Miami Herald Finds a Way to Make a Story on Olympic Glory… Into DeSantis Hit Piece – Opinion

The media is so infected with derangement, an athlete’s accomplishment is automatically made political.

They can’t help but be selfish.

Although many Florida newspapers have been able to provide balanced reporting about Governor Ron DeSantis’s actions, there is one newspaper that stands out. The Miami Herald not only has become an important source of hits on DeSantis but has also not been deterred by its past record of incorrect reporting. As if managing editors were determined to make a good story about DeSantis, they would just keep trying.

This reality was what I had in my mind when I started to read a paper about Erin Jackson, an Olympic speed skater. Suddenly, a small comment enter the back of my mind: It begs the question: Will they find a way for DeSantis to do this? Once I understood the ineptitude, I needed to share my sardonic laugh with the entire household.

Erin Jackson’s story is remarkable for a number of details, only the first being she competes in a winter sport while hailing from the decidedly non-winter region of Ocala, Florida. Erin’s career began in junior inline speed skating and later in roller derby. She then moved to the ice. She won the sport’s World Championship last November, but fell in the US qualifying event for the Olympics. Brittany Bowe was her friend and she won but Jackson got the nod to take her spot on the Olympic roster.

Jackson became the first African American female athlete to receive an Olympic medal (gold). However, Jackson’s story was published in the Herald. The Herald took Jackson’s amazing accomplishment and turned it into a wonderful and personal story. They also poured unneeded, inaccurate, and misleading political commentary. Fabiola Santiago couldn’t go a column without implying that Jackson conquered ignorance and intolerance on her path to Beijing.

You could feel the shadow of DeSantis start creeping over this piece, as Santiago described seeing Jackson crying during the medal ceremony — and crying along with her. 

I know the deep place where the feelings come from — resilience and overcoming obstacles and, yes, patriotism, too, despite the turbulence of the times. Oder, maybe, because they are.

The piece then speeds up down the political lane like Jackson firing off her cross-turns to fire down the stretch ice.

However, this time her victory is even more meaningful, because of the highly charged racial atmosphere in Florida. This state has vowed to ban the teaching and promotion of African American history.

Fabiola quickly falls, and she spins off onto the edge of the track. She is a mixture of ignorance and partisanship. Florida’s news media outlets are the only places in the state that things can get racially charged. Remember that Ron DeSantis was charged with Nazi sympathizing a few weeks back because he didn’t shriek at the television cameras. A dozen or more idiots gathered in Orlando carrying Nazi flags. 

Somehow, the governor who has passed stringent laws to fight anti-Semitism, divested the state investments from companies engaged in boycotts of Israel, and just two days prior had celebrated Holocaust Remembrance Day at a synagogue — ordering the flags in the state flown at half-mast that day as an honorarium — was now being branded an anti-Semite, without having said anything. Meanwhile, the same press was lecturing how to avoid trivializing the horrors that the Jews endured and were absent when Nikki Fried, a Democratic opponent called DeSantis a Nazi a couple of weeks ago.

We now have a Herald reporter baiting a racial hook by suggesting that racism runs rampant in the state. DeSantis also claims that schools are trying to erase history of black people. Santiago speaks from a position of confidence and does not provide any evidence. This is because Florida’s schools are required to teach both the Holocaust and slavery history. This is legislation was signed into law in 2019 – by (it needs to be pointed out to Fabiola) Governor Ron DeSantis.

However, Ms. Santiago persists with her rampant biases and avoidance of the core facts.

Her identity and place in history are even more significant when Jackson comes from Ocala where Trumpian politics is now governor. Ron DeSantis’ ultra-right initiatives dominate the public sphere.

I’m sorry, but what initiatives have had an impact on Jackson’s career?! What law did DeSantis pass that outlawed ice skating in Florida? Did Trump make it illegal to ice skate for POC? 

Dennis Baxley is in fact the Senate sponsor of this controversial bill to restrict the rights of students of LGBT people to free speech.

The bill will allow parents to have more control over what lessons are appropriate for their children in particular grades. Opponents have contorted this legislation to be dubbed the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill.’ and Fabiola here is swayed by this inept interpretation of things. That said, how is a bill that today is not even considered as a floor vote yet considered to have ANY relevance on Jackson’s years of skating and her already obtained gold medal?!

It is ironic that a Black woman could bring honor to Tallahassee, whose Senator in Tallahassee was part of the DeSantis gang that seeks to suppress any teaching about Black history that does not stir the terror and shame.

DeSantis seems to want to squash DeSantis’s teaching of the law DeSantis passed. At no time does she think it would be a good idea to present evidence supporting her panic. Now, Ms. Santiago seems almost determined to be 100 percent wrong from the beginning of her column. 

This is who the politicians don’t “see,” the people they think don’t matter when they’re busy concocting hateful, divisive bills.

The governor is indeed a Hispanic female lieutenant. A black surgeon general and Governor do not view minorities. We must assume that the writer intends to be colorblind at this point. Any other explanation would only make matters worse.

It is all about what team sports often achieves: it brings out the best. Our planet is shared by all of us, and it’s our responsibility to work together towards the common good. These two American women are role models for what this nation could be, if indeed, it were a nation “for all.”

These words might sound terrible, but they don’t make any sense if you look at how they are said. This message of unity, growth, community, and shared spirit is lost when they are accompanied by darkly biased allegations rooted in intolerance. Erin Jackson’s story is wonderful and uplifting; for this Herald writer to use it as a springboard for yet another acerbic political attack could not be more wrongheaded than if she were skating clockwise on the track.

I am sorry for letting go of a lesson about racial harmony when Fabiola Santiago falsely accuses her political opponents with racist remarks.

I am sorry for letting go of a lesson about racial harmony when Fabiola Santiago falsely accuses her political opponents with racist remarks.