted logic, some of the homogenous skilled sports activities leagues in the USA must be penalized for making even essentially the most rudimentary makes an attempt to draw minority candidates on LinkedIn. These are the trolling depths Florida’s authorities chief has gone to burnish his status because the pro-white candidate. DeSantis is the political manifestation of the concept the puck being slapped round discriminates in opposition to the ice.

The battle in opposition to company wokeness is a backdoor effort to stop extra Mike Griers from matriculating into NHL C-suite areas or into any industries which have excluded minorities for many years. Thirty years in the past, it was the DeSantis’ of the world taking on arms in opposition to affirmative motion. Similar recreation, completely different branding. DeSantis is the brand new political stick knocking African-People round like a puck on ice.

The identical political celebration that has spent a long time preventing variety tooth and nail because the Southern Technique has circled and brazenly declared battle on minorities and labeled variety as the brand new discrimination.

Variety is nearly the one factor DeSantis has fought as Florida governor. On Monday, he’ll in all probability ship some MLK Day speech the place he’ll misconstrue King’s phrases and paint himself as a modern-day warrior for equality whereas his actions are the alternative of the whole lot the person believes in.

BTW, the NHL caved to DeSantis, now saying the occasion is open to anybody 18 or over.