Activist groups around the country are pressuring corporations, businesses, and sports leagues to boycott the state of Georgia after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed select election reforms into law.
Sporting leagues such as Major League Baseball and the PGA Tour are some of the main targets of the leftist-led pressure campaign to oppose the state’s newest voting requirements, such as mandating photo ID for absentee ballots, election reforms that Democrats strongly oppose and that President Joe Biden claimed are “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”
With big events such as the Master’s Tournament and MLB All-Star Game both scheduled to be hosted in the state, activist organizations such as the National Black Justice Coalition and the Major League Baseball Players Association, a trade union, are demanding actions by the leagues to demonstrate clear opposition to the new law.
“The PGA Tour and Masters Tournament have both made commitments to help diversify golf and address racial inequities in this country — and we expect them to not only speak out against Georgia’s new racist voter suppression law — but to also take action,” the National Black Justice Coalition said.
“Players are very much aware of the Georgia voting bill, which places restrictions on voting that some believe will make it particularly difficult for black voters to reach the polls,” the MLB Players Association executive director said. “As it relates to the All-Star Game, we have not had a conversation with the league on that issue. If there is an opportunity to, we would look forward to having that conversation.”
Film director James Mangold, who is responsible for multiple films such as “Girl, Interrupted,” “Logan,” and “The Wolverine,” is also among those examining ways to punish the state for the new law. Last week, the director said he would no longer work on films within the state, an ultimatum similar to Hollywood actors, directors, and producers’ empty threats to leave Georgia in 2019 if the governor signed a “heartbeat bill” seeking to ban abortion after a baby’s heartbeat is detected in the womb.
I will not direct a film in Georgia.
— Mangold (@mang0ld) March 26, 2021
While some such as Stacey Abrams’ organization the New Georgia Project and Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter have warned that a boycott could “hurt middle-class workers and people grappling with poverty” in the Peach State, other groups such as Black Voters Matter and the African Methodist Episcopal Church are boycotting major global companies that have headquarters or operate in Georgia, including Coca-Cola, unless they take a specific stand against the new election law.
“[If ] Coca-Cola wants black and brown people to drink their product, then they must speak up when our rights, our lives, and our very democracy as we know it is under attack,” Bishop Reginald Jackson said at a rally in Atlanta last week, shortly before #BoycottCocaCola starting trending on Twitter. He also said Coca-Cola’s eagerness to “speak out against racism” last summer seems to have shifted because they have been “mighty quiet about this.”
Coca-Cola recently released a statement noting that it agreed with election “improvements that would enhance accessibility, maximize voter participation, maintain election integrity, and serve all Georgians,” but that did not stop the pushback the company received from organizations.
Insurance company Aflac and Delta Air Lines also released statements in support of “easy and accessible” exercise of “voting as a fundamental right” after pressure from groups such as Democracy Docket.
Many of the same companies caving to the leftist pressure to take a stance against the newest voting law in Georgia operate without any objection in other countries and areas around the world with severe voting restrictions and election laws, such as Hong Kong.
