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She also told CNN Thursday: “I don’t mince words because I grew up around politicians who wanted to tell you what you want to hear but not tell you the truth, and I was raised to believe that you tell the truth. As a woman of color, as a black woman, as a person of color, I cannot be shy about my response, because any hint that I don’t think I’m qualified, that I don’t think we can is used as a justification for saying that we can’t.”
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Abrams, who would have been the nation’s first Black woman to serve as governor, won close to 49 percent of the vote in Georgia’s 2018 gubernatorial election, but she came just below 55,000 votes of beating then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who was supervising the election, according to the Secretary of State’s office. Abrams refused to concede. “I’m supposed to say nice things and accept my fate,” Abrams in her New York Times best-seller, Lead From the Outside. “I refused to be gaslighted into throwing away my power, diminishing my voice.”
Kemp went on to lead the state into the deadly coronavirus pandemic repeatedly defying expert advice. “What we’ve been telling people from directives from the CDC for weeks now—that if you start feeling bad stay home—those individuals could’ve been infecting people before they ever felt bad,” Kemp said April 1. “Well, we didn’t know that until the last 24 hours.” He announced an order requiring Georgians to shelter in place unless for essential purposes, making the state one of the last to take the common-sense step toward protecting residents. Kemp also made Georgia one of the first states to effectively end its stay-at-home order, allowing business owners to open everything from restaurants and nail salons to bowling alleys and tattoo parlors.
“The mayors of our largest cities have all expressed deep concern as have our scientists. Georgia is not flattening the curve. We have one of the highest rates of infection and one of the lowest rates of testing,” Abrams said on The View Wednesday. “This makes no sense and it doesn’t improve our economy. It simply puts more Georgians at risk.”
Rev. Al Sharpton listed Abrams as one of several Black women in politics he said Saturday can help Biden win and govern. “I’m excited about Stacey Abrams, who I think brings a lot to this country. I’m excited about Kamala Harris, Val Demings,” Sharpton said on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton. “There are qualified Black women.”
