“You can’t just cherry-pick history”
  March 2, 2023 Looking cute today, Meteor readers! Do we have anyone from Italy with us today? Apparently, some Italian Starbucks stores have started offering a new coffee drink with a twist ingredient: olive oil. If you’ve tried it, please tell me whether it’s a horror or a revelation. My inbox is open.  In the meantime, how ’bout I treat you to some news? It’s officially Women’s History Month, and we’ve decided to celebrate by including a little slice of history every week. Today, Rebecca Carroll writes about Toni Morrison’s Beloved—and the real woman the novel was based on. And we’ll also learn about Hippocrates, the right’s latest darling, who, according to Renee Bracey Sherman, may have been more enlightened than they claim. But first: the news. Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT’S GOING ONThe growing child labor scandal: The Biden administration announced a Department of Labor (DOL) investigation into major American companies’ use of child labor, following the release of a major New York Times investigation into dangerous factory jobs being performed by migrant children. Even before its most recent announcement, the DOL had seen the number of child labor law violations increase by almost 70% since 2018. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) then expanded the DOL’s previous investigation into migrant children—some as young as 13—found cleaning blood and animal parts off the floors of slaughterhouses. You would think these headlines might lead to greater vigilance nationwide surrounding child labor laws. But just yesterday, the Arkansas House’s Public Health, Welfare, and Labor Committee passed H.B. 1410, which would eliminate the need for 14- and 15-year-olds to obtain and submit to employers a certificate showing they are entitled to work legally. Bill sponsor Sen. Rebecca Burkes (R) said that the current form creates an unnecessary hurdle in the hiring process. But, as Laura Kellan of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families pointed out, employment certificates only inconvenience companies who are illegally hiring minors. “We’re worried about the children who are at risk of being exploited and who are being exploited today,” Kellan said. AND:
 CHERRY-PICKING HISTORYThe Anti-Abortion Movement’s Man-Crush on Hippocrates“I’m calling bullshit,” says Renee Bracey Sherman  PEOPLE RALLY IN FRONT OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT DURING THE 50TH ANNUAL MARCH FOR LIFE RALLY IN WASHINGTON, DC. (PHOTO BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES) The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, named for ancient Greek physician Hippocrates of “do no harm” fame, sounds like a benevolent organization. But the AHM is actually a virulently anti-abortion group, backed by lawyers who have passed many of the last decade’s strictest anti-trans laws—and they are currently fighting in an Amarillo, Texas courtroom to have mifepristone banned from its current use as an abortion pill. But in addition to all the other ways in which they are wrong, writer, activist, and We Testify founder Renee Bracey Sherman says they’ve got Hippocrates wrong too. OK, so what’s the myth about Hippocrates, and what’s the truth? So there’s a line in the Hippocratic oath that basically says, “I will not give a woman an abortion pessary,” which was a suppository. Anti-abortion advocates have used this to claim that doctors should not provide abortions because it goes against the Hippocratic oath to do no harm. However, Hippocrates didn’t even write the oath himself! And [my co-author Regina Mahone and I] found research showing that Hippocrates actually gave out many recipes about how to do an abortion, both as a suppository and as a tea (or a “potion,” as they were called). John M. Riddle’s book Eve’s Herbs argues that the Greek phrase meaning “abortive pessary” was changed later to mean all abortions rather than just one method. In other words, Hippocrates’ writings have been mistranslated, misunderstood, misappropriated, and downright mangled. And why does it matter? Because the anti-abortion movement cannot just cherry-pick which parts of history they want to keep and which ones they don’t. They want to hold on to someone like Hippocrates, because they believe in ancient Greek and Roman medicine, and because they revere ancient white society. And they want to say that the original physician—for whatever that’s worth—said, “No abortions!” But that’s simply not true. [Meanwhile], they want to throw out Black and brown communities that have been teaching abortion for thousands of years. This is not the first time that they’ve done this. They do this with Dr. Martin Luther King and other black civil rights revolutionaries—they say that they’re anti-abortion, but the evidence is to the contrary. MLK accepted an award from Planned Parenthood and literally wrote a note thanking them for it, saying, “This will be among my most cherished possessions.” Coretta Scott King went to the event to accept the award on his behalf. They’re rewriting history. It ties deeply into this moment where [conservatives] are trying to ban books in school and Black history lessons. They are trying to get rid of our history, because if we don’t know our history, we can’t sit here and say: That is simply not true. I’m calling bullshit. And abortion has always been our right historically. This entire lawsuit is built on misinformation and a misreading of the historical facts. And it starts with the name of the organization. It’s all a hill of lies.  A 🍕 OF HISTORYThe History of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and the Real Woman Who Inspired ItIt’s Women’s History Month. And every week, a Meteor collective member recounts a piece of women’s history that resonates with them. First up: Rebecca Carroll.  NOBLE, THOMAS SATTERWHITE. THE MODERN MEDEA. 1867. PHOTOGRAPH. When I discovered the work of Toni Morrison in college, it felt like the sky had cracked open and released a magnificent Black language and legacy for which I’d been waiting a lifetime. All of the characters and stories in Morrison’s books are stubbornly elegant in their own way, achingly intimate, and resolutely real. But it’s stunning to know now that one of her most chilling stories—Beloved, which is both widely considered to be her magnum opus and has been challenged and even banned by some high schools—is based on a real person: Margaret Garner. Morrison’s 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel tells the story of Sethe, a woman who has escaped the Kentucky plantation on which she was enslaved to live free in Ohio, where we find her after the Civil War. However, Sethe’s home is haunted by a ghost called Beloved—the word inscribed on the tombstone of Sethe’s first, unnamed daughter, whom she killed to protect from a life of enslavement. The first time I read the book—long before I became a mother myself—I remember thinking that her horrific, unthinkable act was a plausible choice for a parent to make. And that was before I understood that the story was based on Margaret Garner, who escaped enslavement in Kentucky with her husband and four young children only to find her family surrounded by slave catchers in Ohio. In that desperate moment, she slit the throat of her two-year-old daughter, started to kill her other children, and planned to kill herself to prevent their return to enslavement. She failed, was prosecuted for “damage to property” and sold to her original owner’s brother. And yet her story—the way that her unimaginable trauma fueled her fierce mother-love—has become part of our collective history. But perhaps more than that, Garner’s story inspired the genius of another Black woman, and together, Garner and Morrison have given all of us an extraordinary narrative that demonstrates the tethered intersection of Blackness and womanness.  Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and podcast creator/host. Her writing has been published widely, and she is the author of several books, including her recent memoir, Surviving the White Gaze. Rebecca is Editor at Large for The Meteor.  FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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