On its face, the legal showdown between Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms over the legality of the city’s face mask mandate is a dispute over the right balance between personal freedom and public health.
But the increasingly bitter feud between the Republican governor, an acolyte of President Donald Trump, and the Democratic mayor, a possible vice presidential pick who, herself, has tested positive for Covid-19, is also a microcosm of the fault lines — political, racial, geographic — hampering the country’sresponse to the coronavirus pandemic and fueling an outbreak that now appears to be spinning out of control.
Atlanta City Council Member Antonio Brown says the failure to contain the virus is hurting “our most vulnerable communities, which are black and brown communities,” the most. “While we’re pointing fingers, we’re not getting the work of the people done. We’re not saving lives. We’re not protecting our communities that need to be protected.”