Video has recently surfaced of Karla Hernández-Mats, Charlie Crist’s running mate, saying that her teacher’s union’s top priority is “social justice & equity” and that parental school choice is nothing but “a veil” for racism.
At the time of the video, Hernández-Mats was still a teachers union boss for Dade county. She began by detailing that since the Dade teachers union was the first to integrate in the south, their mission today is to “seek social justice, racial justice.”
“Here we are, over forty years later, and we’re still fighting for a lot of the same things.”
While “educational equity” was mentioned, quality education, support for teachers, and cooperation with parents were not—quite the opposite. Hernández-Mats quickly launched into a second historical comparison, comparing the recent push for parental school choice, best seen today in DeSantis’s Parent’s Right in Education bill, as similar to avoiding desegregated schools in the old south.
“When Brown vs Board of education happened there was a big push to privatise schools because white folks didn’t want their kids to be in integrated schools. And what we’re seeing now is this push for choice, but it is a veil, it is a veil to say they’re going to underfund our public schools which teach over 90% of children, a lot of minority communities and fund other schools that discriminate children in their entrance.”
With this statement, Hernández-Mats likens parents interested in controlling their children’s education to segregationists, going so far as to accuse the motive of choice, of care for their children’s education, as a mere pretext for their nefarious, racist intentions.
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In her attempt to provide evidence, Hernández-Mats implies that non-public schools “discriminate children in their entrance.” This statement is made directly after accusations of segregationist intent, suggesting that the discrimination private schools engage in is race-based. It’s not; that would be federally illegal under the Civil Rights Act. In reality, all private schools limit entrance on other metrics, usually through the cost of education. If they didn’t, they’d be public schools or bankrupt. But that doesn’t stop Hernández-Mats from attempting the semantic bait-and-switch.
She also called on school administrators to “be woke” to address systemic racism and implicit biases in schools and criticized a recent increase in school safety measures as “over-policing.”
The DeSantis War room posted the Zoom video recently, describing the event as Hernández-Mats joining “Defund police activists.”
Charlie Crist's running mate calls on school administrators to "be woke" and make sure they aren't suspending or disciplining too many students of any given race. #KarlaMarx criticizes FL's bipartisan school safety reforms as "over-policing." pic.twitter.com/zRZ3XutBrG
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 #FloridaStrong (@DeSantisWarRoom) October 13, 2022
Floridians weren’t happy with the sentiments.
Her name Karla Marx is perfectly fitting 🤦♂️🙄
— Paul Dukes fan Ultra Beer Dude🇺🇸🇨🇦 (@A412Paul) October 13, 2022
True, she does think empowering parents to send kids to schools of their choice is "systemically racist," but in her defense, she is an idiot.
— Rust Ben-Israel1967 (@rustbenisrael) October 13, 2022
It looks and sounds like racism and discrimination! I tell people to pull their children out of publis schools and home school. Our chldren don't need to be taught hate they get enough of that in the world. These people aren't professional at all. They sould resign now!
— Alieyah Lei (@AlieyahLei) October 13, 2022
But according to Hernández-Mats, these concerns are all simply veiled racism.
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