Black senior citizens ordered off Georgia bus taking them to vote

[RavenSky]

Wow. Just wow.

Government officials in an east Georgia county told about 40 African-American senior citizens to get off a bus taking them to vote Monday, leading to complaints of voter suppression.

The bus, run by the group Black Voters Matter, was preparing to depart from a senior center operated by Jefferson County when the center’s director said they needed to disembark...

A county clerk had called the senior center raising concerns about allowing the bus to take residents from the senior center in the city of Louisville, south of Augusta.

Black Voters Matter had received permission in advance for the event at the senior center, Brown said. The event was originally intended to encourage seniors to vote, and when some of the seniors asked whether they could ride the bus to an early-voting location, Black Voters Matter agreed to take them.

But someone apparently saw the bus, painted with the words “The South is Rising Tour,” and called county government offices, Brown said. That led to the phone call from the county clerk to the senior center.

After the seniors got off the bus, they were initially told they could ride in a county van provided by the senior center to go vote, Brown said. But then the seniors had to get off the van because the senior center’s leaders decided it was close to lunchtime, and the seniors could vote another day.

https://politics.myajc.com/news/sta...-bus-taking-them-vote/42lZxIGOF1uFo637TEc9jP/

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm sure there is a perfectly acceptable rea...


...nevermind. I give up.

 

[Rhea]

Unbelievable. They GOP is sinister.

 

[ApostateAbe]

I'm sure there is a perfectly acceptable rea...


...nevermind. I give up.

Maybe you can have nothing more than your personal background knowledge and imagination to come up with a possible explanation. But, if your imagination is guided by strong biases in the other direction, then it is a severe handicap. Suppose the story had been about an order to stop a bus filled with white religious retirees. Then a possible explanation more easily occurs: the organization who operates the bus has a policy against political activity. Such an explanation occurred to me, but it may not occur to you. One way or the other, I don't suggest relying merely on your personal imagination. If you want to get the other side of the story, then it requires going out of your way to find it. And, that really is the other side of the story, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The senior center and their vans are owned by Jefferson County, Georgia.

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[RavenSky]

Sorry Abe, your snarky reply to Jimmy is not factually based. It appears that you did not understand what you read in the article I linked in the OP.

The BUS is owned by a non-partisan group that encourages and assists black citizens to vote, and the event was pre-approved by the seniors center.

But when the seniors got on the bus, someone called county officials to prevent the bus from leaving. Unfortunately for county officials, they can't get their stories straight as to their reason for stopping the trip to the polls.

“Jefferson County administration felt uncomfortable with allowing senior center patrons to leave the facility in a bus with an unknown third party,” [County Administrator Adam] Brett said.

Jefferson County’s administrator said Tuesday that the county government considered the event at the senior center “political activity,” which isn’t allowed during county-sponsored events.

Black Voters Matter is a nonpartisan group encouraging African-Americans to vote in the election, but the county government considered the event political because Jefferson County Democratic Party Chairwoman Diane Evans helped organize it,

Bonnie Wells, the clerk for the Jefferson County Commission, on Monday had denied allegations of voter suppression, telling ThinkProgress her office didn’t receive any calls complaining about Black Voters Matter’s activity. She said they made no attempt to interfere with the senior citizens riding the bus to the polls.

Which is it?

And then there is this:

After the seniors got off the bus, they were initially told they could ride in a county van provided by the senior center to go vote, Brown said. But then the seniors had to get off the van because the senior center’s leaders decided it was close to lunchtime, and the seniors could vote another day.

Another day, huh. Maybe November 7?

https://thinkprogress.org/georgia-b...ked-from-taking-seniors-to-vote-a3c3e6580c5b/

 

[ApostateAbe]

I suggest you look for and review the other side of the story before relying on only the hard left sources, and, when you do that, i expect the accusation that it is a simple matter of malicious white racism will tend to seem more tenuous. You need an opening in the ideological echo chamber, but I doubt that I will argue with you further. I am busy with work, and I will disable notifications on the Tapatalk app.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I suggest you look for and review the other side of the story before relying on only the hard left sources,

The Atlanta Journal Constitution (which is linked to in the OP) isn't a far left wing blog. It is a newspaper.

...and, when you do that, i expect the accusation that it is a simple matter of malicious white racism will tend to seem more tenuous.

I would agree that it would be a terribly awful thing if the reason for the denial was race based, as that would be grossly unethical.

The article goes into the alleged reason why they weren't allowed to go and vote... at a county run social event put together to encourage the elderly voting. But the excuse isn't too compelling.

You need an opening in the ideological echo chamber, but I doubt that I will argue with you further. I am busy with work, and I will disable notifications on the Tapatalk app.

That's super. My farts don't smell, so I'm going to fart in here and leave.

 

[Jarhyn]

The Atlanta Journal Constitution (which is linked to in the OP) isn't a far left wing blog. It is a newspaper.

I would agree that it would be a terribly awful thing if the reason for the denial was race based, as that would be grossly unethical.

The article goes into the alleged reason why they weren't allowed to go and vote... at a county run social event put together to encourage the elderly voting. But the excuse isn't too compelling.

You need an opening in the ideological echo chamber, but I doubt that I will argue with you further. I am busy with work, and I will disable notifications on the Tapatalk app.

That's super. My farts don't smell, so I'm going to fart in here and leave.

I would say it's more like taking a heaping, greasy dump on the floor than anything else, and then leaving.

But yeah... my thought is that they should have given the finger to anyone who said 'stop', and driven the bus anyway. They didn't say HOW to vote, so they didn't break any law, and anyone trying to stop them can suck a bag of dicks.

 

[Derec]

Why is the group only driving black seniors to the polls? Seems a tad racist to me.

Also Jefferson County is a majority black county. The county commissioners are therefore probably mostly Democrats although the county website does not give party affiliation.

 

[ZiprHead]

Why is the group only driving black seniors to the polls? Seems a tad racist to me.

Also Jefferson County is a majority black county. The county commissioners are therefore probably mostly Democrats although the county website does not give party affiliation.

Probably a senior center in a black neighborhood.

Funny you would find this racist but not the voter suppression going on elsewhere in the state.

 

[Jayjay]

Why is the group only driving black seniors to the polls? Seems a tad racist to me.

Also Jefferson County is a majority black county. The county commissioners are therefore probably mostly Democrats although the county website does not give party affiliation.

Did any white seniors even ask?

 

[Derec]

Did any white seniors even ask?

Well they certainly weren't encouraged to ask what with explicitly racially exclusionary name of the group.

 

[ZiprHead]

Did any white seniors even ask?

Well they certainly weren't encouraged to ask what with explicitly racially exclusionary name of the group.

You know there are white members and supporters of Black Lives Matters groups, don't you?

 

[phands]

Wow. Just wow.

After the seniors got off the bus, they were initially told they could ride in a county van provided by the senior center to go vote, Brown said. But then the seniors had to get off the van because the senior center’s leaders decided it was close to lunchtime, and the seniors could vote another day.

https://politics.myajc.com/news/sta...-bus-taking-them-vote/42lZxIGOF1uFo637TEc9jP/

I await Derec and Penguin and bedbug to re-educate us as to why this is not racist, and is also perfectly OK.

 

[laughing dog]

Why is the group only driving black seniors to the polls? Seems a tad racist to me.

There is no indication in the linked reports that the group is only driving black seniors to the polls. Do you have a link that indicates they take only black seniors?

A

 

[phands]

Why is the group only driving black seniors to the polls? Seems a tad racist to me.

There is no indication in the linked reports that the group is only driving black seniors to the polls. Do you have a link that indicates they take only black seniors?

A

Even if they were only driving black seniors, so fucking what? The article, and the one it links to at ThinkProgress says

the county clerk ordered the senior center to take the 40 or so elderly African Americans off the bus

Yes...specifically African Americans were ordered off the bus. The racism is explicit and real, unlike Derec's pathetic digression attempt to label an imaginary exclusion of mythical whites in a black senior centre as racist. Derec, the removal of those people is an act of real, overt racism; your attempt at victim blaming the square root of minus 1.

ETA: would you expect a bus ferrying gopturd voters to vote to ask democratic voters to come along? Get a brain.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Why is the group only driving black seniors to the polls? Seems a tad racist to me.

There is no indication in the linked reports that the group is only driving black seniors to the polls. Do you have a link that indicates they take only black seniors?

A

Also, if they were, why would that be an issue? If a group feels that fundamentalist evangelicals will reliably vote for the candidates who'll champion the issues which the group likes, it would make sense for them to target fundamentalist evangelicals in their voter drives as opposed to other groups who might dilute the vote totals if they help those guys get to the polls. That's not religious bigotry against other faiths, it's just intelligent targeting of their resources.

There's a ballot in Michigan to legalize pot. If a pro-pot group is driving people to the polls and a bunch of fundamentalist evangelicals show up, it's in their best interest to drive away and find another group to help get to the polls ... or just drive away and go toke up in a parking lot and maybe try and remember to get around to voting next week or something.

It's not the job of private organizations to increase voter turnout in general. It's their job to increase the voter turnout of the specific people whom they feel will vote for their agendas.

 

[laughing dog]

Even if they were only driving black seniors, so fucking what? The article, and the one it links to at ThinkProgress says

the county clerk ordered the senior center to take the 40 or so elderly African Americans off the bus

Yes...specifically African Americans were ordered off the bus. The racism is explicit and real, unlike Derec's pathetic digression attempt to label an imaginary exclusion of mythical whites in a black senior centre as racist. Derec, the removal of those people is an act of real, overt racism; your attempt at victim blaming the square root of minus 1.

ETA: would you expect a bus ferrying gopturd voters to vote to ask democratic voters to come along? Get a brain.

If the bus only had black passengers, then only black passengers would have been ordered off the bus. But Derec raised an extremely minor possible nitpick. I was simply asking was there evidence that this group only takes black people or not? If the answer to my question is no, then Derec's question reflects more on Derec than on group in question. If the answer is yes, then as Tom Sawyer pointed out - so what?

 

[phands]

Even if they were only driving black seniors, so fucking what? The article, and the one it links to at ThinkProgress says

the county clerk ordered the senior center to take the 40 or so elderly African Americans off the bus

Yes...specifically African Americans were ordered off the bus. The racism is explicit and real, unlike Derec's pathetic digression attempt to label an imaginary exclusion of mythical whites in a black senior centre as racist. Derec, the removal of those people is an act of real, overt racism; your attempt at victim blaming the square root of minus 1.

ETA: would you expect a bus ferrying gopturd voters to vote to ask democratic voters to come along? Get a brain.

If the bus only had black passengers, then only black passengers would have been ordered off the bus. But Derec raised an extremely minor possible nitpick. I was simply asking was there evidence that this group only takes black people or not? If the answer to my question is no, then Derec's question reflects more on Derec than on group in question. If the answer is yes, then as Tom Sawyer pointed out - so what?

In other words, Derec is wrong in either case, and his attempted diversion failed.

 

[Jarhyn]

Why is the group only driving black seniors to the polls? Seems a tad racist to me.

Also Jefferson County is a majority black county. The county commissioners are therefore probably mostly Democrats although the county website does not give party affiliation.

Probably because the majority of polling it's closings happen in such neighborhoods. You might be better off asking why there isn't a polling place at the senior home; as it stands, last time I voted, it was at an assisted living home for seniors two blocks from my house; it makes voting for us really easy.