It’s time for nationwide boycotts
6th April 2021 · 0 Comments
The manhandling arrest of Georgia State Representative Park Cannon by five white state police is the last straw.
Cannon was forcefully handcuffed, dragged out of the Georgia State Capitol, arrested and charged with felonies for merely knocking on Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s door as he signed the biggest voter disenfranchisement law in the nation. She sustained injuries and has retained an attorney.
Kemp’s voter suppression law calls for photo IDs for absentee ballots, a reduction in the number of ballot drop boxes, limits on mobile voting units, control over local election boards and election results, an end to Sunday voting and Black churches Souls to the Polls events, and the law makes it illegal to give people food and water while they stand in line for hours waiting to vote.
Flanked by white men with a plantation painting in the background, Kemp joyfully signed the law that intentionally makes it harder for Black voters to choose the elected officials of their choice.
President Joe Biden called it ‘Jim Crow on steroids’
What Kemp did in signing this discriminatory legislation was force Black voters to live under a taxation without representation law.
Before the ink was dry on Kemp’s law, the ACLU, the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center and voting rights attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state and every election official in it, on behalf of the Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Georgia Muslim Voter Project, Latino Community Fund Georgia, Women Watch Afrika and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
Kemp knew this law would be challenged in court but like Trump and the rest of the Republicans, he loves court challenges for the lengthy time it takes to get a ruling.
Voting rights and civil rights activists know what time it is…going to court is good…but history has shown them that the best way to get justice in the U.S. is to call for massive economic boycotts of the businesses that either support white racist politicians with campaign contributions or remain silent as the voting rights, civil rights and constitutional rights of Black people are violated.
The Baton Rouge Bus Boycott, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Black Christmas Boycott and other economic boycotts called for and orchestrated by Black people have proven to be effective tools for leveling the political and economic playing fields. If white people don’t understand anything else, they understand money and the loss of currency.
In 2017, the National Basketball Association moved its own All-Star Game from Charlotte, N.C., in response to the state’s HB2 law. The “bathroom bill” required people at a government-run facility to use bathrooms and locker rooms that corresponded to the gender on their birth certificate. The law was repealed.
Hitting corporations and states in their pockets not only gets their attention but it motivates them to stand up and act in the best interests of the Black community.
Why? What company wouldn’t want to get a share of the $1.3 trillion Blacks spend annually? What state doesn’t want to levy taxes against a prosperous Black middle and upper class?
Civil rights activists are threatening to call for a nationwide boycott of major corporations, like Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola and Home Depot, whose headquarters are based in Georgia.
Delta’s CEO did speak out against the law, saying it is “unacceptable.” Republicans in the Georgia state House sprang into action to punish Delta for speaking out. Shortly before the session closed, the Republicans tried to pass a bill to repeal a tax break on jet fuel.
Nonetheless, voting rights advocates are demanding more than just lip service. They want action. They want corporations to demand that Republicans overturn the law and if they don’t, the corporations should stop giving Republican candidates and elected officials campaign contributions and donations or funding their events.
Civil rights groups in Georgia are now calling on the PGA Masters, MLB All-Star Game and the film industry to boycott Georgia over Kemp’s so-called election reform law.
Eighteen Fortune 500 companies have their global headquarters in Georgia, 32 Fortune 1000 businesses make Georgia their home base, and more than 450 Fortune 500 companies have a presence in the state. What if they decide to leave Georgia because of the racist laws being passed by Republicans?
What if Tyler Perry decides to move his major film studios somewhere else? His hometown, New Orleans, would welcome him with open arms.
If corporations think Black people won’t boycott them, ask Papa John, the owner of the pizza chain of the same name and a major Trump supporter about his bottom line, or Michael Lindell, the “My Pillow” guy, or Rouses supermarket owners.
This article originally published in the April 5, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
