Media Manipulation & Weaponizing Black Fears
Media Manipulation & Weaponizing Black Fears
Fear-mongering black Georgia voters
If you want to understand how media manipulation & identity politics are used to weaponize black fear, we can take a look at Reuters’ new article about Georgia election boards
Reuters published an article titled:
"Georgia Republicans purge Black Democrats from county election boards"
The meaning of purge is to remove something but the word gives a certain negative connotation. It's a strong word and implies a negative type of removal. The article title says "purge Black Democrats" which insinuates a racial motivation for removal. Let's examine this.
Throughout the article, they discuss the election disputes made by the Trump administration & its supporters. This is all politics here & I'm not interested in discussing this political aspect because I want to focus on the racial aspect since Reuters has made this racial.
"With conservative judges now choosing the county election board’s fifth member, the previous fifth member, Vera McIntosh, a Black Democrat, has been ousted. She was replaced by James Newland, who is also vice-chair of the county Republican Party."
This is not about if you agree with the moves made by Republicans, this is about understanding how race is the driving factor in this situation. Vera was ousted due to judges selecting someone else, specifically, a Republican. Let's continue...
"The law restructuring Spalding’s board also required the elections supervisor to live in the county, a change that forced out the incumbent supervisor, Marcia Ridley."
Wait, that doesn't sound unreasonable. Would you want someone from a different area being in a pivotal electoral role? You can disagree but I'm talking about if this is reasonable or not. Let's continue...
"Two other Black Democrats on the board quit: Margaret Bentley and Glenda Henley, who cited objections to the law and harassment from Trump supporters."
While I don't agree with any form of harassment, from either side, the fact is that these people quit their positions. Quitting is voluntary. Reuters is making their race the central point but they are also putting a lot of emphasis on Trump's 'false election claims'.
Throughout the article they are hammering on how influential Trump's claims were on getting SB 202 passed & changes on election boards across the state, so why is their race constantly mentioned? Why does the article make it sound like their race was the target, not the board?
Glenda Henley, one of the Democrats who quit even stated: "the board’s meetings were increasingly attended by Trump supporters crying fraud."
Those Trump supporters were angry at the election results, not at the presence of black people.
One last note in the article: "The restructured board still includes two Democrats, one of whom is Black."
This was a shitty black people purge, they left one behind!
All jokes aside, it's articles like this which make race the central point when throughout the article they are making the argument that Republicans & Trump supporters are reacting, rightly or wrongly, to the past election results.
I want to emphasize again, I don't live in Georgia & I'm not a Republican. I have no dog in this fight. But I am highly aware of the constant usage of black people's fear of oppression by the media to sell papers & get clicks.
This article fails to make the argument that SB 202 or the changes within Spalding County were racially motivated & not politically motivated. They do this all the time. Even Joe Biden called George Laws "Jim Eagle" to conjure fears of the potential return of Jim Crow.
I would encourage people to actually look into SB 202 to see what changes were made. I'm not making a declaration as to if it's good or bad, that's up to you.
https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/03/27/what-does-georgias-new-voting-law-sb-202-do
No matter who you are, understand that the media has zero issues with propagandizing race and using black people's historical oppression as a sword to cut through the American psyche. Identity politics is a scourge within our society & we need to look deeper than race headlines.