Editor’s Note: Joy Ann Reid of The ReidOut on MSNBC recently interviewed at the state capitol, Georgia U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA) and LaTosha Brown, Co-founder, Black Voters Matter Fund, about voter suppression in Georgia and the fight to make every vote count. Below are excerpts from the interview. See the full interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI2XA5WKt8M/ — People’s Tribune
Joy Ann Reid, #TheReidOut: They designed a voting law to make it only easy for their voters to vote. And then say, ‘See, look, it’s a great law for everyone.’ And then they design these districts to essentially take Black voters’ power and shove it underneath somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has no interest in these people at all. I mean, how do you motivate voters when they’re facing that?
LaTosha Brown, Black Voters Matter Fund Founder: How egregious it is that in the last census, 100% of the population growth in the state of Georgia was communities of color. So somehow, they drew this district and gerrymandered it. They packed districts, they put districts or communities of color together, or they cracked them, like in this case where they split them up. They were able to do this and come out with a map where they have more representation, although 100% percent of the growth has been in communities of color. So what we have to do in the state of Georgia, and that’s why this gubernatorial election is so important, is to take over the state of Georgia state politics from the top of the ticket on down. We cannot continue to be punished because people participate. We’re seeing that they have been literally creating a process just so that they can steal the elections.
Joy Reid: Yes, and I’ll ask both of you to comment on what happens when people vote and then say, ‘Well, I voted for X and [change] doesn’t happen.’ But if you don’t control the state mechanisms, you don’t control the committees, then it can’t happen. And Republicans are very good at not letting anything happen for communities of color. Then those same communities of color feel dissatisfied and say, ‘Well, there’s no point in me voting.’ It’s a vicious cycle. How do you fight that?
Georgia U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams: Every state legislative seat is up for a vote this year in Georgia. Those state house seats, those state Senate seats that control the process here at the state capitol are right behind us. Those seats are on the ballot right now. And so we have to encourage our voters to turn out, to vote for those leaders so that we can change the face of power in this capitol. Vote for our gubernatorial race, and our secretary state’s race; it’s on the ballot and controls everything when it comes to elections in this state.
Joy Reid: How do you communicate that to voters who were saying, ‘I voted already, I didn’t get anything.’
LaTosha Brown: So, we talk to voters about participating in the process, but this is really about more than participation. It’s about power. How do you build power. How do we get real power? And when do you have enough power? You have enough power when your communities are taken care of, when your schools are adequately funded, when you have access to healthcare. We don’t currently have that. And until we actually have the kind of resources, the kind of representation that we deserve in our communities, we’ve got to continue to fight. And so when we talk to our voters, and we are talking to people on the ground, that’s what we’re talking to them about. We’re saying that we are at this turning point in the state of Georgia, where there is a new coalition of voters that are rising up — white voters, black voters, multiracial multi-generational voters.
