Week ending in March 14, 2025

Finite Disappointment

Florida is positioning itself as the "vanguard" of Trump's immigration policies. While about 25 police and sheriff's departments nationwide outside of Florida have signed on to the revived immigration enforcement via ICE's 287(g) program shuttered under Obama due to credible allegations of racial discrimination and a lack of oversight, 97 Florida law enforcement agencies have signed up. Florida law enforcement participation reflects both a zeal for local authorities to redeem Florida's past but also Tallahassee's determination to rebuild Jim and Juan Crow Florida--many of the local county agencies (read, sheriff), including ones in Miami-Dade County, were forced to participate despite being reluctant to do so.

Coral Gables Police Department volunteered for the program.

One in five people living in Florida are immigrants.

Coral Gables 287(g)

While the 287(g) program dates back to the year the woman with the mask speaking at the podium was born (she's an organizer with People Acting for Community Together (PACT), the county's largest grassroots organization), the Chief of police of Coral Gables Edward James Hudak Jr. insisted that he had to sign the agreement this week--voluntarily. The last time the program was updated, despite being shuttered by the Obama Administration due to lack of oversight and rampant allegations–including from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination–of racial profiling, was 2017 under the 45th President. Still, the Coral Gables Chief of Police, the leader of the Chiefs of Police for all of Florida, said he just had to sign the agreement now. This is an interesting assertion given he was Chief of Police when the 45th President re-instituted the racist policy and Hudak saw no need to implement it then or any time between.

Hudak also asserted, unprompted, that the Coral Gables Police Department has never and will never be accused of racial profiling, one of the biggest concerns with the 287(g) program. The PACT organizer told the commission just ten minutes later that her boyfriend, a Black man, was pulled over every time he visited her after dark, one time with her in the car. "The first thing the police officer asked my partner was, 'what are you doing in this neighborhood?'" So much for no racial profiling in Coral Gables.

Other disappointment

A pastor friend of mine's parishioner's son was murdered in Miami-Dade County this week and police are seeking answers. But what answers are there when your son was shot in the face for no known reason? While the man who was murdered was 37, I cannot imagine what it is like to lose one's child--or maybe I just don't want to.

Filed Under Not Surprising but Seriously, What the Actual ****?

United States sides with Taliban on Women's Rights, is the headline from reporter Jill Filipovic. This isn't explicitly a South Florida issue, but, then again, it is impacting South Florida because it impacts us all. From the post:

[T]he US refused to join a long list of other nations in condemning the Taliban’s treatment of women. The Taliban! The Taliban who, since retaking Afghanistan, have essentially forced women out of public life. Women are banned from most public places, including parks and gyms. Women are banned from university, and 80% of school-age girls aren’t in school. Women are banned from most workplaces. Women are legally required to be fully covered from head to toe, without their faces visible — all identical in public, all disappeared.

This is who the current US government refuses to condemn, because doing so would be too “woke.”

Historic Interlude

March 12, 1956

On March 12, 1956, the Warren Supreme Court ruled that the University of Florida had to admit Virgil Hawkins, a Black Floridian, to its law school. Hawkins was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1977. Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice, B. K. Roberts, who had ruled against Hawkins, leading to the US Supreme Court Case, had Florida State University name its law school after the devout segregationist. After two unsuccessful tries, Florida State University removed B. K. Roberts' name from its school in 2021. Known by many as "Florida's Rosa Parks," and called by Ebony Magazine "Florida's most patient man," Hawkins once said that when he got to heaven, "I want to be on the Florida Bar."

March 14, 2006

On March 14, 2006, People Acting for Community Together, an interfaith collection of Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, Muslim Masjids, two universities, and Miami-Dade County's largest grassroots organization, called for school leaders to implement a new program to help students navigate conflict. The organization was successful, and the schools implemented the plan, seeing a decline in violence on campus.

Infinite Hope

Black Success and Resistance in Miami

According to a new study by The Brookings Institute, the number of black-owned businesses in South Florida has soared in recent years. The Miami Herald used the news to profile some fantastic people in the Miami area in a piece this week, like the Dr. Venis Wilder, in the photo above. “It’s not just Black businesses growing, but I see that [many of our] young people aren’t looking for a job; they’re looking to create opportunities for themselves,” Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce President and CEO G. Eric Knowles told the paper. Knowles noted that Black women in particular are good business people and he was excited by data supporting that.

In that context, Black pastors in the United States are calling for a 40-day fast from Target to begin this week. Why? Because until November Target was a corporate industry leader in promoting Black owned manufactures of products and in helping Black employees attain promotions. That all ended with the new POTUS Administration. While other businesses like Amazon and Walmart have no recent track record of making and fulfilling promises to the Black community, Target does. So there is a sense of betrayal and Black leaders are calling on Americans to make Target regret this decision. From the linked story above:

“One of the ways that you can really upset (consumers) is to claim to be something and then violate that standard that you claim to be,” Americus Reed II, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, said. “It lands really poisonous on people, especially in vulnerable communities where people have put their trust in you. ... And now, you’re reversing.”

A sense of betrayal can be a significant motivator for customers to take their money elsewhere, Reed said. And successful boycotts, he adds, need to generate enough energy to “make this not just a moment, but a movement.”

I'll highlight that Professor Reed is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the school Donald Trump graduated from with his bachelor's in economics.

I put this in the hope section because it give me hope that we can in fact do something when faced with finite despair. The first statewide civil rights movement in US history started right here in Florida. The first example of civil disobedience in the Civil Rights movement, the precedent that led to the sit-ins throughout the South, was in South Florida. The architect of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I have a dream speech," was a Black Floridian and Civil Rights activist named A. Philip Randolph. These efforts brought about changes that lasted for decades. While they are being torn down now, the people I turn to for hope and inspiration are Black leaders.

And women.

The Women's March of 2025

The Red Lipstick Resistance International Women's Day March in Miami

Women and men marched through Coral Gables on Saturday, International Women's Day, in solidarity with the Red Lipstick Resistance. This was a small protest among hundreds nationwide, but it was cool to see in action. The Lipstick March started in front of Miami-Dade County's stalwart for progressive action, Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ and as far as I know marched passed the other stalwart of progressive action, Books and Books. Many marches in the last few years have started at CGCUCC and ended at B&B. The leaders of these two organizations were at the Coral Gables press conference for rescinding the 287(g) agreement (they're in the picture towards the top).

Build a Better Miami Coalition

On Tuesday, March 11, I started my day off (in traffic and then) at the Coral Gables Commission Meeting, which did not have the desire effect. See above. After that I headed to Downtown Miami to the Miami-Dade County Commission committee meeting that was giving final approval to the largest development in county history. This is Miami we're talking about. We're literally built by developers for developers with few other considerations. To talk about the largest ever in this county is saying something.

Two years ago I was (small) part of a group that successfully got the Miami-Dade County Commission to pass a (ironically) watered down heat ordinance. While a few West Coast states have a heat ordinance--a law passed to protect workers from extreme heat--Miami-Dade became the first county to pass such a law. It was designed to inform workers about the dangers of heat stroke, ensure they have access to company-provided water, and on extremely hot days to have a break in the shade every two hours. The county was for it--after a lot of pressure. And then Tallahassee passed a law banning county-level heat ordinances.

So, with some trepidation, the Build a Better Miami Coalition approached Tuesday's committee meeting about the new project. They wanted the developer to agree to do the heat ordinance voluntarily and to pay the workers well enough they could find a place to live. The meeting started with the developer agreeing to implement the heat ordinance voluntarily. Yay!

As for wages that allow a worker to live here, in Miami, "workforce housing" is for people who make $90,000-$120,000 annually. This isn't exactly affordable when the average income is closer to $60,000. But a win is a win and I'm grateful for it.

Birds!

I finally got a moment after a busy day of Dad Taxi and chaperoning an amazing performance by the younger kid's choir at the Arsht Center on Wednesday. The Corkscrew Swamp and preserve is an (Redacted--the amazing bird society named after an infamous slaver) sanctuary home to an important South Florida rookery (bird hatching area) and the largest stand of old growth (4o0 years or older) bald cypress left in the world. The area features a 2.5 mile loop boardwalk trail and, well, lots of birds. There is so much natural beauty here in South Florida. Some of it is unique to the peninsula. The ironic thing is South Florida is known mainly for its beaches and their beauty--but those beaches are like a lot of the butts and lips on them--fake.

At any rate, one of the best things about Corkscrew Swamp is how relatively remote it is. Aside from an occasional small private aircraft flying over, it was pretty void of human noises--aside from gibbering teenagers. And Thursday was South Florida winter weather at its best--paradise. Though two hours from my house, Corkscrew Swamp was well worth it.