Can people please fucking stop making "haha, Floridians are all poor stupid crackheads" jokes?
If we're poor, it's because our state government cares more about the rich tourists in the coastal high-rises than the average citizen, and the cost of living won't stop rising no matter how hard the people scream for relief.
If we're uneducated, it's because our state government is gutting education left and right, and turning it into a battleground in the white supremacist culture war.
If we're addicts, it's because we have no social safety net and self-medication is all we can turn to.
Every Florida Man headline is about a real human being, usually one under extreme duress and with absolutely no social resources to fall back on.
I hope none of you ever have to see a loved one--or yourself--represented as little more than a "Florida Man" joke, when the truth of the situation is that you were scared, starving, and vulnerable to state violence and asshole reporters who would rather pursue a viral headline than respect the dignity of a human being in crisis.
I dunno, asshole, maybe you'd hear more of the stories of Floridians fighting against this shit if the national media didn't sensationalize Florida Man stories as nothing but a joke and ignore the rest of Florida news.
Fucking bold as hell of you to assume we aren't doing these things and getting kneecapped by the gerrymandering, police brutality, and criminalization of protestors.
Jackass.
I mean yes but also Florida had a brain-drain problem long before the education wars. Simultaneous wealth-magnet and brain-drain is a unique combo.
Me: "Stop stereotyping Floridians as stupid; we are being held hostage by a draconian state government, and our weird news stories get over-sensationalized by the media."
Everyone, immediately, for some fucking reason: "Have you considered that Floridians are just stupid and always have been?"
You know, now that I think about it, I don't think I ever saw anyone outside of Florida talking about that story?
So for those not in the know, back in 2018, just under 65% of Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to former prisoners. Sixty-five fucking percent of voters.
This happened after years of activism, and months and months and months in which countless volunteers went out collecting petition signatures and handing out literature. There was a summer in which I was pretty reliably approached by activists handing out petition forms nearly every time I left the house to run errands. They would hang out at convenience stores, grocery stores, city parks, the library, pretty much anywhere they wouldn't get chased off.
All that effort and all that activism got sixty-five percent of voters to support voting rights restoration for convicted felons.
So what happened?
In 2019, Ron DeSantis signed SB 7066 into law, which requires all convicted felons to fully pay off "all fines and fees" associated with their conviction before being eligible for voting rights restoration.
Sixty-five percent of voting Floridians wanted convicted felons to get their voting rights back, and in one fucking bill, Ron DeSantis overruled it and pushed through a modern-day poll tax. To this day, there is no clear system in place, and countless people have been penalized for "voting illegally" even after sixty-five percent of Florida voters supported no-strings-attached voter rights restoration.
But sure. Floridians are all stupid crackheads who don't know how to organize. It definitely has nothing to do with the fascists in office.
This also happened with the medical marijuana ballot initiative. The Legislsture and Desantis knee capped it. National media didn't cover the fact that floridians voted to increase minimum wage to $15 minimum wage. We've gone from $8.10 in 2017 to $11 in 2022, and by 2026 we'll be at $15. Lastly on ballot initiatives, floridians beat a ballot initiative that would have required ballot initiatives pass in two separate election years before going into effect. Floridians try with ballot initiatives to make this state less awful but there are others actively trying to destroy those efforts. We are the last state in the south where abortion is still accessible post 6-weeks. despite hours of protest, by next week that won't be true and the closest state for southern women to access abortion will be Maryland i think? Florida is one of 7 states with age requirement for purchase of semi-automatic rifle purchases.
The house and senate split is 35(D)-85(R) and 12(D)-28(R). Dems don't have the ability to hold up a 2/3 vote. One of the bluest counties had its district gerrymandered in 2022 so that it is now represented by 3 republicans and 1 democrat instead of 3 democrats and 1 republican like it had been for 20 years.
There are other posts that have said this but condemning states in the south without considering that large amounts of working poor, lgbtq, black, latino,and indigenous people live here is elitist as hell. The average cost of moving to another state is $4000 and florida is over a 12 hour drive from head to tail. The solution is not to get the fuck out. Numerous organizations and individuals are working everyday to try to improve this state.