“Abolish the police” is, for some, a knee-jerk reflex to unjustifiable, racist police violence against Black and brown people. For others, it’s preposterous: in a country where guns outnumber people and crime inundates local news channels, abolishing the institution intended to protect Americans and respond to such chaos seems unfathomable. Yet abolishing the police — redirecting [...]
Read MoreOf all the signs I saw protesters carrying at the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, D.C., I felt compelled to take a picture with one: the infamous image of a state trooper beating of late civil rights giant and Georgia Congressman John Lewis as he led a voting rights march in Selma, Ala. on March [...]
Read MoreCOVID-19 is just one short chapter in a 400-year-long (and counting) history of systemic racism, entrenched inequality and virulent white supremacy that defines the United States. The virus that’s disproportionately infecting and killing Black people nationwide almost successfully distracted white Americans from the police violence that has always disproportionately harmed this community. With recent protests [...]
Read MoreThe 2018 midterm elections in Georgia were a stain on the fabric of democracy. Republican candidate for governor Brian Kemp oversaw his own election and engaged in systematic voter suppression as Georgia’s secretary of state. Voting machines in various parts of the state malfunctioned en masse, and many voters in metropolitan Atlanta waited up to [...]
Read MoreGeorgia’s criminal justice system, which saw significant reform in the last decade, will see more regressive changes under Gov. Brian Kemp’s leadership. Kemp outlined part of his crime agenda during his State of the State address in mid-January. Since then, Georgia lawmakers have pursued new policies on crime and punishment that are uncontroversial, like tougher [...]
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