Tanner Andrews

I remember the sign from when I was a kid. Where you turned off of U.S. Highway 98 to go to the beach, the sign said “World’s Whitest Beaches.” A large sailfish pointed the way to Pensacola Beach.

The sand was also very white, except where developers had covered it with motels, houses and parking lots. There were enormous piles of white sand, which locals were pleased to call dunes. The developers had different terms.

The important thing to remember, even up in the Panhandle, is that that white stuff is sand. Notably, it is not snow. Snow does not normally grow along the Gulf Coast.

Perhaps due to the rarity of snow, the state House has passed the Snowflake Protection Act of 2022, also known as HB7. It is expected to slide through the Senate relatively unmolested.

The idea of the Snowflake Protection Act is that no one should feel bad about racism. KKK members, white nationalists and Illinois Nazis are very delicate. We must be very careful not to hurt anyone’s feelings, so it will be illegal to teach that the KKK were a bunch of racist goons.

Teachers will have to be very careful not to imply that any students are members of the “Party of Lincoln,” lest they be imputed Lincoln’s views on Negroes. In the famous debates, Lincoln was firm on his view that, while Negroes should be free of slavery, they should neither mingle socially with whites, nor serve on juries, nor vote. Teaching this might result in hurt feelings, however, so the law will bar that.

It will also be illegal to teach about how federal mortgage assistance was structured to enforce segregation, and that federal farm assistance was for white farmers. Excluding Negroes from assistance meant that they accumulated less wealth than whites, who did receive mortgage and farm assistance. Talking about this might make Proud Boys feel bad.

Our Legislature is concerned with how people feel. Once the bill passes, you must not say things in school that would hurt people’s feelings. Delicate snowflakes need to be kept safe.

Florida has long had large piles of sand, but snow is unusual. The Legislature says it considers snowflakes to be an endangered species. However, really, we can all figure out what they are thinking in Tallahassee — because the Legislature is best known for great huge piles of smelly brown stuff.

— Andrews is a DeLand-area attorney and a longtime government critic. For purposes of the column, he finds it convenient that there is so much government to criticize.

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