D.A. and I (he always called me “cousin”) go back to my time as public editor of the AJC and his first appearances as being the head of the Dustin Inman Society, a group the newspaper characterized as being “ant-immigrant” when it first made the scene. He would call and demand retractions every time that label would appear, arguing, as you note, that the group was “anti-illegal immigrant,” that he and its members had no beef with legal immigrants. (I recall at the time that he made a big deal out of being married to a legal immigrant, so how could he be??.) He would also show up — along with a group of like-minded folks — at day-labor sites haranguing those seeking work with a bullhorn and calling on the cops to come and check their immigration status. (And when the cops showed up, the day laborers would disperse, proving his point, as far as he was concerned. He proudly displayed his protests on YouTube and, no doubt, got just not the cops attention but the attention of legislators and county sheriffs as well. (He was remarkably successful, as you note, with the sheriffs in Gwinnett and Cobb at persuading them they could indeed have immigration authority if they merely asked the feds for it.) I don’t really that we ever resolved the “anti-immigrant/anti-illegal immigrant” label to his satisfaction. I know we twisted ourselves in knots for a few years with weasel wording like “the group advocates for stricter immigration enforcement,” or some such, before it became got-damned obvious the Dustin Inman Society and D.A. King and their affiliated White Nationalists friends were anti-immigrant to the core. But I do know this, between the deaths of Dustin Inman and Laken Riley, D.A. cowed every Georgia Republican from Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss to Brian Kemp into participating in his crusade in one way or another.
So much of what we are seeing now, in GA and nationally, is built upon foundations laid decades ago. Thank for reminding me of this vile human. I’d forgotten him, and I needed to remember.
King was a boil on the butt of Georgia. One down, too many to go.
D.A. and I (he always called me “cousin”) go back to my time as public editor of the AJC and his first appearances as being the head of the Dustin Inman Society, a group the newspaper characterized as being “ant-immigrant” when it first made the scene. He would call and demand retractions every time that label would appear, arguing, as you note, that the group was “anti-illegal immigrant,” that he and its members had no beef with legal immigrants. (I recall at the time that he made a big deal out of being married to a legal immigrant, so how could he be??.) He would also show up — along with a group of like-minded folks — at day-labor sites haranguing those seeking work with a bullhorn and calling on the cops to come and check their immigration status. (And when the cops showed up, the day laborers would disperse, proving his point, as far as he was concerned. He proudly displayed his protests on YouTube and, no doubt, got just not the cops attention but the attention of legislators and county sheriffs as well. (He was remarkably successful, as you note, with the sheriffs in Gwinnett and Cobb at persuading them they could indeed have immigration authority if they merely asked the feds for it.) I don’t really that we ever resolved the “anti-immigrant/anti-illegal immigrant” label to his satisfaction. I know we twisted ourselves in knots for a few years with weasel wording like “the group advocates for stricter immigration enforcement,” or some such, before it became got-damned obvious the Dustin Inman Society and D.A. King and their affiliated White Nationalists friends were anti-immigrant to the core. But I do know this, between the deaths of Dustin Inman and Laken Riley, D.A. cowed every Georgia Republican from Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss to Brian Kemp into participating in his crusade in one way or another.
So much of what we are seeing now, in GA and nationally, is built upon foundations laid decades ago. Thank for reminding me of this vile human. I’d forgotten him, and I needed to remember.