WATCH: CNN Highlights Brutal Subtweet Comparing DeSantis Martha’s Vineyard Stunt to Racist ‘Reverse Freedom Rides’

Tommy ChristopherSep 16th, 2022, 12:57 pm
 

CNN highlighted a brutal tweet from the JFK Library comparing Florida Governor Ron Desantis dropping desperate migrants in Martha’s Vineyard with racist “Reverse Freedom Rides” during the civil rights era.

Planeloads of migrants were shown arriving in Massachusetts Wednesday in a video provided to Fox News, and the Abbott buses were captured Thursday morning by Fox News cameras outside the official VP’s residence at the Naval Observatory — just the latest in a series of stunts in which Republican governors relocate asylum-seekers to make a political point.

The stunts have dominated the political world, and drawn condemnation from many — including President Joe Biden — who see them as dehumanizing political ploys at a minimum.

But the JFK Library drew a sharper comparison with a subtweet whose true target was unmistakable.

“To embarrass Northern liberals and humiliate Black people, southern White Citizens Councils started their so-called ‘Reverse Freedom Rides,’ giving Black people one-way tickets to northern cities with false promises of jobs, housing, and better lives,” the library tweeted, along with a newspaper article headlines “Reverse Freedom Ride – Negro Family On Way Here.”

In a subsequent tweet, they wrote “The Kennedy White House received mail from leaders in the targeted states, asking the federal government to intervene in the ‘cruel merciless hoax’ and ‘their traffic in human lives and misery.’”

That particular letter came from Massachusetts.

On Friday morning’s edition of CNN’s New Day, CNN analyst John Avlon referenced the tweet and displayed it onscreen, calling the DeSantis stunt a “presumably unintentional” echo of the racist stunt, and arguing he’s gotten the politics wrong by targeting Venezuelans:

This proved to be a troll-tastic way to get attention and praise from the conservative base.

But even with its ugly but presumably unintentional echoes of “Reverse Freedom Riders” schemes from White Citizens Councils during the civil rights era, as pointed out by a timely tweet from the JFK Library.

But here’s the thing. This may not be the political wind DeSantis thinks it is because many of the folks being treated as political pawns in this game of move the migrant are asylum-seekers. Most are from Venezuela, part of that huge wave of folks seeking freedom from the authoritarian Maduro regime.

Now, this has long been a righteous cause for many conservatives who slam the kleptocratic socialism that has crippled that once prosperous nation. But from 2000 to 2019, Venezuelans were the fastest growing part of the Hispanic community in the United States, and most live in Florida. They might not take kindly to this treatment of their fellow countrymen, especially in an election year.

Watch above via CNN.

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