Perry is a start, governor

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By ELIJAH GOSIER

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 27, 2001

Florida officials jumped when Maryland legislator Talmadge Branch said he was asked to sit in the back room of a bar in Perry.

Isn't it wonderful how our governor jumped on the town of Perry with both feet after a bar there discriminated against a black man who was visiting from up north?

Makes you proud to be a Floridian, doesn't it?

Perry must have been peering from behind closed windows wondering when the National Guard was going to show, or worse, bracing in case the governor asked his brother to order an air strike.

The state's top investigators, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, arrived at the bar before you could say "back room." Well, right afterwards, anyway. State Attorney Bob Butterworth is taking his bite; so are the U.S. Attorney for northern Florida and the State Attorney for the district.

All this when most of us black Floridians, given a choice between Bush and slavery, would just want to know how long we'd have to wait for emancipation this time.

What is wrong with us? Can't we see that he's on our side, that he has our best interests at heart?

Why else would he march so quickly and heavily into the Perry Package Lounge?

He couldn't have done it because the black man, who allegedly was told he could be served only in the bar's back room, is in the Maryland legislature. Nor did the governor spring into action because Perry is so small that few people would be upset with him for interfering in local affairs.

After all, didn't he remove the Confederate flag from the Capitol and send it to a museum where it belongs? Didn't he do it quietly, for all the right reasons, and not for the positive publicity? That was in all the papers.

And how dare you think he did any of that to smooth the road to begin campaigning next year for re-election? Sure, he will need a good share of black votes to win, and polls are saying essentially that lightning will get more black voters than he will. But our governor is not a politician who would sell his convictions for a few votes, is he?

No sirree, not Jeb Bush. The governor is sending a clear message to the world: If you're a black out-of-state dignitary visiting our state, Florida is not going to tolerate some little redneck bar treating you as if you live here.

That should make us all proud of him.

I have just one little request.

As all that firepower wraps up its mission in Perry, governor, could you send some of it to other parts of the state? No, no, no, we're not about to be flooded with a bunch of vacationing black legislators we have to watch out for. It's just that sometimes stuff like that happens to other people.

You could send a couple of your people to the courthouse in Tampa. A judge there feels so sorry for cute little curly-haired white criminals that she won't send them to prison. She's afraid all those uncute, kinky-haired, unwhite prisoners might be, well, sexually attracted.

Your people could analyze records and determine if some big, ugly, nappy-haired black inmates got prison time instead of house arrest because the judge wasn't as concerned about their well-being.

After that, you could have them drive across the bridge to Darryl Rouson's office. He's a lawyer in St. Petersburg. He could probably put them in touch with the woman who came to see him a few days ago. She is the only black employee at her company, if she's still there. The other employees have made it hard for her to go to work. They keep saying and doing "little things," she told Rouson.

He had to send her away. He said he gets a lot of people like her.

"I often have to tell people how arduous, expensive and protracted such litigation is. And I often have to tell them that the damages (awarded) aren't enough to cover the cost of the (process)," Rouson said.

He told the woman to begin at the city's community affairs office.

Maybe your people could figure out a cheaper, more streamlined way for her, and all those regular people like her, to be heard -- the way they did for that man from Maryland.

Come to think of it, if you had sent some of your people to check on the complaints of regular black folks on Election Day, back when they claimed they were running into trouble trying to vote, there probably wouldn't be such hard feelings surrounding the way your brother was put into the White House. People wouldn't be saying, as polls show they are, that you were part of a conspiracy to steal the presidency.

So when your people are done in Perry, send them to the rest of the state. Show some of us plain folks that you serve us as well as you do the people of Maryland.

Or at least give us some tips on how we might get elected to office.

Regular folks want to see what it's like to have our rights diligently protected by the governor.

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