Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave a press conference Wednesday with his Lt. Gov. Jeanette Núñez and his Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran, along with a few conservative moms from the activist group Moms For Liberty, and their daughters—all for a good show.

In it, the governor proclaimed he was “taking a stand against critical race theory in Florida schools and in the workplace by enacting his newest piece of legislation called … ‘Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act,’” or the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act.”

“Our legislation will defend any money for K-12 going to CRT consultants,” the governor said. “No taxpayer dollars should be used to teach our kids to hate our country or hate each other.”

This complete waste of time and money law will also give Florida parents the right to sue if they think their kids are being taught critical race theory and to collect attorneys’ fees if they are successful in their suit.

“They want to tear at the fabric of our society and our culture,” DeSantis warned. “They want to delegitimize the founding of the country and the Constitution.” Adding that the term “equity” is used to mask critical race theory and is used by people to “smuggle in their ideology.”

DeSantis called critical race theory “corporate-sanctioned racism” implying that teaching critical race theory, by which he really means equity and inclusion workshops, is a form of “harassment” for employees. 

Ahead of announcing his new and repulsive proposal, DeSantis had the nerve to invoke Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“You think about what MLK stood for. He said he didn’t want people judged on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character,” DeSantis said. “You listen to some of these people nowadays, they don’t talk about that.”

Núñez, whose parents left Cuba in 1961, compared critical race theory to communism. Of course she did. She said her parents were fleeing “the oppression and the indoctrination that we are seeing at the hands of CRT.”

Let’s not forget DeSantis is going to need that Cuban vote if he’s gonna run for president in 2024. 

First off, let’s repeat this for the governor and all of the GOP as they continue to use critical race theory as the boogeyman to rally the ignorant around them: Critical race theory is not even taught in K-12 schools. Secondly, Ron, let’s keep MLK’s name out of your mouth. 

But the reality is what DeSantis and all the other mindless Republicans who’ve targeted critical race theory really want is an alternate history taught to their precious Karens and Brandons. One that excludes the murder, rape, and colonization of Indigenous, Black, and brown people. One that shows the Amerikkka they want, not the one that really is. They don’t want to feel bad about it, and they really don’t want to give up the power in a system designed for their success. 

Now let’s discuss the word “woke.” It’s awfully cute of DeSantis to find a little acronym for his insane drive to erase American history under the guise of erasing indoctrination, but woke is not his word to use. In fact, it should never have been co-opted the way it has. 

“Woke” has always been a word that belongs to Black people. It was first used to remind Black folks to keep their eyes open to white supremacy. “Stay woke” started as a rallying cry during protests against police brutality in Ferguson, but it goes back even further to Lead Belly using the term in 1931.

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Today, the term has evolved into something for white people. Progressive white people need to become “woke” as allies to Black and brown people, they need to be enlightened about the plight of America’s racism in our new “post-racial” society. And right-wingers use it to fearmonger. 

Now woke is dead. The only people who use it are those who’ve sullied it or those who have no idea about its true etymology—people who don’t really look at history for what it was, but what they wish it was. People like DeSantis, who is a hypocrite. He throws words like woke around, not understanding them any more than he understands that using Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words is insulting and shows how little he truly understands the man or his history. 

My suggestions to DeSantis is instead of worrying about the massive mind takeover of critical race theory, maybe focus on the here and now. Florida has reported over 3,000 new COVID-19 cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the last day—the state’s largest count since mid-October. 

The Florida Department of Health reported 13,530 new coronavirus cases last week, also the most since mid-October. And omicron is real, whereas the threat of critical race theory is made-up bullshit to get votes and frighten Cubans and non-”woke” Florida mothers.