In Florida, We Want Guns in Our Streets, Not Rainbows

By Diane Roberts

No doubt Gov. Ron DeSantis expects Floridians to be grateful for saving us from yet another woke attack on decency, probity, and speeding motorists.

I refer, of course, to colorful crosswalks.

Just as he has fought to expel books by Black and gay authors from our schools, the governor has ordered FDOT to paint over the flowers, the sunbursts, the fish, the musical notes, and the rainbows — especially the rainbows.

We want guns in our streets, not rainbows.

Speaking of guns, one of the first crosswalks to be destroyed was the one outside the Pulse Memorial.

You may recall that in 2016 a gunman murdered 49 people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando.

The rainbow crosswalk was intended to honor them.

DeSantis, however, views it as some sort of personal insult.

His political future looks distinctly unpromising AND his wife’s gubernatorial campaign lies in ruins after the Hope Florida scandal. Environmental activists won a temporary shutdown of his Everglades gulag, though an appeals court is allowing it to stay open for now.

I mean, nobody likes the guy, but, by God, he can still teach crosswalks a sharp lesson.

“We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” he said.

Except the crosswalks were not “commandeered.” Like most painted crosswalks in Florida, the Pulse rainbow was supported by the city government and the citizens.

FDOT itself had approved it.

But in late August, FDOT turned up in the dead of night and ground it off the road.

But this kind of pointless vandalism is happening across the state.

At least a dozen schools in Tampa will see their “Crosswalks to Classrooms” school crossings destroyed, including one painted to look like a shelf of books.

Florida’s government is particularly scared of books.

‘Political ideologies’

Hearts commemorating a young girl who died of a heart condition in Port St. Lucie; checkerboards in Daytona near the raceway; “Back the Blue” in Hillsborough County; bike lanes in Orange County, painted by kids who won an FDOT art contest to design them — all either already gone or about to be.

Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue vows to “keep our transportation facilities free and clear of political ideologies.”

As if violating free expression in cities and towns across the state is not the product of a “political ideology.”

DeSantis says painted crosswalks promote “social, political, or ideological messages” and must be obliterated.

That’s one of his excuses. He’s got more.

The governor claims he has no choice but to enforce a new law — a law he signed — allowing FDOT to withhold funds for road projects and “traffic control” if cities and counties don’t follow orders.

Thing is, FDOT always had the power to forbid street art. That’s why communities wanting to paint a crosswalk sought and received permission — from FDOT.

Now, you could argue that the wrong kind of paint could create a slippery surface.

Crosswalk painters know this and generally use acrylic or other paints that bond to the asphalt.

You could argue brightly colored crosswalks give people trying to cross the street a false sense of security, leading them to just hop out into the road without looking to see what maniac in an F-150 is barreling toward them.

Except the data do not support that contention.

You could argue drivers encountering images of sunflowers or fish or “Black Lives Matter” on the road will be so discombobulated trying to read and interpret the art, they’ll become reckless.

Remember, FDOT said yes to those cheery, often clever, crosswalks.

Distracted drivers?

The crosswalks only got dangerous this spring.

Now, as the law says, “Non-standard surface markings, signage and signals that do not contribute directly to traffic safety or control can lead to distraction or misunderstandings, jeopardizing both driver and pedestrian safety.”

The state’s assumption that drivers aren’t already distracted is demonstrably false, as every human who has ever operated a car in this state knows.

Whether they’re behind the wheel of a beat-up Kia or 4,000-pound Mercedes SUV, people frequently struggle to heed FDOT’s “standard surface markings and signage,” including the scarlet octagon that says “STOP.”

Nevertheless, research indicates they are unlikely to lose control of the vehicle contemplating a pink, blue, and green-stiped crosswalk.

What they might do is slow the hell down. A national study shows street art has contributed to a 50% reduction in crashes involving vehicles and pedestrians.

In Leon County, the Knight Creative Communities Institute worked with Florida State University and local government to determine whether brightly painted crosswalks might get people to drive the speed limit near schools.

Sure enough, brightly painted crosswalks did indeed cause Tallahassee drivers — not noted for their adherence to posted speed limits — to ease up on the accelerator.

Unless you just moved to Florida from Inner Mongolia, you know what’s actually going on here.

Bike lanes and walkways designed and painted by school kids, and crosswalks celebrating a city’s history or its natural beauty or demonstrating its commitment to inclusivity, somehow threaten DeSantis’ commitment to Beijing-style state control.

Children must not grow up in the Free State Florida feeling free to create or express themselves or engage in their community.

‘Conform’

Asked during a press conference what he’d tell Florida children now watching grown people destroying their art, DeSantis said, “We have a representative system of government. People elect their representatives. They’re able to enact the legislation with the governor’s signature and then when that happens, obviously, people will conform their conduct accordingly.”

Hear that, kids? “Conform” your conduct and chant the mandated Pledge of Allegiance every morning.

DeSantis means to bully the people of this state from Perdido Bay to the Dry Tortugas: Expressions of dissent, assertions, of common humanity, civic pride, beauty, and joy will not be tolerated.

The people of Pensacola have been told the large “Black Lives Matter” painting on A Street, the words spelled out with flags of nations that have contributed to Florida culture, is verboten.

God forbid Black people think their lives matter.

This is not a popular decision: The mayor says Pensacola will comply, but city resources are stretched pretty thin, so if the state really wants to rid the place of a “Black Lives Matter” painting, FDOT might have to handle it themselves.

As for LGBTQ folks and their aggressive use of the color wheel, state policy is to erase both the pigmentation and the people.

Remove “gay” books from the library, pull courses out of college catalogs, and scrub rainbows off the streets.

Remember the great essay “The Cruelty is the Point” by Adam Serwer?

The Atlantic published it in the early days of Donald Trump’s first term, but it’s just as relevant now: insulting, attacking, undermining, performative hatred — this how the regimes in both Washington and Tallahassee rule us.

Resistance

Authoritarians want to control every aspect of our culture, no matter how seemingly inconsequential.

No shot is too cheap, no attack too petty: FDOT has just ripped out road signs on Longboat Key

The road signs identified Longboat Key’s main drag as “Gulf of Mexico Drive,” its name since 1957.

The regime wants it changed.

The entire world calls the body of water along Florida’s west coast the Gulf of Mexico.

However, I’m happy to report, not all Floridians acquiesce in this name-changing nonsense.

Some elderly residents of Tallahassee’s Westminster Oaks faced down a county road crew as it was scraping the paint off the yellow and green crosswalk by their retirement community.

Children at the nearby W.T. Moore Elementary School had painted it.

Around 30 seniors arrived on golf carts and walkers. An 85-year old lady lay down on the crosswalk and the road crew retreated.

But only temporarily.

Delray Beach and Key West are vigorously resisting DeSantis’ attempt to destroy their rainbow crosswalks, as is Fort Lauderdale, which is demanding an FDOT hearing.

Fort Lauderdale’s mayor declared, “We must stand our ground. We cannot allow us to be bullied into submission and to allow others to dictate what we should do in our own communities.”

In Orlando, the resistance grows louder and more determined.

After the state wrecked the Pulse rainbow crosswalk, hundreds of protesters re-colored the rainbow.

FDOT painted the new rainbow black.

Protesters colored it in again.

FDOT put up signs saying, “No Impeding Traffic,” and, “Defacing Roadway Prohibited,” and called in city cops and the Highway Patrol.

You’d think they’d be lurking in a Home Depot parking lot rounding up Brown people. At least four people have been arrested.

They were armed — with water-soluble chalk.

Babysitters

I’d be willing to bet these law enforcement officers signed up to fight crime, bust bad guys, and keep communities safe, not protect a 10-foot wide hunk of road.

One man, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub massacre, observed on social media: “More officers babysitting the crosswalk than there were security guards watching the front door of Pulse the night 49 people were murdered. By a lot.”

Our tax dollars at work.

I have news for Ron DeSantis and the dead-eyed myrmidons who carry out his narrow-minded whims: You can’t pray the gay away, nor can you paint over it.

You can’t quash children’s creativity.

You can’t surgically remove people of color from our history.

You can’t outlaw rainbows.

Just as FSU’s football team was putting the finishing flourishes on its win over the Alabama Crimson Tide, the sun came out. To the west, a glorious rainbow arced across the Tallahassee sky.

I’m waiting for DeSantis to declare the heavens “woke.”

Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.