Florida Senate - 2020 (NP) SR 214
By Senator Rodriguez
37-00393-20 2020214__
1 Senate Resolution
2 A resolution rejecting and condemning white
3 nationalism and white supremacy as hateful expressions
4 of intolerance which contradict the values that define
5 the people of Florida and the United States.
6
7 WHEREAS, in a 2006 assessment, the Federal Bureau of
8 Investigation (FBI) found that white supremacists believe that
9 the white race is superior to all other races, that nonwhites
10 are subhuman, and that the white race was created to rule over
11 other races, and
12 WHEREAS, in that assessment the FBI stated, “To be a white
13 nationalist is to be pro-white. The domestic white nationalist
14 movement seeks to promote, honor, and defend the white race.
15 They (White nationalists) believe the white race is under attack
16 from Jewish interests that dominate the government (referred to
17 as the Zionist Occupied Government, or ZOG), the media, banking,
18 and entertainment industries and act to the detriment of the
19 white race. White nationalists view multiculturalism, diversity,
20 and illegal immigration as direct assaults on the white race and
21 race-mixing as akin to white genocide. They hope to appeal to
22 mainstream whites, believing that the majority of white people
23 do not understand the imminent or long-term threat to their
24 race. Many contend that a race war, often referred to as RAHOWA,
25 or Racial Holy War, is a certainty,” and
26 WHEREAS, white supremacy and white nationalism are contrary
27 to the ideals of the United States, which was established
28 according to the principle stated in the Declaration of
29 Independence that all men are created equal, a principle that
30 was updated in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, to include women,
31 and
32 WHEREAS, white supremacy and white nationalism are contrary
33 to the ideals of the State of Florida as expressed in the State
34 Constitution, which declares that “all natural persons, female
35 and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable
36 rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and
37 liberty, to pursue happiness, to be rewarded for industry, and
38 to acquire, possess and protect property. No person shall be
39 deprived of any right because of race, religion, national
40 origin, or physical disability,” and
41 WHEREAS, Abraham Lincoln, in an 1858 speech, said of the
42 founders of our nation, “Wise statesmen as they were, they knew
43 the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they
44 established these great self-evident truths, that when in the
45 distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set
46 up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men,
47 were entitled to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, their
48 posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence
49 and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began
50 so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and
51 Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so
52 that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the
53 great principles on which the temple of liberty was being
54 built,” and
55 WHEREAS, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while recognizing
56 that “no other nation can mean to us what our nation means,”
57 condemned “nationalism perverted into chauvinism and
58 isolationism” as “preached by...the advocators of white
59 supremacy” and asked, “Will we continue to serve the false god
60 of racial prejudice or will we serve the God who made of one
61 blood all men to dwell upon the face of the earth?”, and
62 WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan observed in a 1988 speech,
63 “Anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in
64 America and become an American... This, I believe, is one of the
65 most important sources of America’s greatness. We lead the world
66 because, unique among nations, we draw our people— our strength
67 from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing
68 so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other
69 countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe
70 life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us
71 into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land
72 of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting
73 with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge,
74 always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is
75 vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to
76 new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost,”
77 and
78 WHEREAS, according to FBI statistics, hate crimes
79 nationwide increased in 2015, 2016, and 2017, the three most
80 recent years for which data is available, and
81 WHEREAS, the perpetrator of the shooting that killed nine
82 African-American worshippers at Emanuel African Methodist
83 Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17,
84 2015, was motivated by white supremacy and white nationalism to
85 carry out this act of terrorism, and stated that he would “be
86 rescued by white nationalists after they took over the
87 government,” and
88 WHEREAS, the perpetrator of the shooting that killed 11
89 Jewish worshippers at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh,
90 Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2018, accused Jewish people of
91 “waging a propaganda war against Western civilization” and
92 “committing genocide” against whites by promoting immigration
93 and refugee resettlement, and accused the President of being “a
94 globalist, not a nationalist” because of the “infestation” of
95 Jews, and
96 WHEREAS, the suspected perpetrator of the shooting that
97 killed at least 22 people in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019,
98 is believed to have posted a document espousing white
99 nationalist views and expressing racist hatred toward immigrants
100 and Hispanics just minutes before the attack, NOW, THEREFORE,
101
102 Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:
103
104 That white nationalism and white supremacy are rejected and
105 condemned as hateful expressions of intolerance which contradict
106 the values that define the people of Florida and the United
107 States.