In my most sympathetic moment, I entertain the notion that maybe so many of those who support police actions in spite of the incredible violence of so many of those actions are, at the very least, selective authoritarians who trust the police in enforcing the law to the very letter.
If that is the case, then so many of them don’t read the law as written, nor do they read the history of such laws, nor do they care to because it takes too much time and energy to think that these laws are terrible when enforced literally (“if you hate the law, change it!”).
It’s not even a matter of Faulknerian references to how the past is still present, but that we never challenged nor removed these laws from the books.
Bad Georgia Laws Applied in Racially-Charged Ways
- school disturbance law (like Georgia Code 20-2-1181)
- Anti-loitering laws
- Cash bail for nonviolent offenses
- A Georgia law designed to allow teachers at segregated private schools to join desirable state pension programs
- Laws prohibiting insults to public school officials (like Georgia Code 20-2-1182)
- Laws allowing the governor to close public schools or suspend compulsory education laws
- Law authorizing state tuition payments to private schools
- Law authorizing leasing of school property to private institutions
