MSNBC’s Joy Reid briefly deviated from the network’s usual offerings, onanistic wall-to-tall Trump trial coverage, in order to return to her traditional bailiwick. That is, the viewing of everything through the lens of race, and an unhealthy obsession with Florida.
What caused Reid to go off on a singular rant which invoked the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement, and excoriated Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida? Bridges. Namely, the Florida Department of Transportation’s issuance of guidelines intended to promote uniformity with regard to the decorative illumination of bridges, and the governor’s declaration of “Freedom Summer”, a term also used by the Civil Rights movement (click “expand” to view transcript):
JOY REID: Well, now, Ron has decided to steal the term “Freedom Summer” to apply it to something vulgar, because he is vulgar. According to The Washington Post, as part of what DeSantis is calling “Freedom Summer”, his transportation department has told cities across the state that if they want to light up their bridges at night, they can only use the colors red, white, and blue. The order, which was shared by the Florida transportation secretary on social media, means that bridges across the state that normally illuminate in colorful arrays of light to mark holidays or awareness events won’t be able to use any other colors from May 27 through September 2nd. The goal of Ron’s order is clearly to shut down any celebration of pride month, which begins June 1st. It’s his attempt to strip the bright colors off of Florida and turn the state into Alabama, which its Panhandle was originally supposed to be. Mostly it’s a message to Florida’s large and vibrant LGBTQ population that your governor hates you. Just as much as he loathes the black and migrant populations in your state. Well, Ron, those of us who actually read books rather than banning them know what Freedom Summer was, and you can’t have that term for your sorry, bigoted performative MAGA road show. It belongs to history.
Reid takes issue with DeSantis’ use of the term “Freedom Summer” here, but in the recent words of Bill Maher, “words migrate”, and people can call things whatever they want. As Reid did, for example, when she freely availed herself of the LGBTQ lobby’s nomenclature for Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act: “Don’t Say Gay”.
Reid’s clumsy critique of Florida’s “Freedom Summer” desecrates the memories of those who were martyred, and whose names she freely dropped throughout this segment, by equating the civil rights struggle with the right to impose Pride Month upon Florida drivers.
The month of June fast approaches, and with it, Corporate America’s annual self-humiliation ritual wherein they festoon their corporate communications and logos in rainbows in order to preserve their precious Corporate Equality Index scores. Much to Reid’s chagrin, “Freedom Summer” encompasses the freedom to not have LGBTQ propaganda shoved into every nook and cranny of your life, including your commute, by too-eager-to-please bureaucrats.
Unable to contact Florida’s manager or otherwise do anything about the unqueer bridges, Reid is left to do little else other than bleat about it for five minutes. Those non-rainbowed bridges now also belong to history.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned unhinged rant as aired on MSNBC’s The ReidOut on Thursday, May 23rd, 2024:
JOY REID: On June 15, 1964, a group of black and white civil rights activists, led by Bob Moses and about 300 mostly northern volunteers, poured into Mississippi, the hardest state to register black voters, and the lynchingest state in the Union. They called it “Freedom Summer”. The push built on the 1961 Freedom Rides that took mostly college students on integrated buses through the South, from Washington, D.C., through Alabama and Mississippi, to their ultimate destination in New Orleans. During those early rides, young activists like John Lewis and Joan Trumpauer Mulholland met violent resistance from the Klan and from white segregationist governors and sheriffs, beatings and fire bombings that encompassed the full weight of the South’s massive resistance against the Brown v. Board supreme court decision and other rulings mandating the end of segregation in public accommodations in the U.S. Freedom Summer, in 1964, a year after the assassination of Medgar Evers, marked a turning point on the way to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which finally made real the promises of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution. So the term “Freedom Summer” has a meaning. Or at least it should to any American with a passing knowledge of history. Enter Ron Desantis. America’s most boldly racist governor, whose presidential campaign ended in rank humiliation as he wound up groveling to Trump and agreeing to fund-raise for him after torching his state, sinking Florida with a pointless war with Disney, a six-week abortion ban he signed in the middle of the night, and a performative war against covid vaccinations and masking to protect children and the elderly. All while Florida led the nation in banning books, banning drag shows, banning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and turning itself into a white nationalist hide-out for every crook, criminal, and Trump in America. Well, I guess those are kind of the same thing. But you get the point. Not to mention the place where national security documents get stuffed into bathroom showers and elderly narcissists’ bedrooms. Well, now, Ron has decided to steal the term “Freedom Summer” to apply it to something vulgar, because he is vulgar. According to The Washington Post, as part of what DeSantis is calling “Freedom Summer”, his transportation department has told cities across the state that if they want to light up their bridges at night, they can only use the colors red, white, and blue. The order, which was shared by the Florida transportation secretary on social media, means that bridges across the state that normally illuminate in colorful arrays of light to mark holidays or awareness events won’t be able to use any other colors from May 27 through September 2nd. The goal of Ron’s order is clearly to shut down any celebration of pride month, which begins June 1st. It’s his attempt to strip the bright colors off of Florida and turn the state into Alabama, which its Panhandle was originally supposed to be. Mostly it’s a message to Florida’s large and vibrant LGBTQ population that your governor hates you. Just as much as he loathes the black and migrant populations in your state. Well, Ron, those of us who actually read books rather than banning them know what Freedom Summer was, and you can’t have that term for your sorry, bigoted performative MAGA road show. It belongs to history. To John Lewis and Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and Bob Moses and Diane Nash, and Goodman and Schwerner and Cheney- who were lynched during that long hot summer. And all of the heroes, black and white, Jewish and gentile, free men and free women who fought for the right of black people to vote. To be served as a lunch counter. And for every American to live in dignity. Dignity. You should look it up, Ron. Maybe if you had some, you could be president one day. You cannot shut down the dignity of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters by limiting the colors of the rainbow on a bridge because those who came before us crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge to oppose people like you. So I’d like to declare this coming summer to be Freedom Summer, too. Let’s all of us commit to work and to vote for freedom, the freedom of women, even in Florida and throughout the South, to control their own bodies. The freedom of gay, lesbian, and trans people to live their lives in a way that makes them happy and healthy. The freedom to read, including books that make you think, make you uncomfortable, make you grow. The freedom to vote. The freedom to march and to protest. To live free of gun violence, the freedom to go to school armed with your dignity and your diversity and all that you bring to the table. The freedom of immigrants to work free from fear of deportation. I’m telling y’all, every time that Florida Man bangs on about something with his awful self, I don’t just get mad, I get motivated. So let’s get motivated and make this a real Freedom Summer., worthy of the heroes who created it, and ignore the racist governor who tried to steal it for whatever his evil agenda is. And that goes for his buddy Rick Scott, too. We’ll be right back.