School Districts Defy Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s Ban on Mask Mandates – and Win in Court
by Tom Philbot
August 20, 2021
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... n-for-now/
Introduction:
(Mother Jones) While Texas Gov. Greg Abbott rides out a case of COVID-19 in quarantine, one of his prized policies crumbled under the pressure of various legal challenges: his push to prevent schools from imposing mask mandates.
Back in July, Abbott released an executive order banning any government agency, including school districts, from requiring masks to enter public buildings. As the Delta variant of the coronavirus ripped through the state, dozens of cities, counties, and school districts issued mask mandates anyway, defying the governor. On Thursday—shortly after the Texas Supreme Court temporarily struck down Abbott’s order on a technicality—the Texas Education Agency announced it would stop enforcing the rule for school districts, because of the “ongoing litigation” it had inspired.
Abbott can’t be accused of hypocrisy regarding his anti-mask position. In the days leading up to the fully vaccinated governor’s breakthrough case, he “commemorated the anniversary of India’s independence with a crowd in his office,” “mingled with hundreds of Republican supporters at a packed campaign event,” and “posed with the brother of the famed guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan,” the New York Times reported. Neither Abbott nor most of the people he cavorted with wore masks.
While Abbott finally relented from throwing up obstacles to elected school district board members in their efforts to curb the pandemic, the state’s Lieutenant Governor sought to blame the victims, while ignoring the problem of the legacy of structural racism in Texas:
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Went on Fox News to Blame the COVID Surge on Black People
by Edwin Rios
August 20, 2021
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... le-covid/
Extract:
“The Democrats like to blame Republicans” for the spread of the virus, (Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan) Patrick told Fox’s Laura Ingraham. “Well, the biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated. The last time I checked, over 90 percent of them voted for Democrats…They’re doing nothing for the African American community that has a significant high number of unvaccinated people, so they need to address that.”
Ummm…aren’t some of those elected school board officials Democrats?
Moreover:
…Data from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows that white Texans, who make up 41 percent of the state’s residents and 38 percent of those fully vaccinated, account for roughly 32 percent of infections and 42 percent of deaths. Meanwhile, state data shows that …Black residents account for 12 percent of the state’s population but 16 percent of infections; Latinx residents account for 40 percent of residents but 46 percent of deaths. That data reinforces the fact that these communities of color continue to bear the brunt of the pandemic...
But (when Patrick)…goes on Fox News and says that Republicans “respect the fact that if people don’t want to get the vaccination, we’re not going to force it on them. That’s their individual right,” he’s ignoring the fact that individualism only makes it more difficult to overcome a pandemic that affects everyone. Instead, Patrick concocts a familiar racist narrative: that irresponsible Black Democrats are to blame. In doing so, he disregards the well-documented factors that just might explain why just 8 percent of Black residents and 32 percent of Latinx residents are fully vaccinated.
As I’ve previously reported, the social conditions that Black and Latinx residents find themselves in—their ability to get medical care, their working conditions as essential workers, their housing situations, among others—all influence their access to and attitudes toward vaccination. But Patrick doesn’t want to talk about the legacies of structural racism or the understandable mistrust that communities of color have for the US medical establishment.
Don't mourn, organize.
-Joe Hill
