As Election Day neared, I kept hearing stories about how Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, had sent innocent Black people to jail with glee. They had painted her as tough on crime—aka unfair to Black people—and this stain had stuck. I saw the research that found no evidence of this and knew I was seeing another smear campaign. The personal, hateful, unnecessary comments, often from other Black people, men and women, rubbed me the wrong way.
Now that I knew better, I could do better.
A woman who dared to stand up and lead, no matter how smart, how qualified, how committed, was being drug through the mud for being a woman. And if they would do it to her they were also willing to do it to us, for daring to vote in our own best interest and standing up for our truth.
I had vowed to never vote again but I couldn’t do that to my daughters or my sons. One day their wives and my daughters and granddaughter may need the services and rights I was ready to toss away because I had been hurt and disappointed in myself for not being an educated voter.
If I refused to do my research and threw in the towel, claiming they’re all the same, I was not giving the people who do care, the ones who value their contribution as public servants and do need people of character to join them, the support they need.
When I showed up on Election Day at the local school, brisk but light traffic was coming in and out. There were less than a dozen people in different stages of voting, and I sailed in and out in minutes.
I am not someone who would traditionally be called justice-impacted. I am not facing serious criminal charges or convicted of a crime. I am not forced to disclose my criminal conviction(s) on every application for the rest of my life. I am not paying off thousands in probation fees or required to see a parole officer to keep my freedom.
But I am still, like hundreds of thousands of other Georgians, justice-impacted all the same. I am forced to pay money to speak with my son, prevented from seeing him released on bond so that he can assist in his own defense “in the free world” as he calls it. I am saddened as I watch the same people responsible for what the Justice Department’s new report calls ”unconstitutional and unlawful conditions,” aided by the lack of urgency from the solicitor, DA, and judges.
And all of these people were just re-elected to new terms.
