As I have for most of the past 47 years, last weekend I slipped on a green shirt and headed to Winter Park for what might have been the city’s last St. Patrick’s Day Parade. In their quest to cancel diversity, equity, and inclusion, our state legislators have introduced bills that will inevitably outlaw future St. Patrick’s Day Parades in Winter Park, Delray Beach, Tampa, Inverness, Hollywood, and St. Augustine.
During my 50 years as a college teacher, it became obvious that some of my colleagues and our growing administrative bureaucracies pushed the dream of a politically correct and perfectly equal, safe society a little too far. Quotas, speech codes and identity politics now mocked as woke and un-American, often defied common sense.
Instead of simply challenging the more foolish of those woke policies, our federal and state governments seem hell bent on obliterating any activity that even hints of DEI. In that spirit, Florida’s House Bill 1001 and Senate Bill 1134, in their own words, will forbid “spending any funds, regardless of source, for diversity, equity, and inclusive offices and offered events.”
Even if time runs out on this year’s legislative session, the sponsors seem determined to reintroduce these bills. After all, politicians rarely allow bad ideas to die. Let me add that I have long been puzzled over why they so dislike living in a diverse, equitable and inclusive society. Do they really dream of returning Florida to the separate and unequal 1950s?
While the spirit behind these restrictions seems primarily intended to eliminate support for activities (e.g., Black History Month, Gay Days) by traditionally marginalized groups, the bills would also ban everything from Tampa’s Gasparilla Pirate Fest and Miami’s Calle Ocho Music Festival to Tarpon Springs’ Greek Independence Day Celebration and Elkton’s Gullah Geechee Heritage Festival. Even if sponsors fully funded these celebrations, cities could no longer notify citizens, close streets, or provide police.
Losing our state’s St. Patrick’s Day Parades is especially painful, since in 1601 St. Augustine’s parish priest, Padre Ricardo Arturo, held the world’s first parade honoring San Patricio. Born in Ireland as Richard Arthur, Don Ricardo was one of the many ambitious young Irishmen who fled to Spain to escape England’s attempts to eradicate his country’s language, history, and culture.
Maurice O’Sullivan is a former grand marshal of the Winter Park St. Patrick’s Day parade. (Courtesy photo)
I understand the protective instinct that drove many of my woke friends to condemn cultural appropriation, criticizing Kim Kardashian for wearing cornrows and forcing two white women in Portland, Oregon, to close their pop-up burrito shop. But failing to understand how cultural interactions, even uncomfortable ones, help us grow and evolve is naïve and ahistorical. Where would modern art be if Matisse and Picasso had never adopted forms from Africa? And who really wants to give up sushi, tacos and pizza?
We Irish learned the lesson of accepting, adapting and accommodating long ago. That is why on March 17 we encourage everyone to appropriate our culture. So wear something green, try some corned beef and cabbage — a dish we borrowed as immigrants from our Jewish neighbors — and raise a toast (preferably Guinness) to the young British slave who escaped and then returned as a missionary not only to convert his former owners but to teach the Irish that the core of life and religion should be love and acceptance. Sláinte!
Maurice O’Sullivan (Muiris Ó Súilleabháin) is a former Grand Marshal of the Winter Park St. Patrick’s Day Parade.