Agreed. That’s a real problem, including here in ATL… but in this case, you do see a lot more diversity in gentrifying class than existed in other waves of gentrification (thinking of NYC in the 90s and early 2000s). There was already a well-established Black middle class here, too. It’s largely working class Black Atlantans and some of the immigrants on the East side that are being pushed out. And there are still some areas that remain working class. The biggest point of struggle is around the Beltline, which many young people want to move to, because it has the promise of have lots of walkable neighborhoods (ATL isn’t exactly known for being a public transit/walkable city, sadly). The way the city has tried to handle it is through tax cuts for building higher density, mixed income apartment developments with mixed use (having shopping incorporated). It seems to me that there needs to be far more ambitious programs, though, that actively preserves the nature of working class Black communities and gives them the benefits of gentrification without pushing people out. There are programs like the Atlanta Land Trust, which is trying to preserve housing prices in some of the working class neighborhoods, especially on the West Side (many of the in town neighborhoods in the east are already pretty gentrified, like Kirkwood).
I think that if ATL can thread that needle of both promoting economic development, but stemming the loss of our Black working class communities within the city and giving them a leg up in terms of building generational wealth, that could be a model for other cities across the country (whatever their racial and class make up). Inclusive, affordable, green cities should be our goal moving forward for all cities.
Gross. Remember when cops were getting off pulling over black drivers to give them ice cream, and having a big yuckety yuk about how scared they were at first and then how utterly relieved when they just got ice cream?
Same caliber of humor.
So how about we just erase the history of how Black people got here and wound in the economic and social situation they are in? That seems like a unifying and noble endeavor, doesn’t it? Then, it’s much easier to blame them! And we can all feel good about it! Win, win. God, I hate right wing thought process. I hate even more that it sort of makes sense, in a hellspawned kind of way.
It’s projection, all the way down. Now they claim to be fighting against indoctrination and revisionist history. This is after spending decades and millions of dollars indoctrinating their followers through a twisted blend of religion, capitalism, and patriotism - promoted on social media, as well as multiple TV and radio networks. At the same time, they’ve been making sure school textbooks remained full of their version of history.
So they’re worried future generations might not be force fed their beliefs. That’s rich. I’m worried about the adults running around now who were raised on them and have been putting their ignorance on display in increasingly dangerous ways since 2016. What combination of reverse psychology, TV series, educational songs, and serialized mystery podcasts is it gonna take to get some actual facts into the heads of their followers? I keep thinking about the film They Live, and wondering if our only hope is to gradually replace the messages in some broadcasts with the complete opposite.
Glad there is some progress, but this story still leaves all the big questions unanswered. They still don’t know what happened to him. How he went from smoking weed (apparently given to him by the 37 yo Irvin) to being found dead is still completely unkown.
Its also depressing that it sounds like the only reason that Irvin was arrested is that the parents hired a private investigator.
Hopefully there will remain national pressure on the Iberia parish sheriff (and LA state police) until there are real answers.
