The Resurrection of Jim Crow
Source: Georgia Governor's Office
On March 25th Georgia’s Governor, Brian Kemp, signed sweeping legislation aimed at disenfranchising black and brown voters in the state. In signing this misbegotten bill into law, he effectively resurrected the rotting, diseased corpse of Jim Crow. He signed this legislation with a group of white lawmakers surrounding him, in front of a painting fraught with blatantly obvious symbolism. A painting of the Callaway Plantation, where more than 300 slaves were forced to labor in producing the wealth and power these men seek to maintain…at any cost (Wicker, 2021).
As Kemp was signing the bill, Rep. Park Cannon, was knocking at
the door in an effort to gain entry to this private livestream of the signing
of this pernicious legislation. She was taken into custody by Georgia State
police and charged with “obstructing law enforcement”, and “disrupting a
general assembly session”. She was released on $6000 bail. But we all know she
was arrested for “knocking while black”. (Stewart, 2021)
Source: NewsOne
Georgia was but the first state to sign such draconic, blatantly
racist, restrictions on voters and the undermining of democracy. More than 40
other states, especially those where the GOP holds all the levers of power, are
working feverishly to put similar laws on the books. Ensuring “the quality of
the votes” (Reiman, 2021)…”protecting
the integrity of the vote”…”restoring confidence in the vote”…these are the new
racist dog-whistles the GOP is using to justify their efforts to resurrect Jim
Crow, disenfranchising black and brown voters across the nation. These laws are
being put forward as a means of reducing, or eliminating, election fraud. But 50
Secretaries of State, some 60 legal challenges by TFG’s (The Former Guy)
campaign, two Supreme Court cases thrown out, and the analysis of data from the
2020 election give the lie to their claims of widespread voter fraud (Eggers, Garro, & Grimmer, 2021).
After the results of the 2020 election, the GOP could have chosen
to step back from TFG’s “Big Lie” asserting that the election was “stolen”.
They could have recalibrated their policies and platforms to reflect the diversity
of the real America, but they… did not. Instead, they made a conscious choice to
continue their full-throated endorsement of that “Big Lie”. They use the utterly
discredited assertions of widespread election fraud, in more than 40 states, to
justify their efforts to disenfranchise black and brown voters across America (Gardner, Rabinowitz, & Stevens,
2021). Instead of admitting that a growing number of Americans will not
chose the GOP and its regressive, repressive, authoritarian agenda, they have
made the decision to upend democracy in America and chose who votes.
Georgia was but the first state to resurrect the shambling,
rotting, corrupted corpse of Jim Crow. If we fail to act, they will not be the
last.
References
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