Angie Nixon has had a front-row seat to the attacks on Black Floridians this year, from the dismantling of a Black congressional district to the racist killing of three Black people at a Dollar General to the whitewashing of Black studies.
But while Florida has become something like the ground zero of anti-Black bigotry, Nixon doesn’t want her constituents to give up. As she seeks reelection in 2024, the Democratic state representative and Jacksonville native is more determined than ever to battle for everyone’s safety, livelihood, and dignity.
“If we come together, we win. Just like when the community had to come together to get a minimum-wage increase because the [Republican-controlled] state Legislature didn’t want to address it,” Nixon said.
She understands that lots of people want to leave Florida — they don’t feel welcomed, they don’t feel loved, and they’re afraid. But if they can, she added, “I want them to stay in this fight so that we can take our state back. I believe that no matter your race or your gender identity or your ZIP code, you should be able to live a healthy, secure, and prosperous life.”
Capital B spoke with Nixon, a longtime organizer, about the ways that race is being weaponized against Black Floridians, the general mood of many in the state after a tumultuous year, and her political priorities going into 2024. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Capital B: Black Floridians have been through hell this year, from an ongoing attack on their political power to a racist shooting to an assault on Black history. What do you make of all of this?
Angela Nixon: I mean, let’s be clear: It’s profitable to pick on Black people. It’s profitable, especially when we’re talking about political campaigns, to create culture wars and racist dog whistles.
Look at what Republican state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia recently did. He filed a bill saying that the state of Florida wouldn’t pay reparations to the descendants of enslaved people. Republicans are fundraising off that because, again, it’s convenient to demonize Black people. Doing that causes some white folks to see us as villains, even though the Republican Party has been becoming more powerful for 30 years. In those 30 years, we’ve seen our schools fail. We’ve seen an exodus of educators. We’ve seen high homelessness rates. This is all under Republican leadership.
And so they’ve got to take that heat off themselves and pick a villain. And that villain is Black people. It’s really insidious, and just gross all around.
Systemic racism is such a problem. Black communities often have the highest levels of food insecurity, the worst health outcomes, and the most under-resourced schools. The wealth gap is huge. Infrastructure is an issue. But Florida Republicans are just seeking to divide us instead of allowing us to come together. If working families came together to see that the big bad wolf is big corporations, we could do great things that could lift up all communities — Black, brown, everyone. It’s just a shame what’s going on.
How would you describe the overall mood of Floridians after this year?
People are sad. They’re depressed. They feel like things are hopeless and that elected officials don’t care. I like to try to remind them that we work for them, and that they can grade us every two years in the state Legislature.
It’s frustrating because of the environment that’s been created by — I hate to say it — Republicans in the state Legislature. It seems as if they care about greedy corporations more than working families because those families can’t afford to pad campaign coffers.
And that’s just sad. Our community feels that and sees what’s happening, but doesn’t know how to fix it or think that things will change. People feel like that’s just the way it is. But I’m telling them, no, it’s not. I’m a community organizer. I’m always trying to agitate folks to figure out what the issue is and how to solve it. Again, we — elected officials — work for them. That budget? That’s their money. They should decide what’s done with it.
It makes no sense that we live in one of the richest countries in the world and have food deserts. That’s crazy to me. That’s maddening. I feel people’s frustration. I feel their pain. I want them to use those emotions to make their voices heard.
What issues are you focusing on going into 2024?
Wage theft is a major issue, particularly in communities of color and immigrant communities. I have a bill — it’ll be the third time I’m filing the bill — with Democratic state Sen. Victor Torres to create a department where folks can report things such as wage theft and we can try to combat it.
I’m also working on an early learning bill, which is based on a previous bill that expanded opportunities for children to get scholarships to go to private schools. I’m interested in doing the same thing for early childhood education. I have a 3-year-old, and I’m talking with parents who are really struggling. I remember being a single mom, and the cost of my daughter’s child care a month was around $900, and that was on the lower end. That’s money that could go toward groceries, making sure your car is operational, all the things.
It’s a shame that there’s such a polarized environment in Tallahassee [the location of the state Capitol]. The people who are losing out are Floridians. We have some lawmakers who aren’t doing anything to address the rising cost of rent, the rising cost of property insurance, the rising cost of car insurance. I have people emailing me and messaging me on social media saying that their car insurance has doubled or tripled, and you need your car to get to work. This is the sort of thing that could cause people to spiral into poverty.
I just want to make sure that I’m pushing my colleagues to pass legislation that Floridians actually care about.