What It Takes To Build A New South In America
Ground Game: Georgia is a podcast miniseries that tells first-person stories from inside the organizations on the ground that are registering voters, getting them to the polls, and fighting voter suppression during the Senate runoff elections.
Getting voters to the polls is hard work, and doubly difficult when intentionally-created obstacles are strewn in their way. Welcome to the South, where conservative campaigns to keep certain Americans from exercising their constitutional right to participate in the electoral process have prevailed in states like Georgia for generations.
But in recent decades, organizations like SONG (Southerners On New Ground) and SONG Power are toppling old regimes. With newer strategies and deep resilience, they center and uplift LGBTQ+ communities of color.
As Robert-John Hinojosa, SONG Power Campaign Lead, tells Ground Game: Georgia, “We believe the Old South is going to fall, and as it falls we’re going to create a new South, and that South will be on new ground … ground that recognized the indigenous peoples who were murdered so this land could be here, and to recognize the black bodies that were stolen to build this land, to create this empire.”
So, how does one overthrow an empire? It always starts with the people. Not just galvanizing them for a cause, but including them in every aspect of the process from the very beginning. And SONG starts where many too full with privilege forget to look: The databases.
With gender binaries still used as the standard in the US Census and other official documentation, SONG set out to build their own database with better capacity to include LGBTQ+ (and particularly trans) communities.
Listen to the full episode of Ground Game: Georgia to hear more about how SONG created this database, as well as …
… WHAT IT TAKES TO “WALK AND CHEW GUM” AS AN ACTIVIST
There are a plethora of needs, both on the ground at home and in Washington. Activists know how to tend to both.
“We want, in the next seven weeks as we’re doing this runoff, to let people know what’s up, why this is paramount for us as a nation, but also we still have needs on the ground that are happening right now. We need to be aware and concentrated on those needs as we build this. And we’re going to do it at the same time. We can chew gum and walk. We’ve been able to do it. And that’s why I’m honored and blessed to be around these dope-ass queers who are like, “You know what? We’re going to run shit in Georgia.”
… THE ART OF THE DISRUPTION WAR
Robert-John breaks down what it takes to disrupt harmful policies across enemy lines.
“We needed to decide what fights we were going to get into, and what those fights were going to look like. So we decided to throw down in Gwinnett and Cobb County in their fight for the sheriffs. The sheriffs upheld 287G, which allows police officers to operate as ICE agents and police stations to operate as ICE detention centers … we wanted to have sheriffs who are going to be like, “Nah, I don’t fuck with 287G. I don’t want my community to be in fear nor do I want to completely racially profile my community either, right? We’re here to protect and serve.”
… DEADING TRANSACTIONAL COMMUNITY ACTIVISM
The truth is, some people may not vote. That doesn’t mean that their needs should be ignored.
“Our relationships cannot be transactional. We’ve been treated as commodities before. We’ve been treated– our bodies and communities — as things that can be exchanged and bartered. We’re not going to do that to our people, and we’re not going to do it over an electoral process for sure, one that never has been beneficial to us in the long term.”
To learn more about how Robert-John Hinojosa and SONG Power are fighting for LGBTQ+ communities and building a New South, listen to this episode of Ground Game: Georgia wherever you get your podcasts, and visit https://southernersonnewground.org/.
