Tennessee- modern stage set for a remake of the Scopes Monkey Trial

Nothing would better capture the essence of the COVID-19 pandemic in America than what Tennessee Williamson County Schools families were presented with: contrary medical opinions between local medical professionals and talk show celebrities. I wish it was a figurative metaphor, but it is unfortunately literal. 

In my opinion, the real life drama played out in the Williamson County Tennessee school board meeting is a real time stage set for a remake of "Inherit the Wind", with a modern media plot.  We see the television "wanna-be" celebrities (a collective William Jennings Bryan composite) versus an army of medical professionals who are advocating for medical facts over the impact of conspiracy theories and misinformation (analogous to the Scopes Monkey Trial* science teacher).  This opinion echo was published in the Williamson Herald newspaper. 

Scopes rewrite! At the WCS- TN school board special meeting, called to discuss its COVID protocol, Clay Travis, a well-known local daytime talk show host, accused the WCS board of “absurdity” for taking COVID more seriously than seasonal flu and incited WCS parents to defy the mask mandate. (Bingo! Williams Jennings Bryan: aka WJB!) Travis was later echoed by Candace Owens (Bingo! WJB-in drag). Unbelievable, yet another talk show host called on WCS families to withdraw their children from their schools, one of the best districts in Tennessee, so that WCS would suffer financial loss — defund education, so to speak (Bingo! WJB redux!)

On the other side of the debate are over 60 doctors and nurses who practice in Williamson County and who also have children in WCS schools. Candace Owens (WJB in drag!) doesn’t. 

Dayton, TN - Tennessee vs. John T. Scopes outdoor trial July 20, 1925- William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. 

Those who represent medical science are physicians and nurse practitioners at Vanderbilt, St. Thomas, and TriStar, as well as local pediatrics and internal medicine practices. The pulmonology practice group at Williamson Medical Center signed and issued an open letter. All of them support mask mandates in school, and their medical opinion is based on the guidance by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and American Academy of Pediatrics.

The chants of the anti-mask Clays (ghost of WJB!) are loud, but the irony is deafening. Clay Travis gained his fame by eating pudding for 50 days in order to force DirecTV to broadcast NFL in the Virgin Islands, where he allegedly practiced law. His most famous quotes are “First Amendment and boobs” on national TV. #SIASD! Clay is now debating medical measures during a global pandemic against his and his children’s doctors.

Moreover, when Travis’ public comment time was up, he refused to abide by the rules — what a shocker — and continued to incite the anti-mask audience to interrupt the meeting and defy any mask mandate. They did. When the public participants of the meeting exited the building, those who were against the masks harassed, badgered, cursed at and put their fingers inches away from those who spoke in favor of mask mandates, mostly local doctors and medical professionals. This is the worst part of the night. Before this point, one can still argue that two sides both wanted the best for their children, just with different opinions — one by the CDC, AAP and local doctors, and the other from talk show wanna-be semi-celebrities. But when parents publicly displayed verbal abuse, cruelty and even violence against other parents, they undoubtedly hurt the children to the core and there are no other arguments that can be made.

For anyone who pays attention to the commercials during daytime talk shows like those of the clown Clay Travis or his vaudevillian partner Candance Owens, their financial interest in appealing, provoking and manipulating a specific demographic group that listens to daytime talk show is blatant, yet understandable. 

On the other hand, most doctors are not in the business of pleasing people. On the contrary, they are trained to find and tell unwelcome facts. That’s probably underneath the choice that we seemingly have, but actually don’t.  (In fact, the science teacher John Thomas Scopes: b. 1900- d. 1970, was fined $100 for teaching evolution science in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. So, in Tennessee, the more things change, the more things stay the same.)

Sincerely,
Seth Dawson, in Brentwood Tennessee

*The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial, was an American legal case in July, 1925, in which a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which had made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school.