Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons and one novel. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.com.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis
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“Say what you mean and mean what you say,” unless you want to keep everyone guessing. Alas, vague is in vogue, the better to sow confusion about not-so-honorable intentions — and get your way in the end.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has mastered this dark art, most recently as he ordered thoughtful discussions of African American history to end before they had begun, with studies of other cultures somehow escaping his ire.
A pilot of an Advanced Placement course on the subject has run into the buzz saw of the state’s “Stop Woke Act.”
The Florida Department of Education’s letter to the College Board said the content of its AP African American studies course “is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” showing by its use of “inexplicably” that it had no earthly reason for a decision intended to close, not open, young minds.
Try teaching the history of the United States of America with “just the facts,” and you might end up with lessons on the enslavement of men, women and children, lynching, redlining and Jim Crow without judgment, without pointing out the evil, the inhumanity and the apathy of those who looked the other way while reaping the benefits of racist oppression.
In the name of not causing trauma in today’s students, Florida policymakers are erasing the trauma of the families and descendants of the Floridians lynched in Tallahassee, the state’s capital city, where the same lawmakers obviously close their eyes when passing markers acknowledging that chapter in American history.
Educators may want to fight back. But with jobs and livelihoods at stake, there are risks. ProPublica talked to a number of professors without tenure who are anxiously changing course names and weeding out terms such as “white privilege” to dodge cancellation and firing. But it’s difficult to avoid something that's so hard to pin down, knowing all the while that disgruntled students who might be unhappy about a grade know exactly which “woke” cudgel will get immediate results.
So, for those instructors, it's better to just stop. Just stop any mention of gender politics and the roots of racism, just stop connecting the dots between modern wealth and health gaps and how America’s institutions were constructed with discrimination the motivating factor.
Just stop answering questions from students of every race who are supposed to be curious, but apparently not too curious.
Don’t tell the governor that “woke” comes from a 1938 “stay woke” caution from blues singer Lead Belly, advice for Black Americans who wanted to avoid a fate similar to that of the falsely accused “Scottsboro Boys.” And by all means, don’t teach that in a Florida school. Because in 2023, “woke” means whatever DeSantis wants it to mean.
Unfortunately, Florida has set a template for other states, such as South Carolina, where Republican legislators have proposed a bill already being criticized by organizations such as the state’s American Civil Liberties Union for what it calls vague language that could discourage teachers from settling there.
A vague election law has already had its desired effect in, yes, Florida. After voters overwhelmingly approved opening up the franchise to former felons who had served their time, Republican legislators said, “Not so fast.”
Many of those hopeful voters, after being registered by confused election officials, themselves unsure of exactly what the law said, were swept up by DeSantis’ “election integrity” task force, arrested by law enforcement officers who seemed puzzled about the details of the law the terrified, targeted citizens were supposed to have broken.
Of course, those hauled out of their homes in handcuffs in well-publicized raids were mostly African American, with the white transgressors in The Villages given not much more than a slap on their presumably Republican wrists.
Charges may have been dropped in most cases, but do you think minority folks with a former brush with the law would risk another by voting?
Call it a pattern of intimidation by obfuscation.
Book bans and rules in cities and states across the country have pushed out many teachers and librarians who loved their work but didn’t relish doing battle with angry culture warriors whose voices drowned out dissenters.
Now, many school librarians who stuck it out are confused about which books and magazines they are allowed to order, especially when lawmakers, citizen panels, school board members, loud parents and occasionally people without a child in the school or community have the final say.
So, they’ve stopped. No new books for school libraries that need them, for students who present lists of titles they are eager to read. Will discouraged young people give up on reading altogether when they can’t see themselves in literature, when they are denied anything that might excite them or introduce them to something surprising?
That’s the fear of many teachers and librarians, who have stopped; they are stuck, waiting for clarification, when confusion is the point. “No one is going to want to visit the library,” one told the Washington Post in a story that explained their plight. For someone like me who spent endless hours in the library, consuming books on everything and being exposed to ideas that made me think, reading a quote like that is a heartbreaker.
The only antidote to such foolishness is a dose of clarity — and bravery.
That’s where Marvin Dunn comes in. At 82, maybe the professor emeritus at Florida International University, an African American who has lived through the worst the state can dish out, has seen too much to use a labyrinthine law as a reason to back off.
Dunn is a plaintiff in a suit against the DeSantis law, and he is leaning into his role as teacher by leading high school students and their parents on “Teach the Truth” tours to the sites of some of the worst racial violence in Florida history. He has bought a few acres of property in what was Rosewood, a mostly Black town burned to the ground by a white mob in 1923, to preserve what and who should never be forgotten.
Might that cause discomfort? Perhaps, and reasons to reject the hate that made such acts possible.
“Listen, if there is such a thing as the woke mob in Florida,” Dunn told the Washington Post, “I aspire to lead it.”
Nothing vague about that.
Reprinted with permission from Roll Call.
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As Use Of Abortion Pill Rises, Right-Wing Media Spread Misinformation
@jasminegeonzon
January 29 | 2023
Following news that retail pharmacies will be able to distribute prescription medication used for abortions, anti-choice activists are flooding the right-wing media ecosystem with medical misinformation that falsely posits abortion medication as unsafe. This renewed attack on medication abortion is making it more difficult for pregnant people seeking credible information to make their own health care decisions.
Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration announced that retail pharmacies in states where abortion is legal will be able to fulfill prescriptions for mifepristone, one of two medications used for abortions, after they’ve received a government certification. Three of the nation’s largest retail pharmacies — Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid — have alreadyexpressed their intent to distribute the medication.
Since Roe v. Wade’s reversal last year, medication abortion has become a particularly important safety net, as 14 states have harshly restricted or outright banned abortion, leading dozens of clinics to stop offering abortion care. Demand for abortion medication has surged in states with restrictions, and most abortions in the U.S. are now performed through medication. On January 25, the maker of mifepristone filed a lawsuit hoping to expand access of the medication to states with abortion bans, arguing that the FDA’s approval of the drug in 2000 makes restricting its distribution illegal.
With Roe’s reversal, the political right has pivoted from fixating on the Supreme Court to seizing on medication abortion, with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists helping lead the way. AAPLOG is a group of anti-abortion doctors whose mission is to leverage their professional credentials to stigmatize abortion care and scare away pregnant people seeking abortions by spreading medical misinformation. Now, as medication abortion has become a renewed object of conservative attention, right-wing outlets are increasingly turning to AAPLOG’s leaders as expert opinions undermining mifepristone.
Here’s how conservative media are doubling down on their misinformation efforts as the anti-abortion movement moves on past Roe:
- After the FDA announced that retail pharmacies could dispense mifepristone prescriptions, AAPLOG’s outgoing CEO Dr. Donna Harrison appeared on the conservative TV network Newsmax on two different programs on January 10. On The National Report, Harrison stressed that the FDA’s announcement was “scientifically and medically irresponsible” and overstated the possibility of the rare side effects of taking the medication in an effort to scare patients away. Harrison also fearmongered that the distribution of medication abortion would lead to the “enablement of both abusers and pimps,” even though pregnant people denied an abortion are actually more likely than people who have abortions to be tethered to abusive relationships.
- In a January 14 interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Harrison falsely warned that medication abortion is “never safe” and fearmongered about potential side effects of mifepristone, claiming that the medication could lead to “the kind of bleeding one might see in a major motor vehicle accident.” (Bleeding is a normal side effect of taking abortion medication, but the description Harrison gave is much less common.)
- On January 5, anti-abortion site Pregnancy Help News quoted a representative from the extremist evangelical group Family Research Council that selling medication abortion “will transform pharmacies from centers of healing into centers of death.” Anti-choice activist Lila Rose likened distributing mifepristone to “dispensing lethal poison alongside antibiotics and allergy medication.” Pregnancy Help News also cited research from the Charlotte Lozier Institute (a branch of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America) and AAPLOG, both organizations known for spreadingmisinformation on abortion.
- Pregnancy Help News published a similar piece on January 22 centered around a speech from AAPLOG CEO-elect Dr. Christina Francis at the 2023 National Pro-Life Summit held by Students for Life of America. While peddling misinformation about medication abortion, Francis claimed that “women deserve to have accurate information” and decried what she described as “the abortion industry and unfortunately its allies in the medical profession” in a speech titled “Debunking the Myths of Chemical Abortion.” Francis falsely claimed that medication abortion is more unsafe than surgical abortion and promoted the concept of abortion pill reversal — which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists described as “unproven and unethical” but Pregnancy Help News referred to as a “ray of hope.”
- An opinion piece featured in Townhall on January 12 attacked CVS and Walgreens as “neighborhood abortion drug dealers” because of the pharmacies’ plans to distribute prescription mifepristone. Even though abortion medication is extremely safe, the piece suggested the hangers used in illegal abortions have been replaced by mifepristone — an extremely fraught comparison used to falsely paint medication abortions as “fundamentally dangerous, physically risky, and even deadly.” Further, the article recommended pregnant people visit the deceptively named “pregnancy help centers,” another name for so-called crisis pregnancy centers that dissuade visitors from receiving abortions under the guise of providing actual support.
- A January 20 Daily Caller article quoted AAPLOG’s Francis criticizing the embrace of medication abortion post-Roe as proof that “medicine, in general, is moving in a more pro-death direction.” The piece also cited Dr. Ingrid Skop, a representative from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, who similarly fearmongered about standard reproductive health care and stated that “the battle is not over and the battleground has shifted” after Roe, adding that medication abortion is “one of the things we are having to fight.”
In addition to right-wing media undermining mifepristone’s proven safety and efficacy, GOP politicians in Alabama and South Dakota have threatened criminal charges for dispensing or taking abortion medications, and a coalition of anti-abortion activists are suing to overturn the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.
Conservative media’s moral panic against mifepristone isn’t new: Many of the same narratives have been recycled from previous fearmongering when the medication was permanently approved for mail distribution in December 2021 and when Roe was officially overturned in June 2022.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.
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