When Are Georgia Republicans Planning to Hold the GRA Accountable for Its Blatant Racism?

Last night on Peach Pundit The Podcast, Scot reminded me that the Georgia Republican Assembly’s platform had some pretty alarming, outright racist language that I missed when I wrote my post about it.

For years, I’ve complained about the often racially charged rhetoric inside the Republican Party, which has only gotten progressively worse since 2015. My concerns were nearly always dismissed. I want to be clear. I am not saying that all Republicans are racists. I’m not even saying most are. What I am saying is that there’s an element of the Republican base that clearly expresses racist viewpoints.

Case in point, so-called “right of return” plank in the platform of the Georgia Republican Assembly (GRA). The section states, “We support a program to encourage and subsidize voluntary emigration for any citizen of the U.S. who wishes to emigrate to their country of origin/ancestry provided that their ancestors were brought to this country against their will or immigrated to the U.S. since 1965.”

As mentioned in my previous post on the platform, the GRA espouses immigration restrictionism. They want a cap of 250,000 legal immigrants each year. As I mentioned then, and as I repeat now, this is mind-bogglingly dumb because the United States will see more deaths than births in 2040. The only net increase in our population will come from net immigration. This is happening because we’re not replacing ourselves as a society. It’s a conscious decision we’ve made.

GRA also says that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 “was sold to the American people based on lies and half-truths and has led to the largest demographic disruption in US history.” Translation: GRA is big mad that there are fewer white people.

This “right to return” language is, well, something else entirely. Some in the GRA may claim that there’s a historical precedent for this. In the 19th century, the American Colonization Society helped found what eventually became the West African country of Liberia. The abolitionist movement didn’t widely embrace the American Colonization Society. The freedmen and emancipated slaves who went to Liberia were often pressured into doing so.

Frederick Douglass said of the effort, “Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose, and all that countenance such a proposition. We live here—have lived here—have a right to live here, and mean to live here.”

Indeed, shame upon the guilty wretches of the GRA for daring to propose this. Every single Georgia Republican has a responsibility to call out the clearly racist language in the GRA platform and demand accountability. If you have any shred of decency, you will condemn this.