By Lucius Gantt, The Gantt Report
The state of Georgia is what some people call a “major league” state and Atlanta is a major league city.
The Peach State has professional basketball, football and baseball teams. At one time, Atlanta had a professional hockey team and occasionally hosts other professional sports events like golf and tennis.
Georgia achieved its major league status when pro sports leagues migrated to the state once they believed Atlanta, Georgia was a city “too busy to hate”.
Well, in my opinion, today’s Atlanta is permeated with hate! If you believe the national news media, Georgia’s Republican controlled Legislature and its Republican governor hated the monumental election losses they suffered in 2020.
The Republican presidential candidate lost and Georgia’s two GOP senators lost giving control of Congress to the Democrats.
So, Republicans in Georgia, and in many other states, decided to perpetuate Donald Trump’s big lie that the 2020 elections were “rigged” and created a huge amount of voter insecurity and concern about how elections should be tabulated.
Republicans changed state election laws to suppress votes, not just Black votes, Republicans want to make it harder for all voters.
If you don’t know, it was Republicans that passed the laws to make voting easier prior to the 2020 elections.
When bad candidates, bad policies and very bad campaigns caused Republican candidates to get beaten like drums they decided to eliminate most drop boxes, change absentee vote requirements and they made it a crime to give water to senior citizens standing in long lines to vote.
The revengeful, oppressive and bad changes in voting laws prompted Major League Baseball to move their upcoming All Star Game from the Atlanta Braves ball park. The event was supposed to include the honoring of Atlanta Braves greatest player Henry “Hank” Aaron, one of the best home run hitters in MLB history.
Major League Baseball did the right thing but their move was not the most important issue.
The new Georgia election laws gave the state election board the power to take over the process of disqualifying ballots across the state and to hold on to the false allegations of voter fraud that have never been proven.
With this aspect of voter law changes, Republicans can easily overturn and dismiss votes in predominately Black cities and counties.
No matter what candidates you vote for, Republicans can say your ballots you cast are fake or fraudulent.
That is akin to saying the political foxes and wolves are the best counters of votes in the chicken coup.
The arbitrary and malicious changes in voter laws is all about the money. Republicans think if they suppress, purge and disqualify Black votes, they will get more campaign donors and win elections in 2022 and beyond.
African American voters in Georgia are willing to boycott Georgia companies that refuse to take stands on fair and unbiased voting procedures because the only power Blacks have is purchasing power.
Like I said, it’s all about the money.
Georgia’s Black elected officials are in a catch 22. They don’t want to criticize their own corporate contributors but they really don’t want to jeopardize their Black voter support. So, they talk loud and pretty much say nothing!
I’m not going to call any names but if you want to give all of the credit for Democratic election victories to a handful of personalities, then perhaps you can also give them the blame for not working harder to defeat satan’s suppressors that ran for statewide offices!
Voter suppression can boil down to money but the anti-suppression messages are important too.
The messages about Republican voter suppression were weak and not too convincing.
Vote pimping ain’t easy!
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.