NAACP President Ignores Stats On Florida When Confronted By CNN Host

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President Derrick Johnson rebuffed a CNN anchor who listed statistics about Florida being a good state for minority business owners Monday.

The NAACP issued a travel warning for Florida on Saturday, claiming the state “devalues and marginalizes” issues facing “communities of color.”

“Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals,” the NAACP said. “Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

CNN’s Sara Sidner then listed statistics showing minority-owned businesses in Florida do overwhelmingly well in the sunshine state compared to others. (RELATED: ‘This Is So Dumb’: Rep. Byron Donalds Shreds NAACP Labeling Florida ‘Hostile’ To Black Americans)

“I want to ask you … The Florida Chamber of Commerce sent CNN a statement about the advisory that the NAACP that you all sent out,” Sidner said. “And here’s – here’s sort of what it says, ‘regarding the national group’s notice to certain travelers, we have no comment. However, on the economic diversification front, in just the last few years, Florida has moved into the number one spot in the United States for black-owned businesses and number two for Hispanic and number two for women-owned businesses as well.'”

“When you hear those numbers, what they are saying is, look, African-Americans and Hispanics are doing quite well here when it comes to running their own businesses and being able to make money here and being able to live decent lives. How do you, how do you address that with this new ban?”

“First of all, this propaganda language over the last several years wasn’t because of anything [DeSantis] did in policy,” Johnson said. “Florida by geography is an attractive place where people would like to go. But he’s fighting the largest company in the state, Disney, around tourism. They just pulled out a billion dollars. He is minimizing the quality of education by taking away the diversity for children to learn. He has sought to cause harm by saying that every citizen could carry guns without a permit. Those are not business attractive policies, those are regressive policies that are going to hit a dead end.”

“You can spin whatever language you would like to have, the policies that he had put in place are harmful policies to far too many individuals.”

The move to issue a travel advisory was prompted by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to reject the initial Advanced Placement African American Studies course that included topics on queer theory. DeSantis said teaching black history is a “core curriculum” but including queer ideology was “indoctrination.”