As I read last week’s Citizen, I was immediately drawn to the report on the front page, “2014 Question: District Voting Implementation.”
Here we were reminded that a politically appointed federal judge has decided that because no minority class candidate for county commissioner or school board had ever been elected by the majority of the county’s citizens, at-large voting must end because, as the decision states the current system is discriminatory.
I cannot think that I am the only one who recognizes the message embedded in that decision; in other words, the 80 percent of non-minority voters in our county are racist, or at least enough of them to ensure no minority person would ever be elected.
Forget that the real issue is that no black Republican has run for these offices and that the real majority is Republican.
The truth is that this is simply gerrymandering to ensure a Democrat seat at the table. Between the Democrats, the federal government, and the NAACP, I’m left wondering who is the tool for whom?
By federal judicial edict, every citizen of our county just had the value of their vote reduced to one fifth of what it was.
But the unnatural formation of a minority-majority district has the effect of increasing the value of every black citizen’s vote five-fold if we agree with the assumption veiled in the decision that such an arrangement will guarantee election of a minority candidate, which in and of itself assumes that minority voters also have a racial bias; in other words, we are all racists.
This is just one more move by the federal government to take a unit of the population (Fayette County) and split it.
It is the goal of the feds to divide the population to the greatest extent in order to better control the population through divisive politics (race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, etc.). Are you down with that?
Were we talking about breaking the county into districts by some rational means, like total populations, or major roads, or even stream beds at least we would be looking at a fair split.
If I understand the ruling and the law behind it, such natural boundaries will not suffice because none of the resulting districts would ensure a minority-majority population.
Again, by this logic even if we have a district that is 45 percent minority, the 55 percent majority of that district would still vote as one single anti-minority vote.
Or more to the point, the minority votes would be split among candidates and one Boss Hog candidate would still steal the district because everyone knows that white people (Republicans) simply won’t vote for a minority candidate (only in the South, of course).
You should be offended regardless of your skin tone; we are neighbors after all.
And what next? Will an Asian rights organization later go to the feds with a lawsuit because after the next 50 years not one qualified Asian candidate is elected in the minority-majority District X?
And in another district, a Muslim rights group brings suit because no Muslim candidate has ever been elected in District Y. Will the response of that government be to again split each district into three more districts so we have 15?
Where does it end? A Jewish group complaints that District 14 is unfair and we end up with 45 districts?
That will make for some crowded meetings; we will have to build a bigger administration center.
How about a district for each block in Peachtree City or each street in Fayetteville or each cul-de-sac in Tyrone? Taking this situation to this ridiculous conclusion only demonstrates the ridiculousness of the current decision on its face.
Even though this is really about empowering the minority party in our county, not the minority people, here is what we are teaching our children:
It is 2013. The second term U.S. President is a member of a minority class. Government seats at all levels are filled by members of all minority classes. Successful members of various minority classes are present throughout our society in all walks of life.
And still the message is being taught to all of our kids is that minority class people cannot make it in the USA without the help of the federal government.
The “needs of the majority” must be diluted for these kids to have a “fair” chance. I would think that this would be offensive to all parents.
Appealing this decision to a higher court, even to the Supreme Court, is warranted. The fight is not between blacks and whites in our county, it is between citizens and their government.
Will we all sit by quietly and allow the government in D.C. to break apart our community for political ends? Will we allow them to incite tensions where none existed? In the infamous words of our Vice President, “This is a big (expletive) deal!”
Alan Felts
District 63-B
Peachtree City, Ga.
