Florida patriots
Dr. Marvin Dunn sat beneath what he called the Black History Learning Tree next to FIU’s Green Library on the 45th anniversary of the McDuffie Riots and swayed to Ray Charles’ rendition of “America the Beautiful.” Dunn wanted the program on the history of the riots to begin with that song “because of the lie that professors like me are telling students to hate their country. Teaching that our country is the worst place in the world. I was out here [teaching at FIU] 36 years; I never heard a professor say ‘hate your country.’”
Flanked by Shanreka Perry, who was 10 when she lost her leg in the riot, and Bea Hines, the legendary Pulitzer-nominated reporter for the Miami Herald, and surrounded by scores of American flags, Dunn wanted everyone to know that “I’m an American that spent six years in the Navy defending our country. This is our country too.”
I thought about why Dunn needed to start his presentation defending his patriotism while reading Mary Anna Mancuso’s May 23 op-ed, “Florida ranks low on patriotism? I don’t believe it.” She wrote, “I have found Republicans to be more openly patriotic than Democrats.”…