Black refugees left out as US grants Ukrainians protected status, Stacey Abrams has smoke for Georgia election officials

With views from the intersection of wackness and anti-blackness, here’s a round-up of the wacky and WTF happenings in government and the impact on culture.



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In 2018, Stacey Abrams lost her bid for Georgia governor. As a result, she planned to sue the electoral body for conducting the election. Now, more than three years later, the lawsuit is going to court.

The lawsuit, filed in November 2018 by Abrams organization Fair Fight Action, alleges state officials “grossly mismanaged” the election. This mismanagement resulted in voters being disenfranchised — particularly low-income voters and people of color.

The lawsuit originally called for a major overhaul of the state’s elections. However, the scope narrowed after the state made changes that addressed some allegations and others were dismissed by the court.

The trial is scheduled to begin on April 18.

Even if US District Judge Steve Jones sides with Abrams’ team, it’s uncertain whether that will affect this year’s election. Jones and other federal judges are reluctant to order last-minute changes, noting that the Supreme Court has repeatedly said federal judges should not change the rules “on the eve of an election.”

Months before the 2018 election, Democrat Abrams accused her Republican gubernatorial opponent, then Secretary of State Brian Kemp, of using his position as Georgia’s chief election chief to encourage voter repression. This was an allegation that Kemp has continually denied.

More than three years since this fiercely contested contest captured national attention, focus on Georgia’s elections has only increased as the 2020 primary drew sharp criticism. Later that year, former President Donald Trump humiliated state officials who refused to reverse his narrow loss in the state’s general election.

Abrams will be the only Democrat running for governor. She will face Kemp again in November when he fends off a major challenge from former US Senator David Perdue.

Abrams’ Fair Fight said it works to advance suffrage and support progressive candidates across the country, and its PAC has raised more than $100 million since its inception. It filed the lawsuit along with Care in Action, a non-profit organization that advocates for domestic workers; Several churches have also joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs.

Fair Fight had collected testimony from people who said they had problems voting and the lawsuit identified several alleged problems, including: removing eligible voters from voter rolls under a “use it or lose it” policy that said so the state’s accurate voter registration regulations, insufficient number of voting machines in some constituencies, and insufficient training of polling officials. It asked a federal judge to find that election procedures in Georgia violate the US Constitution and federal law.

Georgia state attorneys argued that allegations in the lawsuit “are not supported by evidence.” They said the number, geographic scope and severity of the alleged problems faced by voters identified by Fair Fight “do not rise to a level sufficient to demonstrate an unconstitutional burden on voting in Georgia.” They also argued that the alleged issues mentioned were not the responsibility of the state officials named in the lawsuit.

GOP representative Marjorie Taylor Greene revealed last week that she reported Jimmy Kimmel to Capitol Police after the comedian joked that Will Smith should hit her too. Green (R-GA) said Kimmel’s joke, a reference to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, amounted to a “threat of violence.”

“ABC this threat of violence against me by @jimmykimmel has been filed with @CapitolPolice,” she tweeted.

In response to Greene’s outrage and the subsequent police report, Kimmel fired back on Twitter that night, tweeting, “Officer? I want to report a joke.”

Greene then told Kimmel, “It’s not a joke,” claiming he purposely provoked his audience into threatening her.

“Your fans called my office today in direct response to you inciting physical violence against me,” she tweeted. “It’s no joke. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

Kimmel made the joke about Greene on 4/5/22 “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after she tweeted on Twitter that the GOP-Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney are “pro-paedophiles” for saying they will vote to confirm Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court. Her comment was in response to claims by other Republicans that Jackson had previously let sex offenders off the hook with lenient sentences.

In his monologue, Jimmy Kimmel referred to the GOP rep as a “Klan mom” and said she was “particularly upset” by her fellow Republicans’ decision to confirm Jackson.

“Wow, where’s Will Smith when you really need him?” Kimmel then joked.

President Joe Biden has announced plans to welcome 100,000 Ukrainian refugees to the United States. Many African and Caribbean immigrants wonder why so many black refugees fleeing their conflict-torn countries have been denied similar humanitarian treatment.

Biden also announced that Ukrainians already in the US would be granted temporary protection status, meaning they would not be deported. Black immigrant advocates argued the president’s generosity was more than the US offered to Haitians who fled after a deadly earthquake and the assassination of their president. They also provoked the US response to Cameroonians displaced by their country’s civil war and to many black immigrants who were deported under what they call racist, xenophobic immigration policies.

“The reality is, unfortunately, there are a lot of people around the world who are experiencing similar things and don’t get that kind of urgency or attention from the US government,” said Samah Sisay, a Liberian immigrant who has worked for years as an immigration attorney and is now affiliated with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

“It’s just pure racism. There’s this feeling that Ukrainians are Europeans and so maybe the immigration system doesn’t see them as a threat in the way we see talk about black migrants,” Sisay said. “You see how there’s this double standard.”

Russia invaded Ukraine by land, air and sea last month, forcing thousands to various borders to leave the country. African citizens living in Ukraine reported incidents of racial discrimination and abuse at the country’s borders, including beatings, being denied boarding trains or being stuck in border towns.

There were other reports that highlighted the explicit differences in the way African and Middle Eastern refugees from Ukraine were welcomed compared to white Ukrainians in Western Europe. Just last month, a coalition of prominent civil rights lawyers from around the world announced it would appeal to the United Nations on behalf of black refugees fleeing the invasion.

Advocates have also said that racial differences are clear and are made even clearer by well-documented hardships faced by black immigrants and refugees in the United States. Black immigrants are also more likely to be deported than immigrants of other races. According to a report by the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, bail payments for black immigrants to escape detention centers and end family separations have consistently been higher than non-black immigrants.

“We’ve always known that African black people always get the worst of the worst,” said Bello, founder of the Cameroon American Council. “Ukraine has TPS after days of conflict, and after five years there is no Cameroonian TPS.”

Refugees and immigrants who have obtained temporary protection status can avoid deportation, get work permits and even travel for up to 18 months. The TPS designation is typically reserved for countries engaged in ongoing conflict, experiencing a devastating natural disaster, or “other exceptional transient conditions.” Officials announced the TPS designations for Ukraine in early March.