Say It Louder! by Tiffany Cross

Say It Louder! by Tiffany Cross

Author:Tiffany Cross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-05-16T00:00:00+00:00


7

Georgia Outkasts

Nowhere is the strength of Black voters both flexed and flummoxed as it is in the state of Georgia. In a state where the Black, Asian American Pacific Islander, and Latino populations are growing faster than anywhere else, Georgia has the potential to become a battleground state. Yet coverage of the state’s massive voter suppression was almost nonexistent until the 2018 election. It’s not that Georgia doesn’t get coverage. When the Super Bowl comes to town or Tyler Perry opens a massive studio, the press is all over Atlanta. But when secretary of state Brian Kemp has African American senior citizens pulled off a bus for trying to vote? Raiding voter organizing offices like some Dirty South gestapo? Not a peep. It’s like Outkast said: the whole world loves it when you’re in the news, the whole world loves it when you sing the blues.

Georgia’s media market was ill equipped to handle what was happening in the state. “The state’s largest paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, doesn’t have any full-time African American political commentators or journalists,” says Dr. Jason Johnson, who covered the race extensively when he worked for The Root. “This meant that issues dealing with Black voters didn’t get the attention they deserved. One of the only ways we found out about the voter suppression Brian Kemp was committing was because of reporters like Darren Sands at Buzzfeed, Vann Newkirk with The Atlantic, and Errin Haines with the Associated Press.” Atlanta’s one Black newspaper, the Atlanta Black Star, just didn’t have the capacity to cover these issues. And national markets, not focused on the rising majority populating progressive pockets in the south, tend to dismiss the Peach State as solidly red. But Georgia is becoming a critical state in the country’s shifting democracy.

Democrat Stacey Abrams was the prototype. She ran a historic race for governor in 2018, winning more votes than any other Democrat to run for statewide office in the state’s history. Abrams would have potentially served as the state’s—and the country’s—first African American woman governor. But when Brian Kemp ran in 2018 as an immigrant-snatching, abortion-ending, antibusiness, good ole boy, thousands of Georgians said alright alright alright! But none more than white women. They helped deliver Kemp directly to the governor’s mansion, having outperformed white men voting for him at a 75 percent clip. In Jackson County, Kemp won over 60 percent of the vote. So if you’re part of the 50 percent who support abortion rights, I’m sorry, Miss Jackson—Kemp was for real. He went after reproductive rights with a vengeance, almost leading to a nationwide boycott of Georgia, costing millions of dollars in film and television production, and leading other large industries to think about bypassing the Peach State in favor of an environment that’s a bit less retrograde.

Under the guise of Christian evangelicalism, southern white women make up the core of female opposition to abortion—something Kemp made a campaign promise. Also, notice how these descendants of colonizers commandeered the term “pro-life,” and then everyone in the media began identifying them by that misnomer as well? Even that term was colonized.



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