Unjust Magazine 2018 Winter Issue

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America Divided By Race and Trump Rhetoric

Tribute To President Barack Obama

Kanye West aka Koonye West “2018 Coon of the Year”

The Caravan of Immigration Disparity


Voter Suppression in the South


I’m seventy five percent spiritual, twenty percent philosophical, five percent criminal, and one hundred percent militant. My mind is fifty percent knowledge, fifty percent culture, and one hundred percent conscious. My mind shall never be divided, conquered, and colonized, by lily white lies, like fifty percent of the blind, willingly killing off their own kind, fifty percent of the time, without any guilty feelings of why, one hundred percent of the time. I’m sixty five percent man, thirty five percent animal, standing behind my true Afrikan Amerikan revolutionaries, like the lion of the Judah, one hundred percent of the time. I’ll die fifty times to unite fifty percent of my people, willing to fight for human rights, that whites defiantly deny them, fifty percent of the time.


I’m fifty percent Huey Newton, fifty percent Joseph Cinque, and one hundred percent for the revolution, that Malcolm X expected to take place, after the Black race awakens to its unrest and latest state of oppression in the west. I guess eighty percent of my direct message will be suppressed with prejudice by the media, meaning my people will only receive twenty percent truth from Europeans, who view me as a threat, because my public address upsets investors and rednecks, one hundred percent of the time.

By: Greg X * Editor In Chief



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America Divided By Race and Trump Rhetoric By: Greg X: Unjust Magazine


America Divided By Race and Trump Rhetoric By: Greg X: Unjust Magazine

Since Donald Trump injected himself into a life of politics, life has changed for many Americans, especially for non White citizens of America. The Trump agenda with all of its conspiracy theories, racist statements, untruthful rhetoric, lies, deception, and scare tactics have evidently brought out the best in white racists, ultra conservative White voters, back hills rural White folks, and a cowardly White Trump Administration, backed by a spineless passive White Senate that has stood behind every lying word and every unjust action of Donald Trump, in the same way that obedient children responds out of fear to demanding parents. Trump’s rhetoric has not only evoked anger among non White people, but has inspired violent White racists to commit anti-Semitic attacks on Black churches, Jewish Churches, Islamic Mosques, and let us not forget Charlottesville, Virginia. 9


Trump provokes anxiety in both the right and the left perhaps equally, albeit in very different ways. For the right, he fuels their fears about minorities and dissimilar others, calling Hispanic immigrants “murderers and rapists,” and stating in blanketfashion that “Islam hates us.” His demonization of the “liberal media” and the Obama administration has transformed many rightwingers into full-fledged conspiracy theorists. 10


For the left, President Trump is the fear, his narcissistic personality and unpredictable, unrestrained behavior makes him a dangerous Commander-in-Chief, one that is liable to get the U.S. into a game of nuclear chicken with countries led by similarly erratic leaders, like North Korea. Trump’s policies and willingness to please his most extreme supporters threatens the rights of all non White people, gays, transgender folk, and women across the country. The only thing liberals might fear worse than Trump himself is the sentiment he brings out in his supporters, which has already proved deadly in Charlottesville, Virginia. 11


Trump says ”Make America Great Again” and Unjust Magazine says” Remember the slaves and immigrants that made America Great in the first place” and I’m sure that even Donald trump can relate to the latter, since Trump’s family originated in Germany and his wife Melania was born in Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia, which is known today as Slovenia.

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We are obliged to track Trump’s lies, if only to remind Americans of the difference between truth and fiction and to trace the pace of his lies. In the seven weeks leading up the midterm elections, the president made 1,419 false or misleading claims. FACTS ABOUT DONALD TRUMP’S RACIST ACTIONS: Trump suggested that Mexican immigrants are mostly rapists; or said he didn’t want people from “shithole countries” like Haiti and countries in Africa coming to the United States; or systematically discriminated against African-Americans in his housing developments; or propagated a conspiracy theory about how the first black president wasn’t really an American; or insisted that there were “very fine people” marching with neo-Nazis in Charlottesville; or employed a personal butler who wrote on Facebook that Barack Obama should be lynched; or likened nonwhite immigrants to vermin; or called for banning Muslims from the United States; or encouraged U.S. soldiers to fire on a caravan of Central American women and children at the slightest provocation. 13


Trump and his father were forced to settle a housing discrimination claim in the 1970s alleging that they refused to rent to African Americans; Trump called for the death penalty for the so-called Central Park Five, insisting on their guilt even after DNA evidence exonerated them; He stoked birtherism, a racist conspiracy theory claiming that the first African American president wasn’t born in the United States; At a rally during the 2016 campaign, he referred to an African American in the crowd “as my African American over here,” imploring the crowd to “look” at him. •

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There is no visible African American staffer in the West Wing; In a White House meeting, Trump allegedly said Haitians “all have AIDS” and that Nigerians should “go back to their huts.” According to lawmakers who attended an immigration meeting with Trump, the president said the United States should not be taking immigrants from “shithole” countries such as Haiti and from Africa; he said American immigration should prefer Norwegians; Trump said there were some “very fine people” among the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville last year, and; Trump regularly refers to African Americans as “low IQ.” (Lets not forget about the racist remarks and policies about Muslims and Hispanics.) Donald Trump is neither for Making America Great Again or for the people and the 2018 Mid-Term Elections proved detrimental to Trump, when Democrats hit Trump with the Blue Wave of Defeat. 15


A Tribute to the Honorable 44th President Barack H. Obama

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A Tribute to the Honorable 44th President Barack H. Obama Barack Obama graduated from Punahou and went on to Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he decided to get serious about his studies. Midway through, he transferred to the prestigious Columbia University in New York City. He also began to explore his African roots and not long after his father's death traveled to meet his relatives in Kenya for the first time. After he earned his undergraduate degree in political science, he became a community organizer in Harlem—but quickly realized he could not afford to live in the city with a job that paid so little. Instead, he moved to Chicago to work for a church-based social-services organization there. The group was active on the city's South Side, one of America's most impoverished urban communities.

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During Barack Obama’s Harvard Law School years, he took a job as a summer associate at a Chicago firm, and the attorney assigned to mentor him was also a Harvard Law graduate, Michelle Robinson. The two began dating and were married in 1992. Robinson came from a working-class black family and grew up on the South Side; her brother had excelled at basketball and went to Princeton University, and she followed him there for her undergraduate degree.

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Obama also considered Chicago a place from which he could launch a political career, and he became active in a number of projects in addition to his legal cases at work and another job he held teaching classes at the University of Chicago Law School. He worked on a local voter-registration drive, for example, that registered thousands of black voters in Chicago; the effort was said to have helped Bill Clinton win the state in his successful bid for the White House in 1992.

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Barack Obama became the Senate's only African American lawmaker when he was sworn into office in January 2005, and just the third black U.S. senator to serve there since the 1880s. Moreover, Obama's political supporters came from a diverse range of racial and economic backgrounds, which is still relatively rare in American electoral politics—traditionally, black candidates have not done very well in voting precincts where predominantly non-minority voters go to the polls. Even before his Election Day victory, Obama emerged as the new star of the Democratic Party after delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts that summer. His stirring speech, in which he urged a united, not a divided, American union, prompted political commentators to predict he might become the first African American elected to the White House.

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Barack Obama became the Senate's only African American lawmaker when he was sworn into office in January 2005, and just the third black U.S. senator to serve there since the 1880s. Moreover, Obama's political supporters came from a diverse range of racial and economic backgrounds, which is still relatively rare in American electoral politics—traditionally, black candidates have not done very well in voting precincts where predominantly nonminority voters go to the polls.

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Even before his Election Day victory, Obama emerged as the new star of the Democratic Party after delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts that summer. His stirring speech, in which he urged a united, not a divided, American union, prompted political commentators to predict he might become the first African American elected to the White House. Barack Obama rose from Illinois state senator to candidate for president of the United States in just three years, between 2004 and 2007, thanks to an extraordinary combination of personality, identity, politics, and timing. One factor was Obama's charisma, built on his personal warmth, good looks, and comfort with his own self. Another was his idealistic speeches expressing his reassuring desire to transcend the country's divisions through a pragmatic search for solutions.

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His consistent opposition to the war in Iraq helped him attract supporters disillusioned with other Democrats who had authorized it. Obama's life story and heritage are also essential parts of his political appeal. June 3, 2008 - After defeating Senator Hillary Clinton in the primaries, Barack Obama becomes the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2008 presidential election. November 5, 2008 - Barack Obama wins the US Presidential Election and becomes the first AfricanAmerican President of the United States. Barack H. Obama, the 44th President of the United States, had been in power for less than eight months when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. Among the reasons it gave, the Nobel Committee lauded Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples". Emphasis was also given to his support - in word and deed - for the vision of a world free from nuclear weapons.

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During his first year in power, President Obama showed himself to be a strong spokesman for human rights and democracy, and as a constructive supporter of the work being done to put effective measures in place to combat the climate crisis. This is in line with his appeal: "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges". On November 6, 2012, Obama was re-elected for his second term as President of the United States. He won 65,899,660 popular votes and 332 electoral votes, with two states less than in his 2008 victory. 26


15 Great Accomplishments of President Barack Obama

1 – Rescued the country from the Great Recession, cutting the unemployment rate from 10% to 4.7% over six years 2 – Signed the Affordable Care Act which provided health insurance to over 20 million uninsured Americans 3 – Ended the war in Iraq 4 – Ordered for the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden 5 – Passed the $787 billion America Recovery and Reinvestment Act to spur economic growth during the Great Recession 6 – Supported the LGBT community’s fight for marriage equality 7 – Commuted the sentences of nearly 1200 drug offenders to reverse “unjust and outdated prison sentences” 8 – Saved the U.S. auto industry

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9 – Helped put the U.S. on track for energy independence by 2020 10 – Began the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan 11 – Signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals allowing as many as 5 million people living in the U.S. illegally to avoid deportation and receive work permits 12 –Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to re-regulate the financial sector 13 – Dropped the veteran homeless rate by 50 percent 14 – Reversed Bush-era torture policies 15 – Began the process of normalizing relations with Cuba 28


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Unjust Magazine would like to congratulate Kanye West aka “Koonye West,” the despicable recipient of our “2018 Coon of the Year Award” for his unforgivable House Nigger role in degrading and selling out our African ancestors that was forcefully brought to America as wageless slaves by white folks that sold our African ancestors like cheap Donald Chump hats to White racists and plantation owners. Koonye West has been Donald Chump’s genuine house nigger since Donald Chump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and in true house nigger form Koonye West has performed just as ole masta programmed him to do, infact, Koonye West has even honored ole masta with a “Make America Great” ball cap and had the nerve to wear the hat on his visit to the Trap House to visit Donald Chump.

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We as African slave descendants, also known in America as African Americans, which is just another cute new name for niggers that have been struggling for equality since being brought to this strange land in shackles and chains are still fighting for equal rights in a country that the White man stole from Native Americans and used many treacherous means to kill them off, including trickery and starving them by running buffalos off of hills to limit their food supply.

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Koonye West I would like to give you a quote from Tupac Shakur, which will always be remembered, respected, and honored by all people as the greatest rapper that ever lived for this reason, Tupac said THUG LIFE was actually an acronym standing for 'The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everyone'. Koonye West, you are the worst kind of house nigga, because you will sell your soul and sell yourself out to integrate with a race of people that consider you a big joke, but now Koonye West has people saying that his antics and mental breakdowns on stage and in public are funnier that Katt Williams jokes, Kevin Hart Jokes, and Chris Rock jokes combined, so to keep it short and sweet Koonye West, you are a funny motherfucker with them mental breakdowns on stage, especially with the Donald Chump wig. Koonye West, I have to ask you, are the drugs you on FDA approved, because the side effects alone make most people just say no to the shit you’re on.

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Koonye West, if you really think you are a privileged house nigga, I’m sure the constitution will remind you that the Constitution affirmed African-Americans to be worth only three-fifths of a human being.

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Koonye West this is a fact that let’s you know that you will always be just a house nigga in the eyes of White people that control real power in America, because the Founders’ Constitution regarded blacks as “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” In this view, the worst Supreme Court case decision in American history was actually correctly decided. Mr. Kanye West aka Koonye West, we are happy to present you with the “2018 Coon of the Year Award” for all the ass kissing, all the selling out, and uncle Tommin you have done to prove that you deserve this humiliating Award for your disgrace as a being a Black man in America. Congratulations Uncle Remus or should I say Koonye West, it has truly been an honor to present you with this Award for being House Nigga of the Year.

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The Caravan of Immigration Disparity

Poverty and inequality in Honduras has roots in the activities of American fruit companies throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The current instability can be traced to the 2009 coup, the success of which was partly attributable to US policy. Although the caravan seems huge to us, this is just a drop in the bucket. More than 300,000 individuals were apprehended crossing the border illegally from Mexico into the USA in 2017. 36


While local elites and politicians carry much of the blame for the chaos, for decades the United States meddling in the region has played a significant role. The United States recognized the re-election of Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, despite widespread allegations of fraud. The Honduran electoral commission, which is controlled by Hernández allies, named him the country’s next leader, but the OAS said the process had been the subject of too many unexplained delays and irregularities “before, during and after” the vote to determine the outcome with certainty – and called for a repeat election. 37


The United States – which has no ambassador in the country or assistant secretary of state for the western hemisphere – appeared to throw its weight behind Hernández, but it held off formally congratulating him until the end of a five-day period in which the opposition could challenge the electoral body’s decision. The caravan started in San Pedro Sula—a Honduran city known for its gang violence and poverty—with around 160 or so people. Over the journey through Guatemala to Mexico, the group swelled to over a 1,000, then, to the surprise of the organizers, to 7,000.

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During the day, they walked for miles and hitchhiked on pickup trucks, passing through small towns where locals assist with food, water, and medical help. The caravan’s journey has faced resistance; at the Guatemala-Mexico border, helicopters hovered overhead, and federal police came prepared to deploy pepper spray, a portion pushed through, but as the troupe snakes through Mexico, their numbers have dwindled. 39


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The U.S. government itself reportedly estimates that by the time the caravan gets to the U.S. border, only a small percentage would remain. Once they get to a port of entry, they have the right to request asylum. That is the legal process. The caravan includes many young men, but rather than being criminals to be feared, many are escaping the gangs, planning to work hard to send money home to families in Honduras. The menace that has triggered a show of force is an unarmed group of migrants, at least half of whom are women and children—several hundred miles away. Most are attempting to flee violence and escape poverty in Central America; “We have a lot of tents,” Trump said in a press conference. “We’re holding them right there. We’re not letting them into our country.” Trump complained at a rally in Georgia that "we pay these countries hundreds of millions of dollars" even though "they don't do a damn thing for us." He says, as he has before, that he wants to cut U.S. aid to the countries, threatening that "we'll be stopping very soon." 41


Trump has made the caravans and illegal immigration a centerpiece of his closing argument as he tried to rally his base ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Trump is telling the caravans to turn back and insisting they will not be allowed in. He's again labeling their efforts "an invasion" and says, "We're not playing games.“ “We’ll go up to anywhere between 10 to15 thousand military personnel on top of border patrol, ICE, and everybody else at the border,” Trump said before leaving the White House for a campaign rally. 42


Trump said in an interview with “Axios on HBO” that he planned to issue an executive order prohibiting “birthright citizenship” for children of non-citizens and undocumented immigrants. Trump claimed that a clause in the 14th Amendment that conveys citizenship only to people “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. excludes children of undocumented immigrants. Legal scholars on both the right and left disagree with him and say that the matter is settled law. 43


Voter Suppression in the South

Donald Trump launched what opponents decried as a racially loaded attack on Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, labeling him a "thief" without evidence and claiming that, as mayor of Tallahassee, Gillum oversees one of the country's "most corrupt cities." Gillum responded less than an hour after Trump's attack and, like the last time they clashed, mocked the President for not engaging him more directly. "On Twitter there is a choice between having the courage to @ the person you are trash talking, or not," Gillum wrote. "@realDonaldTrump is howling because he's weak. Florida, go vote today." 44


A racist robocall that referred to Andrew Gillum as a "negro" and a "monkey" made the rounds in Florida, prompting a furious response from the Democratic gubernatorial candidate's campaign. "Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be a great governor, "Trump tweeted Saturday." He has been successful at whatever he has done, and has prepared for this very difficult and complex job for many years. He has my Strong Endorsement." 45


Yet Trump didn't stop at simply extolling what he felt to be Kemp's accomplishments. Rather, Trump also took aim at Stacey Abrams, Kemp's opponent, "His opponent is totally unqualified,"Trump wrote, "Would destroy a great state!“ But even the most cursory glance at Abrams' resume leaves one with the impression that she's far from being "unqualified." As the deputy city attorney for Atlanta she was behind legal and policy analysis for numerous projects. 46


What's more, she served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, and became the first woman to lead either party in Georgia's General Assembly when she was named House minority leader in 2010. Abrams pushed back on Trump's characterization of Kemp as a success. "If success is suppressing eligible voters, leaking our Social Security numbers, and pointing a shotgun at a child on TV, I'll pass," she tweeted. "I'll take Medicaid expansion, excellent public schools, and good-paying jobs." 47


While Abrams has yet to directly address Trump's claim that she's "unqualified," others were quick to call out the president for his remark. "Whatever your politics, it's flat wrong to call Abrams unqualified," Addy Baird of Think Progress wrote. In Georgia, Kemp remained in his position as Georgia’s secretary of state — the office that oversees elections in Georgia — even while running for governor against Democrat Stacey Abrams. 48


Rolling Stone writer Jamil Smith insisted Saturday that it was important to correct Trump no matter the context of his tweet. "Stacey Abrams has more experience in elected office — more than 17 years — than does Brian Kemp (nearly 13)," Smith tweeted. "She is vastly better educated (Yale JD vs his bachelor's). Trump's assertion that she is 'totally unqualified' may have been made flippantly, but we should correct him.“ Kemp has carried out mass purges of the voter rolls, ostensibly to remove dead people and people who haven’t voted in recent elections from the records, but in such a sweeping way that Democrats fear it will keep voters, particularly minority voters, off the rolls. Kemp’s office also put 53,000 voter registrations on hold, nearly 70 percent of which are for black voters, by using an error-prone “exact match” system, which stops voter registrations if there are any discrepancies, down to dropped hyphens, with other government records. 49


In the days before Election Day, Kemp accused Democrats, through the secretary of state’s website and with no evidence, of attempting to hack the state’s voter registration system. As elections law expert Richard Hasen wrote in Slate, this was “perhaps the most outrageous example of election administration partisanship in the modern era.”

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Other problems also popped up in Georgia throughout the day, including long voting lines and technical errors, that led to voting places extending their hours very late into the night. Republicans have repeatedly admitted that their claims about voting restrictions are bullshit. As longtime North Carolina Republican consultant Carter Wrenn in 2016 told the Washington Post, “Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, they would have kept early voting right where it was.” Republicans are carrying out voting restrictions to stop Democrats, and particularly minority voters who are likely to go Democrat, from voting. If the GOP concludes that the restrictions helped push Kemp to victory in Georgia. This year—perhaps uncoincidentally—severe voter suppression occurred in states with highly competitive political races, including Georgia, Texas, Florida, and North Dakota. 51


Policies and practices that limit participation by even a few thousand votes can mean the difference between victory and defeat in competitive elections. When voters cast a ballot, they expect their votes to matter in choosing representatives who are responsive to, reflective of, and accountable to the communities they represent.

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Since 2012, former Georgia Secretary of State and Gov.-elect Brian Kemp (R) purged an estimated 1.5 million people from the state voter rolls, 107,000 of whom were removed for not having voted in the two previous general elections. These purges disproportionately affected African Americans, whose voter registrations were removed at a rate that was 1.25 times higher than for white Americans in some counties. Ten states have strict voter ID laws that require eligible voters to present certain forms of government-issued ID before they can vote. Eleven percent of all Americans lack the kind of government-issued photo ID that these laws require, while people of color, low-income Americans, and students are less likely to have qualified IDs than other Americans.

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In Alabama, a strict photo ID law remained in place for the 2018 midterm elections. In 2015, civil rights groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, challenged the law arguing that an estimated 118,000 potential voters lacked the proper photo ID; however, a federal court dismissed the case in January 2018. The case was taken up by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2018, but no decision has been rendered. 54


In Georgia several hundred voted absentee ballots were found to have been discarded without proper notification by election officials because voters’ signatures on their ballots did not exactly match the signatures the state had on file. Of those discarded ballots, more than one-third came from the racially diverse Gwinnett County, where more than half of the rejected ballots belonged to African American or Asian American voters. 55


Like Georgia officials, those in Florida initially discarded large numbers of voted absentee ballots and provisional ballots for purported signature mismatches. Across Florida, at least 4,000 absentee ballots were discarded for this reason. Laws requiring a voter’s signature to exactly match that which the state already has on file disproportionately impact Americans with disabilities and the elderly, along with young people.

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Voter confusion is a problem each election cycle, and with the rise of misinformation, it has only become more prevalent. Even well-intentioned groups have inadvertently misinformed people, while others have intentionally sought to confuse voters and prevent them from voting. This year, there was a rash of racially motivated attempts to frighten voters. In late August, for example, Florida residents received a fake robocall alleging to be from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, but the call was ultimately traced to the Idaho-based white supremacist website Road to Power. On the call, the speaker, claiming to be Gillum, spoke in a minstrel performer’s accent over background audio of donkeys and drums. In November, Road to Power released a second robocall, this time in Georgia, in response to Oprah Winfrey’s canvassing for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Those who answered the call heard: “This is the magical Negro Oprah Winfrey asking you to make my fellow Negress Stacey Abrams the governor of Georgia,” followed by a series of racist and anti-Semitic statements, which included calling Abrams “a poor man’s Aunt Jemima.”

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In Alaska, North Carolina, California, and Pennsylvania, Republican candidates and groups distributed racist, anti-Semitic mailers depicting Jewish candidates holding wads of cash. In Missouri, a poll worker asked a voter whether they were “a member of the caravan,� in reference to a group of Latino asylum-seekers who are making their way from Central America toward the United States.

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A poll worker in Harris County, Texas, told an African American voter: “Maybe if I’d worn my blackface makeup today you could comprehend what I’m saying to you.” Polling place closures disproportionately affect communities of color, low-income Americans, and young people. October 2018, Kansas officials moved the last remaining polling location in Dodge City—a majorityHispanic community—outside the city limits and far away from public transportation. Compounding the problem, officials sent mailers to newly registered voters, incorrectly informing them that they were allowed to vote at the old location. In Florida, officials moved a polling place located in Deerfield Beach to a private, gated community. Voters who were assigned to vote at the polling place but resided outside of the gated area complained that they were unable to access the polling place because the community’s private security guard stopped them for failing to present ID.

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Delayed polling place openings also created problems on Election Day, leading to long lines and frustrated potential voters. Some polling places in Texas opened nearly an hour late because polling places were understaffed and poll workers were unable to operate voting machines and equipment. During early voting, voting machines in several Texas counties experienced vote flipping. For example, in attempting to vote for Texas’ Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Beto O’Rourke, some straight-ticket voters saw their vote changed to his opponent, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. 60


Election Day 2018 in Florida, where the only ballot scanner in a St. Petersburg precinct broke down, resulting in some voters simply abandoning their votes because of the delay. In Georgia, more than 1,800 voting machines sat unused in a warehouse on Election Day in three of Georgia’s largest and most heavily Democratic counties. Georgia officials also failed to provide power cords for voting machines in Gwinnett County. These problems resulted in long lines in several predominantly African American neighborhoods, forcing people to wait hours to vote and causing some to walk away. Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have made no effort to hide their partisan and racially based motives, with Republican state representative Dave Lewis declaring, “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.” 61


There are common-sense solutions that jurisdictions can adopt to increase voter participation and eliminate voter suppression that disproportionately excludes certain groups from the electoral process.

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