HB-87: Our Racism Run Amok

Somebody has got to say it. Today's debate was far too respectful. Who let the Klan out?

For almost a moment, it seemed, folks had the common decency to keep their racism to themselves. But the 113-56 majority in the Georgia House who just sent HB-87 to the Senate seems perfectly willing to put Georgia's hatred out for the whole world to see. Today's example comes to us in the form of Matt Ramsey's bill to create a private cause of action so that any Georgian can bring litigation to distract our local law enforcement from real public safety concerns and compel them instead to engage in racial profiling.

You'd think that with the declining economic circumstances faced by folks in Fayette County and the rest of Georgia, Mr. Ramsey would have more important work to do than creating a hostile environment for both our immigrant neighbors as well as the overworked police who have plead for the defeat of this bill. After all, they did not create the economic crisis faced by our communities. That blame should be laid at the feet of Bill Clinton and his NAFTA Task Force Chairman, J.P. Morgan executive William Daly, recently named Obama's Chief of Staff.

60,000 or more of our Georgia neighbors are already in the state prison system. Deal deflects from the crisis of black mass incarceration with his feel good proposals for creating more business for privatized probation supervision companies. As if it were not enough that we already subject 1 in 13 of us to judicial supervision, the Assembly goes blithley along with hair brained ideas about locking up even more of our neighbors, much to the glee of the prison profiteers.

The question for us though is this: Are we prepared to tolerate this demogoguery, pretending not to notice while a Deal Administration recreates the conditions of Munich, 1935 with a new Aryan Paragraph writ for 21st Century Georgia? Will we, like Martin Niemoller be left to reflect with regret that "there was no one left to speak out for me". Or can our collective call for sanity stop this white supremacist excuse for policy making in the Senate.

Ralph McGill would have been ashamed. We should be as well.

-- Hugh Esco
Decatur GA 30033