Banning ideas and authors is not a ‘culture war’ – it’s fascism

The media's framing of measures like Florida's African American studies ban is a dangerous falsification of reality

A wave of Republican enthusiasm for banning concepts, authors and books is sweeping across the United States. Forty-four states have proposed bans on the teaching of divisive concepts", and 18 states have passed them.

Florida's Stop Woke Act bans the teaching of eight categories of concepts, including concepts that suggest that a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex". Many of the laws also target Nikole Hannah-Jones's influential 1619 Project.