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.