Boycotts Are Handicapping Georgia Democrats
Woke white people are hurting black candidates on the ground.
If you want Marcus Flowers to get Marjorie Taylor Greene out of Congress, *stop* asking people to boycott Georgia. You’re destroying jobs, you’re creating local anger, and you are tying a ten pound weight around the ankles of Democrats in the state.
Last week I had an illuminating exchange with my friend Yvette, @Afrosabi, a Navy vet and Democratic Georgia activist. She worked tirelessly during the 2020 election and then saddled up again for the Special Election in which Democrats so improbably took both Georgia Senate seats, and with them, control of the nation until 2022. She was echoing Stacey Abrams in complaining about woke white people out of state, demanding boycotts of Georgia companies, destroying jobs in Georgia and thereby handicapping Democrats on the ground. For weeks now she’s been complaining about the dreadful storm of white virtue-signalling, demanding Georgian jobs be destroyed so they can get klout on Twitter.
Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, and Jon Ossoff have all condemned the calls to boycott Georgia. Ossoff said “We absolutely don’t want to see any boycott of our state. We want business and investment and events.”
Senator Warnock said he wanted players and athletes to come to Georgia to protest, not pull the All Star Game. When invited by Fox News to say “boycotts should be on the table” Warnock declined and just said “corporate leaders should use their voice.” Stacey Abrams wrote a whole op-ed for USA Today that Major League Baseball and Microsoft promptly ignored:
events and films that are coming to Georgia will speak out against the laws. And they will hire the targets of SB 202: young people, people of color and minimum wage workers who want to elect leaders to fight for their economic security. I again repeat my admonition from 2019 that leaving us behind won’t save us. So I ask you to bring your business to Georgia and, if you’re already here, stay and fight. Stay and vote.
Could these leaders be any clearer? No, they couldn’t. But are woke, white, virtue signalling America listening even a tiny bit? No, they are not. Aaron Parnas, the son of Rudy Giuliani confidante, the indicted Lev Parnas, was cheering the disaster for Georgia that is the canceling of the All Star Game, which will grossly handicap Democrats in the state fighting to win.
Rather than going with actual voting leaders who need the votes, journalist Judd Legum was quoting vague “religious” leaders for boycotts:
The fact is, however, that just maybe people need to check their privilege - and not just white people, Ilhan Omar and other non-black POC from outside of Georgia were piling in to agree that jobs and events should be yanked from somebody else’s state:
Is this OK, really? Maybe the true racism here is fawning over Abrams when her team of activists pull out a win against the odds and then flamethrowing your virtue all over Democrats who actually want to win. Republicans are already making hay against Georgian Democrats who basically took the state with the help of a Donald Trump hissy fit and who face an uphill climb to keep it. Unfair though it may be, Doug Collins is trying to pin these boycotts on Warnock. When the All-Star Game comes around in another state, Georgians are going to be very angry, and it’s not the GOP who will suffer for it.
Marcus Flowers is not a man who fears an uphill climb. (Please, donate to him here.) Combat veteran Sgt. Flowers is looking to get rid of Marjorie Taylor-Greene and restore honor and dignity to Georgia’s District 14. He knows his own state, he knows his own district and he knows the voters on the ground. And as he told me this weekend, he’s not interested in any form of protest in Georgia that doesn’t add jobs and growth to his state. Watch the campaign ad from this expert fighter - and then ask yourself if happy-clappy non-Georgians know the terrain better than he does.
It’s nice to sound pious. It’s better to win. And perhaps privileged journalists outside the state of Georgia might consider that when they ignore and countermand the voices of black leaders and candidates on the ground in order to demand that jobs and prestigious events be pulled from local working people, that they don’t sound as anti-racist as they think they do.
EXCELLENT post LM. As per your usual. Am working on launching a run myself and I can tell you the woke left Twitter is going to be a detriment. The eventual opposition (have to get thru the Primary in a crowded field) is raking in the $$$$$ every time Twitter creates a hashtag about how dumb she is. Massive amount of $$$$ into this Congressional race ALREADY, in the first quarter of an off-year. Holy moses but I'm tired of armchair Twitter-backs who may howl and launch invectives thru their words but won't help on the ground or be affected on the ground. Well, let me restate that: ultimately they'll be affected when Dems lose everything in 2022.
Thank you for this invaluable perspective, Louise. I hadn't heard the Abrams/Warnock/Flowers/Afrosabi info. We've GOT to listen to the folks on the ground!!