No one thought that Stacey Abrams would have it easy. A single, black woman running as a Democrat for governor in Georgia, she was bound to encounter the kind of old school racism that we associate with the American South. Many didn’t think that Abrams would win the primary, especially given that she was running against a moderate white woman who had the backing of several prominent Democrats in the state. But she won easily—making her the country’s first ever black female Democratic nominee for governor and setting her up for an onslaught of racist vitriol from the press and voters alike.
Earlier this month, Abrams made a campaign stop in Augusta, Georgia, where she focused on the needs of female veterans and their dependents. During the event, five members of a white supremacist group, the Nationalist Liberty Union (NLU), showed up to demonstrate their support of confederate monuments and also Brian Kemp, Abrams’s Republican opponent.
Jason Johnson, Politics Editor at The Root wrote this about the NLU:
These aren’t your run-of-the-mill Georgia racists that might end up showing their asses (literally) in a Sasha Baron Cohen skit; these men are thugs, felons and terrorist sympathizers.
Johnson is right. These men are not interested in a debate of ideas and shouldn’t be engaged as equals who simply possess a difference in opinions. One member of the group, James Stachowiak, is especially known for his videos on social media where he routinely calls for his fellow “patriots” to shoot black people on sight. Now, one would think that these folks might have some reluctance to show up to an event like this. But we know better. White supremacists don’t care who they offend and, apparently, the ones today no longer care about being outed—so they can’t be bothered to wear hoods.
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