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

They just cannot help themselves.

While many Florida news outlets have become a dependable source of imbalanced reporting on Governor Ron DeSantis, one newspaper in particular stands above the others in this regard. The Miami Herald has not only become a regular source of hit pieces on the governor, but its track record of wrongness regarding DeSantis has not deterred it in the least. It is as if the managing editors are intent on someday getting a story correct on the man, if they only would keep trying.

It was with this reality in mind that I began reading a recent offering from the paper, this one covering the story of Olympic speed skater Erin Jackson. Suddenly, a small comment enter the back of my mind: I wonder if they will find a way to make this about DeSantis? I had to explain my sardonic chuckle to the household, once I read into this ineptitude.

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 began her career in junior inline roller speed skating, and then roller derby, before graduating to the ice. She won the sport’s World Championship last November, but fell in the US qualifying event for the Olympics. Her good friend Brittany Bowe won, but she bowed out to give Jackson her place on the Olympic squad.

Jackson becomes the first African American female to earn an Olympic medal (gold) in the sport, but as her accomplishment was detailed in the Herald, the publication just could not resist taking this deeply personal and wonderful story and poisoning the well with unneeded and wildly inaccurate political lectures. Writer Fabiola Santiago was incapable of going an entire column without finding a way to imply that Jackson managed to conquer the ignorance and intolerance of the governor on her way to the Beijing medals podium.

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. Or, perhaps, because of them.

And with that, the piece speeds off down the political lane, like Jackson herself firing out of her crossover turns to shoot down the stretch of ice.

This time, however, considering the racially charged atmosphere in Florida, a state hellbent on sanitizing the teaching of African American history in schools, her win takes on deeper meaning, beyond athletic achievement.

And just that quickly, Fabiola goes tumbling down, spinning off into the cushioned border of the track, as she trips herself up with equal parts partisanship and ignorance. The only place in this state where things are racially charged is found in the Florida news outlets. Recall that it was just weeks ago when Ron DeSantis was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer because he did not shriek in hysterics to the TV cameras, when a dozen or so idiots in Orlando gathered with 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 lecturing on how to not trivialize the horrors the Jews have endured were perfectly mute when impotent Democrat opponent Nikki Fried called DeSantis a Nazi just weeks prior.

Now, we have this Herald writer baiting a racist hook by implying that racism is running amok in the state, and DeSantis is trying to erase black history in schools. Santiago says this from the standpoint of confidence, but not a shred of evidence. She proves her ignorance here because Florida schools have a state mandate to teach the history of both slavery and the Holocaust. This is legislation was signed into law in 2019 – by (it needs to be pointed out to Fabiola) Governor Ron DeSantis.

But Ms. Santiago continues, with her display of rampant bias and an avoidance of core facts.

Who she is and her place in history become even more relevant considering the ultra-conservative place where Jackson hails from, Ocala, where Trumpian politics and now Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ultra-right initiatives dominate the public sphere.

I’m sorry, but what initiatives have had an impact on Jackson’s career?! Did I miss the law passed by DeSantis that banned ice rinks in Florida? Was there a Trump policy making it illegal for POC individuals to ice-skate? 

In fact, the senator who represents Ocala in the Florida Legislature, Dennis Baxley, is the Senate sponsor of the highly controversial bill that seeks to curtail the free-speech rights of gay students.

This dose of hyperbolic writing is in reference to the bill where parents will have more of a say about what age-appropriate lessons should be permitted in certain 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?!

Oh, the irony that a Black woman would bring glory to a town whose senator in Tallahassee is part of the DeSantis gang trying to quash any semblance of teaching of Black history that stirs the horror and the shame it should.

So, her read is that DeSantis wants to squash the teaching of the law DeSantis himself passed, and at no point does it occur to her to provide evidence in support of any of her hysteria. By now, Ms. Santiago almost seems intent on becoming 100 percent incorrect from start to finish in 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.

Sure, the governor with a Hispanic female Lt. Governor and a black Surgeon General does not see minorities. At this stage, we have to assume the writer is being intentionally color-blind because any other explanation is infinitely worse.

And it is about the one thing team sports so often does: brings out the best in people. We are all on this Earth together, and we win if we work for the benefit of one another, not against each other. These two American women are role models for what this nation could be, if indeed, it were a nation “for all.”

Poignant words, those might seem, except for how they are delivered. Somehow, this message of bonding, of growth, togetherness, and shared spirit gets lost as they follow darkly biased accusations 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.

Forgive me for losing the heart of a lesson on racial harmony, when Fabiola Santiago uses this event to falsely and inaccurately cast racist accusations at her political foes at the same time.

Forgive me for losing the heart of a lesson on racial harmony, when Fabiola Santiago uses this event to falsely and inaccurately cast racist accusations at her political foes at the same time.