The Washington Post on Tuesday made it pretty clear: The paper isn’t a big fan of conservative Alabama. Writer Karen Heller penned a 2500 word essay citing all the liberals embarrassed by the state. The story somehow connected the south's horrific history of lynching with the newly-passed pro-life legislation.
The sub-headline for the print edition made this obvious by fretting, “With the nation’s most restrictive abortion ban and the return of Roy Moore, liberals worry that their state is sliding back towards its heritage of injustice.”
Right after talking about lynching, Heller moves on to anti-abortion legislation:
“A kind of smog in the air that’s created by the history of slavery and lynching and segregation,” Bryan Stevenson, the peace memorial founder and the Equal Justice Initiative’s executive director, says in a new HBO documentary.
In May, the state passed the nation’s most comprehensive abortion ban, with no exceptions in cases of rape and incest, and up to 99 years imprisonment for doctors performing the procedure.
Get it?
It’s not really clear what this article is supposed to accomplish, other than to mock conservatives. Apparently, liberals aren’t happy with the politics of Alabama. So? Conservatives living in Massachusetts aren’t thrilled with their state either.
But, apparently, an abortion ban can be linked to all the horrible things that happened in the state's past:
The impending abortion ban, a state prison system in crisis, persistent inequality and, last month, the return of embattled former chief justice Roy Moore in another potential doozy of a Senate race. These developments, liberals argue, are hurtling Alabama back toward its heritage of hurt and injustice. They’re embarrassed for the home they love, one that they’ve worked so hard to fix.
“There’s such a creative energy in the state,” says fashion designer Billy Reid, the Shindig’s genial host, sitting in his natty store on North Court Street. “How can we bring it back to that narrative?”
What the Washington Post really wants you to know is, Alabama stinks:
Alabama’s metrics are brutal. Among the nation’s worst for diabetes, obesity, infant mortality, literacy and the mother of all problems, poverty.
For decades, the state’s unofficial motto was “Thank God for Mississippi,” as in, at least we’re not doing as poorly as Mississippi.
What this is really about, of course, is that the Post really doesn’t like the pro-life legislation coming from the state:
Linda Coleman-Madison is enough of an optimist to have served 12 years in the state Senate as a Democrat. There's always time to fix something. At age 69, she wears braces.
In May, she gained international attention as one of two female senators — and six overall — to oppose the abortion ban. “This bill is not about pro-life or the right to life,” she said from the Senate floor. “This bill is about control.”
The bill is also about how outsiders view Alabama, how Alabamians view themselves, as a place eliminating reproductive choice for women, as determined by white men. “It is about the women who have been constantly disenfranchised and devalued,” she says.
In May, NBC blasted “intolerant” Alabama for not airing a kids show featuring a gay wedding. Fortunately, most people in Alabama probably don’t care what the liberal media thinks of them.
