I received an email from “David” who says he reads my column each week. He has done what several others have done: confused “Democrat” and” Republican” with “Black” and “White.”
In this day and age, it seems that some in our culture have made these terms synonymous with each other. I promise that at no time in my writing have I ever confused the two.
There are good people in both parties, and I don’t intentionally praise one over the other. In case you missed the title of our paper, it’s “The Augusta Press.” Augusta is majority-minority, majority Democratic, and most of our elected leaders in our community are brown in skin color. If it seems that I talk about Democrats more than Republicans, look around. You don’t need a microscope to see what I see.
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Now to another point that was made in this email, that was probably not well researched. “Blacks” do not support abortion, and to quote your email, “Especially black babies which leads the most.”
Blacks don’t support abortion; Democrats support choice. Republicans are okay with that as long as no one knows. There are health issues that are within a certain amount of time.
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Now, here’s a funny side-by-side. Democrats and pro-choice advocates say that a woman can choose what she wants to do with her body. Many Republicans say, “No, you can’t choose to do what you want with your body… wait a minute. Mask mandates and mandatory vaccines? That’s my choice.”
Huh?
Back to “the Blacks,” who have some of the most conservative principals. As a community, we believe in the same things that most Republicans believe in: God, even though some time I wonder about that. You will probably never find a more spiritual group then minorities. Our entire life has been centered around our faith in God.
Let me get off my race horse for a moment. All I’m saying, sir or ma’am, is don’t ever confuse Democrat and Republican for Black and White.
I have friends who are Democrats and friends who are Republicans.
I have friends who have GEDs, PhDs, and in some cases, felonies.
I know people on all sides that could get my vote.
Speaking of votes, there are two people who are getting ready to throw their names in the hat for local elections. The first of which is little dynamo attorney, Katrell Nash, who will be running for chief judge in your Civil and Magistrate Court.
The announcement will come this Thursday. She will be working to unseat the appointed Judge Carletta Sims Brown, one of the several Gov. Brian Kemp appointees to judgeships throughout the state. I will have more information about this race after this week, when it starts to get real interesting.
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Another person running for judge is Charles Lyons, who will be trying to unseat Judge Stone. Judge Jesse Stone was someone else appointed by Kemp when a seat became open. This was right before Kemp’s appointment of Judge Amanda Heath.
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You must admit Kemp has done a pretty good job of making appointments that fit the area.
Back to this Stone vs Lyons race. It will become very interesting. It will not be as cut and dry as a lot of people think. From what I’m hearing, Stone has a pretty large following on all sides in Burke County. This will make up a pretty decent size of his voting block.
So, all of those things will need to be considered in that race. And these two races are only a foreshadowing of what is to come for other judge races. For many of the local races, in fact, we will soon see people coming out of the woodwork to run for office. Hopefully, we can keep the list limited for the mayor’s race.
Local elections are always so interesting to me. Wait, did I mention the District 6 Commission race has another name being thrown around? Seems as if a candidate from the past may be considering another run at this office.
Now we just have to find an appointment for the mayor, pending the outcome of this… well, here I go getting ahead of myself again.
Michael Meyers is a Columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at Michael.meyers@theaugustapress.com
