As Rep. Virgil Fludd (D-Tyrone) stated, change is afoot in Fayette County, but certainly not the change inferred from the Visioning Plan.
The progress from the Fayette Visioning Plan has been happening naturally through the dynamic efforts of all the hardworking citizens with a vision for growth for Fayette County, regardless of racial, ethnic or any other way you chose to artificially divide the county for political benefit.
Rep. Fludd through the NAACP is trying to force his vision through the courts that he and his Democrat Party can’t win through fair elections by accusing the citizens of Fayette County of racism.
And too many apparently spineless members of this county are willing to accept that. Let me be clear; if this lawsuit prevails; we admit we have been racist. That is the charge brought by the NAACP.
Let me remind Mr. Fludd the definition of racism: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and those racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race which results in discrimination.
We here in Fayette County don’t look at our neighbors that way and I certainly hope, Mr. Fludd, you don’t look at yours that way either. I challenge Mr. Fludd to find anywhere in Fayette County’s elections where that definition has held true.
His sole piece of evidence: no black had been elected to the Board of Commissioners before 2014. What Mr. Fludd conveniently leaves out was the blacks elected were Democrats, which is his and the NAACP’s real agenda: getting Democrats elected.
Did Mr. Fludd or the NAACP go to the county elections office and look at voting patterns? I challenge them to produce the slightest hint of discrimination in any form. Everyone in this county has had a fair and equal opportunity to have their voice heard in the political structure of Fayette County, which is based solely on political philosophy, not skin color, religion or any diversity you decide to divide the county into.
The pattern is clear: the majority of the citizens of this county believe in the Republican philosophy; absolutely nothing to do with racism charged by the NAACP.
There is a reason we voted down the Democrat philosophy. Mr. Fludd’s 20-year court fight he mentions was led by the Republican Party 50 years ago to lift the yoke of discrimination and Jim Crow laws held firmly in place by the Democrat Party. It was the Democrat Party that placed the obstacles that indeed made it difficult for blacks to vote. It was the majority lead by the Republican Party that broke that yoke and passed the civil rights laws.
An objective question: what has the Democrat Party done for you? What has that party done for communities solidly run by Democrats in such places as Ferguson, Baltimore, or Chicago and or bankrupted Detroit and nearly the entire states of Illinois, New York, and California?
It is because of the results of those Democrat philosophies that we chose a better way in Fayette County.
Just fly over the county and see the dynamic business environment while under Republican leadership. And that environment continues to grow with one of the largest movie studios in the world, and the businesses expanding around it as a result — Georgia Military College opening a new campus — all under Republicans.
The Visioning Plan sees an opportunity for all equally without having to gerrymander districts that defile logic under the complete falsehood of racism in order to force the Democrat philosophy that this county so soundly rejects.
The $1.2 million figure cited by Mr. Fludd has in reality been extorted from the good citizens of this county for which he should be profoundly ashamed. The NAACP has lawyers too, and they aren’t attacking this county for free. Why don’t they save their donors money and withdraw this deceitful lawsuit?
I will not stand to have my character and the character of my neighbors, black, white, or any other diversity, smeared by NAACP falsehoods. I stand with my neighbors on the content of our character not as Mr. Fludd and the NAACP sees it: by the color of their skin.
Dennis D Benson
Captain, United States Navy (ret.)
Peachtree City, Ga.
