Saturday, a violent racist young white man decided that it was time for him to murder Black people for being Black. I do not apologize if that’s too blunt a sentence for you to read. That’s what happened.

There is no place on Earth where race-based, ethnic-based, false grievance-based hatred should be tolerated. But our common history as the human species betrays that thought. It is going on in many places, including the United States of America and Jacksonville, Florida.

Sunday, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis showed up at a vigil that featured other community leaders, including state Rep. Angie Nixon and Councilwoman Ju’coby Pittman who represent the area. He was booed.

To his credit, the governor said we have to stop the targeting of people based upon their race.

The crowd was having none of it because that is precisely what this governor has been doing, which is not to say that he wants violence and killing, but he is the proud proponent of what he calls anti-wokeness.

There is much talk going on in the city today. Yes, I live in Jacksonville, which encompasses all of Duval County under the consolidated government that was established in the 1960s. Listening to a popular, local public radio show this morning, that was a point some people made. We need to have these conversations. We need to educate our children. (Others disagreed and called for action.)

But that is exactly what teachers cannot do. Governed by Florida’s anti-woke laws, teachers cannot help children process what happened this weekend. The subject will come up; I remember the early days of Covid when nervous children asked their teachers about the virus and what would happen if they caught it. If you think they are not talking to their teachers about this racist violence directed against Black people and whether they will come into somebody’s crosshairs, you do not understand children.

Children absorb these experiences like we breathe air and they need trusted adults to help them process what they are thinking and feeling.

But all teachers are allowed to do these days is to tell them to dream sweet dreams, to maintain everyone’s comfort, get a pillow from the stack, lie down on the floor, and dream of a better day that will never come.

Washington Irving wrote the tale of a colonial man who fell asleep in the mountains and awoke after the American Revolution to find a very different world. He returns to his village to find his children and a grandchild, who look much like him. His old friends are dead and it isn’t long until he returns to his presleep days of idleness and storytelling.

With a few change of details, we could tell this story of Florida and set it in Jacksonville.

The good ol’ anti-woke days.

When I was young, my college roommate and his friend introduced me to another friend. It was a sunny afternoon in the football stands to cheer on the Blue Hens and see how much hooch we smuggled past the security guards. During the course of the afternoon, the other friend had this to say, “I don’t hate Black people. I like them. I think everyone should own one.”

These are the days of Ron DeSantis. These are the days of white supremacy that would cloak itself in color-blind politics and policies, ones that will never acknowledge the historical, institutional, and systemic racism that infects this nation. We must never, ever talk about it and woe to the teacher who dares to allow this conversation in her classroom.

What white people fear most is that Black people escape from the underclass that serves them. They wonder who will cook their meals, clean their apartments, and wipe their behinds when they get too old to control their bowels.

So we must teach our children a varnished version of history in order that they will never become woke, a word that simply means being aware of how racism works in our society. We must teach our children to find their place, not the one they want, but the one determined for them.

And the anger Black people feel at being targeted in this city? Go back to sleep. Dream sweet dreams. Sleep, sleep, sleep …

Jacksonville Van Winkle. Argue with me if you must, but ask yourself this: why has no one, not the acting Superintendent Dana Kriznar, not the School Board Chair Kelly Coker, not anyone on the school board have a public comment on what happened and how they will handle it in the schools?