After all these years, Black spring breakers expect more from Miami Beach | Opinion

There are at least two times of the year when college students converge on Miami Beach: spring break and Memorial Day weekend. It’s not a new phenomenon. These traditions have been around for decades, yet still are at the top of the bucket list for most Black and brown students.

Our beaches are beautiful, the food is amazing, there is sunshine everywhere and the nightlife seems to have no end. Despite the global pandemic, surveys revealed that more than 50 percent of college students planned to travel for spring break. Considering that only a few places are fully open for business, Miami Beach was destined to be a place many students selected. Therefore, adequate planning and provisions should have been in place — not last-minute “state of emergencies.”

Miami Beach hasn’t always been a place Black and brown people could come for leisure. There was a time when Black people were accepted only in certain areas of the Beach — and strictly for work. If work duties extended past the daytime, Blacks needed permission to stay on Miami Beach at night due to curfew and other closures.

This wasn’t secret, and we have not forgotten. Those tactics were overt, motivated by racial animus. It was enforced upon Black travelers, too. Today, such tactics used by Miami Beach back then to govern only Black people are now more disguised by insinuations, ideological biases coded language and stereotypes during spring break. But they are still unfair and perpetuate discord.

Moreover, Black people are not monolithic. After years of documented mistreatment by the city and its police department, you’d think by now their approaches would be more congenial when Black and brown people visit.

So here we are again with more aggression and more complaints of harassment and brutality from spring breakers.” We don’t condone violence from anyone; we do recognize the efforts of the city’s officials and Miami Beach police. But we shouldn’t be in this same place year after year during spring break. We are tired of the same results, derogatory messaging and familiar scripts that occur this time of the year.

From what we see, Miami Beach is, too. Just last year, both the Miami and South Dade branches of the NAACP along with the ACLU, stood together asking the city to come to the table to address how we could tamp down police aggression toward spring-break visitors.

We were hopeful that would lead to proactive, ongoing discussions on how to make spring break and other high-impact weekends enjoyable for everyone. Unfortunately, city officials and police department chose not to move forward on programming recommendations that would offer spring breakers a good mix of entertainment activities and structure.

Collectively we stand ready to step to the table to find real-time solutions that can result in sustainable outcomes for both the city and the visitors. We need a good-faith partner in the city of Miami Beach to make that happen —once and for all.

Daniella Pierre is president of the Miami-Dade Branch of the NAACP.