'Jim Crow propaganda': Furious Democrats blast cartoon of prosecutor as 'racist mockery'

Local Democrats in Cobb County, Georgia, are enraged over a series of unflattering cartoons about the recently elected district attorney, Sonya Allen, describing it as "Jim Crow propaganda."

The series of cartoons, posted to Facebook by local attorney Megan Webb Grout, accompanied by a lengthy poem mocking Allen, depict her as a flatulent, bumbling clown and use such terms as "DA Allen's Circus."

Cobb County includes some of the northwest suburbs of Atlanta.

"Eight months ago, the people of Cobb County made history by electing a new District Attorney — a Black woman chosen by the voters to lead our justice system with integrity and vision," said the statement from the Cobb County Democratic Committee. "That decision reflected the will of the people, the promise of progress, and the strength of our democracy. Yet, instead of respecting that choice, some have resorted to the oldest and most dangerous tactics: ridicule, caricature, and racist mockery."

"This image revives Jim Crow-era propaganda once used to diminish Black leadership, especially Black women in power," the statement continued. "We must also be honest about why such attacks are so brazen now. Since the election of Donald Trump, racism and white nationalism have been emboldened in ways not seen in decades. What once hid in the shadows has become front-facing encouraged by leaders who trade in division and dehumanization."

Not everyone was fully on board with the Democratic officials' criticism, though, including Atlanta-based trial lawyer Andrew Fleischman, who noted the cartoon was also making substantive criticisms of Allen's leadership style and prosecutor resignations in her office.

"If I'm being honest, this cartoon does not strike me as staggering work of heartbreaking genius. But elected officials need to be able to handle basic criticism," he wrote. "And if criticism can only be the result of the personal failings of the critic, because they're racist or sexist or whatever, then why would the official ever improve?"