Sticking By Our Guns

Almost ten years ago, I posted a collection of my cartoons I drew in response to mass shootings in the U.S. Even though my bailiwick is the LGBTQ+ press, I'm still drawing cartoons on that same tragic topic, because the carnage hasn't stopped, and the LGBTQ+ community has by no means been spared.

Today's Graphical History Tour highlights one cartoon I've drawn about mass shootings in America per year since my last round-up of the damn things.

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After the Pulse nightclub massacre nine years ago, when a gunman killed 49 patrons of an Orlando nightclub with a predominantly Latino clientele, I submitted two cartoons to Q Syndicate. One, featuring an American flag at half staff, a rainbow rising out of black clouds, and a quotation attributed to one of the victims, was the one run by most (if not all) publications that printed my cartoons.

June, 2016

Because I thought that the cartoon did not work in grayscale, I also submitted this alternative cartoon, highlighting the callous reaction of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, and his non-apology apology for it. But even the Philadelphia Gay News, which prints my cartoon in grayscale, went with the flag and rainbow cartoon.

The next year, a heavily armed gunman holed up in an upper floor room of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas and opened fire on an outdoor country music festival across the strip. Armed with enough high-powered rifles and bump stocks to equip a battalion, the gunman fired 1,000 rounds into the crowd over the space of ten minutes. 58 concert goers were killed and hundreds injured before the gunman turned a gun on himself.

October, 2017

The list in this cartoon is tragically incomplete. I could have added Catholics at mass, Jews at synagogue, newspaper staffers, Veterans Home workers, Waffle House patrons, and on and on.

Some forty years ago, we used to call mass shootings "going postal," on account of cases of disgruntled postal workers shooting up their place of employment. Nowadays, we can just call it "going American."

February, 2018

In February of 2018, the scene of mass shooting was Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Death toll: 17 students and staff. Injured: 18. Response by the Florida legislature: legislation to protect students from the evils of pornography and requiring the posting of "In God We Trust" in every classroom in the state.

August, 2019

In one week in July and August, 2019, a mass shooting at a Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California left three dead; 23 were killed at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas and two at a Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi; yet another outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio killed nine; and one was killed and fourteen injured in a pair of mass shootings in Chicago.

Those were only five mass shootings out of 417 that year as defined by the Gun Violence Archive — more than one per day on average — with a total death toll of 15,381.

Such incidents dipped in the COVID year 2020. There were no mass shootings recorded between March 20 (Springfield, Missouri) and September 19 (Rochester, New York), the longest such gap since 2003.

And all it took was a mysterious, incurable disease taking hundreds of thousands of lives the old-fashioned way.

December, 2021

Congressional Gun Nuts Thomas Massie (R-KY, and yes, he's the Republican co-sponsoring a bill demanding release of the Epstein files) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) responded to a late 2021 school shooting by posting photos of themselves and their families posing in front of their Christmas trees, everyone brandishing a high-powered rifle.

November, 2022

Five patrons of Club Q, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, were killed and 25 injured when a gunman armed with an AR-15 style rifle, a Glock 17 style polymer handgun, and wearing protective body armor, shot his way into the LGBTQ+ nightclub. The attack took place the night of November 19, 2022, the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance. (Facing hate crime charges, the killer claimed after their arrest to identify as non-binary, but no acquaintances or family remember them so identifying before that.)

Colorado Springs is in Congressbanshee Boebert's district, so she dutifully issued the tweet I summarized within her Christmas card of the previous year.

You may have noticed that I didn't have a mass shooting cartoon for 2020; so here's an extra one from 2022 — because I've drawn more than one cartoon about mass shootings almost every year:

May, 2022

Americans were shocked by the mass shooting of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, in the spring of 2022, despite mass shootings having become commonplace in this country. While Uvalde police dithered around Robb Elementary School for over an hour, an 18-year-old with an assault rifle and black body armor went from room to room, methodically shooting children and staff. Children had to pretend they were dead as he returned to rooms he had left, shooting the wounded and anyone who called for help. 19 children and two teachers died before Border Control agents stormed the school and shot their murderer.

As in the aftermath of other school shootings, there was much talk by opponents of gun control of "hardening" our schools — making them impenetrable to mass murderers and just about everybody else. The nitwit Senator from my home state, on the other hand, went on TV to prescribe getting rid of "wokeness" and Critical Race Theory.

For the record: the Uvalde killer entered Robb Elementary through a locked door that failed to latch; and Critical Race Theory has never been part of the curriculum for schoolchildren in Uvalde or anywhere else.

April, 2023

Congresscretin Tim Burchett (R-TN) responded to the April, 2023 massacre of six schoolchildren and staff in Nashville, saying, "It’s a horrible, horrible situation, and we’re not going to fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals. And my daddy fought in the Second World War, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said, ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’"

September, 2024

There were some 50 or so school shootings in 2024, but what most concerned presidential candidate Donald The Terrible Trump was his bonkers delusion that kids were going to school and undergoing gender reassignment surgery in the nurse's office. (JD Vance's presence in my cartoon references an awkward campaign photo op in a doughnut shop.)

But yes, Trump literally did respond to a mass shooting in Iowa, in which a sixth grader was killed, with "It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But have to get over it."

I nearly pulled this cartoon, drawn the same weekend that a bullet supposedly grazed Trump's ear at a Pennsylvania campaign rally. He got over it — you and I have had worse paper cuts — but his loyal minions spent the next week wearing gauze over the sympathetic injuries to their own right ears.

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I'm afraid I don't have any witty remarks to wrap up this week's Graphical History Tour. No words of encouragement. No easy answers. 

Just the Gun Violence Archive map of mass shootings so far this year.

Q Toon: Texas Senate Bill 12

Florida notwithstanding...

There's a lot to be upset about this LGBTQ+ Pride Month, and a Texas-sized amount of shame is coming from the Lone Star State:

Senate Bill 12, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, won final legislative passage Saturday after lawmakers in both chambers adopted the conference committee reports that specifically clarified that schools will be banned from authorizing or sponsoring student clubs based on sexual orientation or gender identity. ...

Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, emphasized that these clubs exist because of a long history of oppression against the LGBTQ+ community. He warned against demonizing students and teachers for discussing gender and sexuality.

“The real monsters are not kids trying to figure out who they are,” Wu said during the House discussion. “The monsters are not the teachers who love them and encourage them and support them. They are not the books that provide them with some amount of comfort and information. The real monsters are here.”

Lawmakers shared personal stories about LGBTQ+ youth. Rep. Rafael Anchía said his daughter was a vice president of a pride club at her school. He stressed that these clubs “are no more about sex than 4-H or ROTC or the basketball team.” ...

Anchía also told the Texas Tribune he “didn’t sign up for five anti-LGBT bills this session.”

Those bills include one denying transgender Texans the right to have accurate, up-to-date identification in state documents. HB 229 has passed both houses of the Texas legislature and is certain to be signed into law by transphobic Governor Greg Abbott.

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If I had read more than the initially cursory reporting Sunday of the fatal shooting death of actor Jonathan Joss in San Antonio, that might very well have been the topic of my cartoon this week instead of SB 12. It hasn't received quite the media attention the attacks in Boulder and Washington D.C. have, but it should.

Joss, 59, was the voice of King of the Hill character John Redcorn, and portrayed Wamapoke Chief Ken Hotate on Parks and Recreation. The Native American was openly gay, and had married his husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzalez, on Valentines Day this year.

The two have been subjected to years of homophobic and transphobic threats (Tristan is a transman),  duly reported to San Antonio law enforcement, but to no avail. Those included threats to burn down their house, a threat which someone appears to have carried out on January 23, resulting in the deaths of their three dogs.

On Sunday, June 1, the Joss-Kerns returned to their destroyed home to pick up any mail, and found the skull and harness of one of the dogs prominently displayed there. From de Gonzalez's statement on Redcorn's Facebook page:

"This caused both of us severe emotional distress. We began yelling and crying in response to the pain of what we saw.

"While we were doing this a man approached us. He started yelling violent homophobic slurs at us. He then raised a gun from his lap and fired.

"Jonathan and I had no weapons. We were not threatening anyone. We were grieving. We were standing side by side. When the man fired Jonathan pushed me out of the way. He saved my life."

A neighbor, Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez, 56, has been arrested and charged with Joss's murder. Astonishingly, however, the San Antonio Police Department has since announced that in spite of the history of harassment complaints, the likely arson, the cruel display of the dog's remains, and the unprovoked attack, they don't believe that this obvious hate crime is a hate crime.

“Our investigation has found no evidence whatsoever to indicate that the Mr. Joss’s murder was related to his sexual orientation. We take such allegations very seriously and have thoroughly reviewed all available information. Should any new evidence come to light, we will charge the suspect accordingly.”

Given that the alleged murderer is named Sigfredo Ceja Alvarez and not Buford T. Redneck IV, one assumes that the Texas justice system will result in a conviction and prison sentence — if not deportation to a concentration camp in El Salvador or Libya — even without a hate crime penalty attached.

Unless, of course, the case ends in a mistrial because Joss's widower identifies himself under oath as Tristan Kern de Gonzalez rather than his deadname.

Q Toon: Graveside Manners

Shortly after I pitched this idea to my editors and sat down at my drawing board Sunday, I saw the news that yet another attempt to assassinate Mr. Trump by some deranged idiot equipped with weapons of mass casualty had been thwarted. I seriously considered hunting for some other topic for this week's cartoon; perhaps if some comment by Pete Buttigieg on Meet the Press had tickled my fancy, I would have found one.

Since I didn't, here's this one.

Trump's repeated insistence that somewhere in this glorious country, parents are sending their children off to school only to have the little tykes come home having been subjected to spontaneous gender reassignment surgery in the principal's office apparently falls under JD BH Vance's theory that it's okay "to create stories so that the American media actually [pay] attention."

The ReQublican Qandidates are remarkably less concerned with the very real instances of children going to school only to come home with mortal coil reassignment surgery performed by another one of those deranged idiots equipped with weapons of mass casualty. There have been two attempted assassinations of presidential candidates this year; as of September 6, there have been 46 mass shootings at schools in the United States in 2024.

And zero gender reassignment surgeries at any school anywhere in the country.

Right-wingers have been quick to accept Dear Leader's fairy tales, however, and to discount reality. They dismiss grieving parents as "crisis actors," so it's hardly surprising that some on the other side immediately spread wild conjecture on line that the Mar-a-Lagoon golf course wannabe sniper is also some sort of crisis actor, hired to distract the electorate from Trump's ridiculous debate performance, or Project 2025, or reports that inflation is down and employment is up.

And the Fox Noise Machine just as quickly answered that the guy was inspired by Democratic campaign warnings that Trump is a racist, a fascist, and danger to the Republic, just because Trump says racist, fascist things and promises to be a dictator on Day One.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan's admonishment that "You are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts" is so passé these days. Pick and choose whatever facts you fancy, tune out the rest, and believe whatever you want. The gunman is a Republican! He's a Democrat! He's a Ramaswamian! He's a Bernie Bro! He's a floor wax! He's a dessert topping! He's Schrödinger's assassin!

How long, O Lord, how long have we been coming here?

Q Toon: Is This a Dad Joke?

The buzz around Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, now that he's been tapped by Vice President Kamala Harris to take over her job in 2025, is that he has that "Midwestern Dad Vibe."

For the last few days, those who know him personally have been sharing their stories, including how helpful he’s been with fixing other people’s cars, how much of a delight he was in a decade-long group chat called “Sports Buddies,” and how inspiring he was as a teacher and coach. One former coworker told a story to the Washington Post in which they tried to prank him by giving Walz a fake gift certificate for a free turkey at the local grocery store, and that Walz managed to still leave with a free turkey. “That’s just Tim Walz,” she said.

At the turn of the millennium, Walz and his wife, Gwen, were faculty advisers to the Gay-Straight Student Alliance at Mankato West High School in south central Minnesota. The future Congressman and Governor has said — I'm paraphrasing here — that he felt called to bring his straight-cred as the coach of the football team to the group.

As one former student put it, "Dare I say, there's a lot of toxic masculinity in the whole football team. And to see someone who was a football coach, but also saying, 'Hey, we're going to respect everyone. And I absolutely won't put up with any of that crap' — that was really bold."

Contrast that attitude with that of the Republican Veep-Wannabe, J.D. Vance. You might catch him in a dress; but that wasn't solidarity, it was cultural appropriation.

The Ohio senator opposed the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act, which codified same-sex marriage as the law of the land, and introduced legislation that would have banned gender-affirming care for trans youth at a federal level. He has also endorsed the notion that the existence of queer and trans people in public life is inherently predatory, writing on Twitter, now X, in 2022: “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.”

Republicans are trying to attack Walz for signing a Minnesota bill guaranteeing families of transgender youth the right to pursue gender-affirming care. Their epithet for him, "Tampon Tim" for signing a bill okaying (not, it must be pointed out, mandating) feminine hygiene dispensers in boys' bathrooms, was meant as an insult, but Walz has embraced it as a badge of honor. 

Because, really now. If you are asked to think of all the dangerous things we need our kids protected from in public schools, tampons are way, way down the list.

Q Toon: Beware of the Leopard

The state of Florida reached a settlement with a coalition of concerned families, civil rights agencies, and educators who had taken the state to court over Republicans' "Don't Say Gay" law. 

The law remains in place, but the settlement clarifies that students and educators can discuss LGBTQ+ topics, given those conversations are not part of formal curriculum. The clarifications also state that students can write about such topics in their academic work.

Notably, the settlement includes clarification on library books, stating that library books with LGBTQ+ themes may not be banned under the legislation so long as they are not being used for instruction.

Nor does the law apply to extracurricular activities and groups, such as Gay-Straight Alliances, some of which disbanded after the bill became law.

Governor Ron DeSantis nevertheless claims that the settlement is a victory for his side, because at least LGBTQ+-positive curricula still cannot be required in Florida classrooms. And homophobic parents can still opt their kids out of whatever offends their sensitive sensibilities.

To be sure, not everyone on the educators' side of things is happy with the settlement.

Teaching math at her alma mater in Florida, Katie Wood wants to leave Lennard High School better than how she found it. But under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, Wood’s future as an out trans woman at the school hangs in the balance.

“I can’t even call myself Ms. Wood,” the 3rd-year educator said, noting that her gendered title is one of several things she is barred from using solely due to her being a transgender person. “In many ways, I’m being forced to be back in the closet.”

Ms. Wood is not exaggerating. Elsewhere in Florida, a non-binary teacher was fired for titling themself "Mx." rather than Mr., Mrs., or Ms. The high school science teacher, AV Vary, had been using that honorific for 15 years; but when "Don't Say Gay" became law, their school claimed to have no choice but to send them packing.

In a related court case, a three-judge panel has ruled against another of Florida's attempts to enforce right-wing orthodoxy in education. The so-called "Stop WOKE Act" virtually forbade discussion of not only gender issues but also anything having to do with race. (Heaven forfend that Florida students ever hear anything about Rosewood and Ococee.)

The 11th Circuit Court found that the Stop WOKE Act constituted "the greatest First Amendment sin," but the DeSantis administration is considering appealing that ruling.

Because, as all Republican scholars remember from their schooldays, the Constitution begins and ends with the second half of the Second Amendment.

Q Toon: What's In a Deadname

 

It's back to school time just about everywhere, which I usually address with a cartoon about LGBTQ+ students. This year, I thought I'd draw something for teachers instead.

A bunch of Republican state legislatures are pushing bills forcing birth gender requirements on transgender persons against their obvious will. It's bound to cause difficulty for anyone who is an employee anywhere — intentionally so — and no less for transgender persons in the teaching profession.

I'm reminded of my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Grothe. She wasn't transgender, but she did have a few items in her classroom marked "Miss Carpenter," which I at first thought meant that they belonged to somebody else. It didn't take long to figure out that Miss Carpenter was her maiden name, and that those things had always belonged to Mrs. Grothe.

Most kids are brighter than you might suspect.

It won't take Mr. Newman's students long to figure out that he used to be Miss Smith in another life, whether he teaches kindergarten or advanced placement calculus.

His state representatives might take considerably longer to realize that his coworkers may not appreciate Mr. Newman being required to use the women's bathroom, and that he would rather not intrude there, anyway.

Q Toon: Texodus

Texas authorities are spewing hostility in all directions this year.

Where to start?

In a ruling issued September 7th, District Judge Reed O’Connor voided a mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which requires employers cover certain preventive healthcare products and services if these violate their religious beliefs. ...

In this instance, O’Connor is striking down an ACA requirement that insurers cover pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which prevents transmission of the HIV virus, as well as contraception, the HPV vaccine (which prevents cervical cancer), and screenings and behavioral counseling for illicit drug use as well as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). According to O’Connor’s opinion, “compulsory coverage for [these] services violates [employers’] religious beliefs by making them complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior and [illegal] drug use.”

O'Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, would no doubt approve of an employer with a religious belief in Zero Population Growth denying maternal, paternal, and family leave to its employees — to say nothing of suddenly converting to a religion that doesn't believe in modern medicine at all. Flipping off teh gays is just icing on the cake.

Moving along to panel two: 

On the morning of Aug. 30, a 13-year-old transgender boy was pulled out of class by his school’s administrators, his mother says. While his classmates continued their studies, he sat in a conference room at a Texas middle school where a Department of Family and Protective Services investigator began asking personal questions, court records state.

The reason: The state agency was probing his family following a February directive from Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to investigate the use of gender-affirming care in minors as child abuse, according to court documents.

The nearly hour-long interview touched on a range of personal topics — from the teen’s medical history to his gender dysphoria diagnosis to his suicide attempt years back, court records state. The interrogation left the boy — identified under the pseudonym Steve Koe — shaking and distressed, according to a signed declaration from his mother, named as Carol Koe.

And of course, Gov. Greg Abbott is forcibly busing immigrants to New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, as if immigrants had not already been coming there:

Five more busloads of migrants who crossed the border from Mexico into Texas reached New York City on Wednesday as Gov. Greg Abbott escalated his feud with the city’s mayor with a victory lap op-ed in the New York Post.

The latest group of buses is the biggest to reach the East Coast city in one day since Abbott began the policy in early August, according to Fox News.

According to New York officials, Abbott even hired security guards to keep passengers from getting off his buses before they reached the Big Apple (although some did so anyway).

Whatever. All things being equal, there's a good chance that Coyote Abbott was doing some of those immigrants a huge favor. A free ride out of Howdy Arabia doesn't sound like such a terrible thing.

Back to School, 1922 Style

I had intended to publish this Graphical History Tour last week, but then Mikhail Gorbachev up and died, so I had to post cartoons about him instead. So here, with apologies to the British royal family for not coming up with a collection of QEII toons, is my 1922 Back to School tribute.

"Freckles and His Friends" by Merrill Blosser for NEA, Sept. 5, 1922

Freckles must have been utterly oblivious to the passage of time that summer if he somehow was completely unaware of the start of the school year. I could see him forgetting about it if he were just entering kindergarten, but he's obviously a year or two into schoolboydom if he views going to school as "Just Like Going to Jail."

From the look of things, he's getting the school year off on the wrong foot. The school bell is ringing, and he's at least a quarter mile away. Pop's was not a generation whose cars lined up for blocks dropping off and picking up their younguns at school.

"Life's Little Tragedies" by Alfred "Zere" Ablitzer in New York Evening Post, Sept. 9, 1922

Yeah, kid, go ahead and blame it on the dog.

"'Cap' Stubs" by Edwina Dumm for George Matthew Adams Service, Sept. 5, 1922

Mutts have feelings, too, you know.

"Aw―Gee Whiz" by Gaar Williams in Chicago Tribune, August 27, 1922

With the end of summer, the rest of these schoolboys, unlike Freckles McGoosey, were well aware of their impending doom. The lad in Gaar Williams's cartoon may try to hide, but he won't be able to hold his breath underwater long enough to do much but make his own self late for the bell.

"The Hardest Part" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Association, ca. August 30, 1922

As you have probably noticed, these cartoons are all about boys. Girls went to school, too, but they apparently didn't grow up to draw cartoons about it. 

"'Cap' Stubs" by Edwina Dumm for George Matthew Adams Service, Aug. 28, 1922

Even in Edwina Dunn's strip, the girls are peripheral characters — like Violet and Patty, or Susie Derkins, or Katie Franklin. (As we discussed last March, Cap, too, would also be relegated to the margins as Tippie the Dog took over the strip.)

"Another Strike Possibility" by Terry Gilkison for Autocaster, ca. August 18, 1922

Reluctant schoolboys are already a cliché in 1922, so let's turn to a cartoon that made an extra effort to be timely. Terry Gilkison references here the months-long and contentious strikes by coal miners and railway workers in his back-to-school cartoon.

By the time my generation was matriculating, teacher strikes were no longer the stuff of a kid's fanciful imagination. For a while, teachers in my school district were going on strike just about every other year. A strike during my senior year lasted nearly two months; when it was over, the district had to add several Saturdays and the entire month of June to the school year in order to meet the state-mandated minimum number of school days. (We seniors got to graduate on schedule so that those of us going to college could meet their deadlines for sending in our graduation records. Everyone else had to go to school for three more weeks.)

"The Days of Real Sport" by Clare Briggs in New York Tribune, August 17, 1922

School has not been the only option for older kids, then or now, as illustrated by this Clare Briggs cartoon. For some people, an early entry into the workforce is the right answer. Ma and Pa do not believe that Malcolm here is one of those people, and are old enough to remember a time when many kids Malcolm's age had been in the workforce for years.

(Malcolm, for that matter, is old enough to remember those days, too; even if he didn't personally know anyone in that situation.)

"The Road to Success" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, September 12, 1922

John Knott's Mr. J.H. Wisdom would give Malcolm the same advice as his parents.

And not just to boys like Freckles, Cap, and Malcolm:

"School Authorities Report..." by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Sept. 25, 1922

Now, I'm putting together something for next Saturday already, so nobody important gets to die next week, okay?

Harden This

When Ted Cruz responded to the massacre at Robb Elementary School by saying schools need to be limited to a single entrance, I thought of my own elementary school. Four entry doors used by students, plus another to the gymnasium that was only used by staff and when the school was used as a polling place.

Locking four of those entrances doesn't seem too unreasonable, and has probably been done ever since Columbine 23 years ago.

Then I thought of my high school.

Washington Park High School is a sprawling complex, from the John Burns Park Theater to the fieldhouse (the dark building at the southeast end). Every one of the sidewalks in this satellite photo, including the one hidden by the "pin" over the theater building, leads to a door. There are at least two doors into the building from the parking lot on the west side of the building and another in that nearly enclosed area north of the fieldhouse. (That used to be a gated area where we could park bicycles and was a popular area for students who smoked. If there's still a gate, I can't see it in this photo.)

There are also doors to those enclosed courtyards, and there could well be other exterior doors I never needed, say, perhaps by the racetrack.

Point is, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that official policy is for only one of those doors to remain open during the school day.

I'd also be immensely surprised if everybody walked around the building to get to it every time they stepped out to their car, had outdoor gym class, or sneaked out for a smoke.

Q Toon: Historical Figure of Speech

This week's cartoon comes to you just in the nick of time for African-American Heritage Month, with no apologies to the Aryan snowflakes working to outlaw it from schools across the nation.

Having spent the past half century agitating to impose Christian prayer and creationism pseudoscience on the public educational system, they are now concentrating on telling teachers What Must Not Be Named, Mentioned, or Discussed. Fer Pete's sake, we only discovered the 1921 Tulsa Race Pogrom last year, and already we're all supposed to forget it ever happened.

Again.

Of course, the same culture warriors have always wanted LGBTQ+ people to stay locked in the closet, neither seen nor heard, so Bayard Rustin is something of a two-fer in the educational erasure agenda. His record doesn't include the sort of "judge by the content of their character" quotations that could be twisted to support pretending that racism and homophobia are things of the past.

So here are a few quotations from Bayard's career worth remembering:

"Most of the time the reservoir of racism remains stagnant. But—and this has been true historically for most societies—when major economic, social, or political crises arise, the backwaters are stirred and latent racial hostility comes to the surface. Scapegoats must be found, simple targets substituted for complex problems. The frustration and insecurity generated by these problems find an outlet in notions of racial superiority and inferiority.” ― Bayard Rustin, Down The Line

"[T]he Negro today finds himself stymied by obstacles of far greater magnitude than the legal barriers he was attacking before: automation, urban decay, de facto school segregation. These are problems which, while conditioned by Jim Crow, do not vanish upon its demise. They are more deeply rooted in our socioeconomic order; they are the result of the total society's failure to meet not only the Negro's needs but human needs generally.” ― Bayard Rustin, Down The Line

“It ... was an absolute necessity for me to declare homosexuality, because if I didn't I was a part of the prejudice. I was aiding and abetting the prejudice that was a part of the effort to destroy me.” ― Bayard Rustin

"If we want to do away with the injustice to gays it will not be done because we get rid of the injustice to gays. It will be done because we are forwarding the effort for the elimination of injustice to all. And we will win the rights for gays, or blacks, or Hispanics, or women within the context of whether we are fighting for all." ― Bayard Rustin

“When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.” ― Bayard Rustin

"We are all one ― and if we don't know it, we will learn it the hard way." ―Bayard Rustin

Q Toon: DeSantis Suit

As much as I would prefer to put out simple, direct single-panel editorial cartoons, I've ended up drawing a lot of four-panel cartoons this year, because cartoons about news stories that aren't necessarily front and center in the national conversation require a bit of exposition. My topic this week, however, while a local story, got the attention of the White House the other day — mostly because, as Jennifer Psaki pointed out, it's really part of a vast right-wing conspiracy national trend. 

“Make no mistake: This is not an isolated action in Florida. Across the country, we’re seeing Republican leaders taking action to regulate what students can or cannot read, what they can or cannot learn, and most troubling, who they can or cannot be."

"Don't Say Gay" bills forbidding any mention of LGBTQ-ness in public schools are nothing new in Right-wing Kancel Kultur, but Florida legislators have now apparently taken a cue from Texas's anti-abortion law. It's not the state that will restrict teachers' freedom of speech; they're just deputizing their antigay minions to sue! sue! sue!

A Florida bill that would limit classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity and encourage parents to sue schools or teachers that engage in these topics is speeding through the state House and Senate.

It's being called a "Don't Say Gay" bill by LGBTQ advocates, who fear that if this bill is signed into law, it could act as a complete ban on the lessons on LGBTQ oppression, history and discussions about LGBTQ identities.

...

Rep. Joe Harding, who is the sponsor of the legislation, hopes it will "reinforce the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding upbringing & control of their children," according to the bill's text.

Governor DeSantis has expressed support for the bill, alleging that

“We’ve seen instances of students being told by different folks in school, ‘Oh, well, don’t worry, don’t pick your gender yet, do all this other stuff’,” DeSantis said. “They won’t tell the parents about these discussions that are happening.”

He continued: “That is entirely inappropriate.”

Republicans pushing the bill have claimed that its reach is limited to pre-K through third grade curricula, but the legislation’s language does not, in fact, make any mention of curriculum instruction or grade-levels. Its vague language bans “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity,” which could be stretched to include even the most tangential, casual mention of someone's parents or spouse.

Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel for the ACLU of Florida, testified to the state Senate Education Committee against the legislation, calling it “government censorship.”

“If passed, it would effectively silence students from speaking about their LGBTQ+ family members, friends, neighbors and icons. Additionally, it would bar students from talking about their own lives and would erase their very existence,” she said. “These are not taboo subjects, but banning them makes them so."

The Republican-dominated committee sent the bill to the full state Senate on a strictly party line vote.

 

Q Toon: I Feel For You

All over the country, legislatures and school boards run by right-wing Republicans have been eagerly banning Critical Race Theory in public schools (which is like banning the teaching of how to pilot an airplane in drivers ed) because it makes white students "feel bad."

That is literally how they get around having to admit it's about race.

Of course, there is no limit to things that make students feel bad these days, and we can include having to wear masks, active shooter drills, and dodgeball in that list.

(I could be wrong about those active shooter drills. As I dimly recall, most kids in my day found fire drills and tornado drills to be a welcome diversion — especially fire drills, because we got to go outside. But then, in our lifetime to that point, schools being destroyed by fires or tornadoes with children trapped inside were singular events, if we had heard of such tragedies at all.)

For all the right-wing whining about "cancel culture," Republicans are no slouches when it comes to canceling culture they don't like, and never have been. For every liberal push to censor Huckleberry Finn, there have been conservatives agitating to lock up everything from Madame Bovary to Catcher in the Rye to The Color Purple to Harry Potter to All Boys Aren't Blue — anything that admits to the existence of non-white, non-heterosexual, non-Christian experiences.

By the way, you can look through the American Library Association's Top Ten Lists of challenged books year by year from 2001 to 2020 and decide for yourself who's busier canceling whose culture.