On this day in 1967, the iconic folk singer Woody Guthrie died of Huntington's disease. Impermanence is swift. But on that same day that Guthrie died, comic book illustrator Rob Liefeld, creator of the character Deadpool, was born. The circle of life and all that.
The scheme for secession of the Buckhead district out of the City of Atlanta continues apace. In the conversations and comments that I see on line, those for and against the idea fall along on opposite sides of the fault line in American politics. Conservatives are for it and progressives are against it.
I'm a progressive, so it's no surprise that I'm against it. But I'm also very much an urbanist. I like cities - the bigger the better - and I feel most alive and vital when I'm in an urban environment. The City of Atlanta proper has a population of only 498,715, making it the 38th largest city in the U.S., but the metropolitan area, which includes an area far larger that the Atlanta city limits, has the 9th largest metropolitan population in the country. I wish it were larger, but I can make do in this city.
I'm in favor of increased mass transit, and would be happiest if a car was not only unnecessary, but inconvenient. I like diversity - in entertainment options, in cuisine, in racial demographics, and in culture. I still haven't forgiven the Braves for moving out of downtown and out to the suburbs, and I'll probably never cheer for them again. So naturally, I'm against the idea of breaking up the city with a secessionist movement.
The reason most people cite to justify secession is crime, along with corruption, alleged mismanagement of tax money, and City services. But the obvious subtext that no one discusses out loud is race.
I understand the City of Atlanta, including Buckhead, is currently 51% African-American and 41% white. Buckhead itself is only 11% African-American and 76% white. I don't have the precise numbers available, but it seems obvious that if Buckhead, with its sizable white population, were to secede, the remaining City of Atlanta would be predominantly black, and the new Buckhead City would be predominantly white. The Atlanta metropolitan area would consist of two cities - one black and one white. What could possibly go wrong with that?
This would, effectively, be segregation. Segregation by secession. The fact that the Chairman and CEO of the pro-secession Buckhead City Committee is named Bill White is a coincidence. Perhaps we should discard the charade of claiming crime is the issue and name the new city after its leader, and just go ahead and call it what it will be - "White City."
White and the other proponents of Buckhead cityhood claim the new city would have a much larger police presence to keep black people out to help deter crime. How long do you think it will be before the police in White City start racially profiling persons of color, pulling them over and arresting them in inordinate numbers? How long do you think it will be before some White City policeperson kills an unarmed person of color and triggers another George Floyd/Rayshard Brooks-type protest?
With the inevitable racial tensions and distrust that will develop between the two adjacent but segregated cities, the reaction will be violent and explosive. My home is in the southernmost part of the proposed White City, near the proposed boundary between Atlanta and White City. I would be on the front lines of the battle.
After decades of Jim Crow, segregation, and red-lining and all of the well documented problems associated with all of that, it's staggering to think that in 2021 people are still promoting creation of White City.
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