Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 2: You are listening to.
Speaker 1: It's four oh four day.
Speaker 3: For those not from the city.
Speaker 1: Fall Fall Day is Atlanta Day, the day we celebrate
Speaker 1: everything Atlanta.
Speaker 2: What you got for us?
Speaker 3: Katie well An anecdote.
Speaker 4: Two years ago. I had just been laid off, riding
Speaker 4: around the city, probably looking for tacos, when a song
Speaker 4: I had never heard of came on. I didn't know
Speaker 4: it yet, but the song was about to go viral
Speaker 4: and cause a star in Atlanta and the surrounding areas.
Speaker 4: So I'm driving down ponds right, dodging potholes, and Amaretta
Speaker 4: the Great song Sorry Not Sorry comes on?
Speaker 3: You heard of it?
Speaker 4: The one where she's saying, who is and isn't Atlanta exactly?
Speaker 4: For the uninitiated, Amareda the Great calls out different locations
Speaker 4: in the Atlanta metro for not being Atlanta, College Park,
Speaker 4: clay Coo, Decatur, Roswell, etc.
Speaker 3: Etc.
Speaker 4: I'm rid of the Great asserts that she's an a baby,
Speaker 4: so she gotta.
Speaker 3: Start pulling folks cards. She says she and other real.
Speaker 4: At Aliens had to live in the zoo where you
Speaker 4: don't make it out so I don't give a fuck
Speaker 4: what they say.
Speaker 2: Okay girl, but is that a flex?
Speaker 3: And not to get off on its tangent.
Speaker 4: But the music video for this song was shot at
Speaker 4: the New Braves Baseball Stadium, which is also not Atlanta.
Speaker 3: But I digress.
Speaker 4: Being someone who's been here since child, I've seen the
Speaker 4: city change so much, so I thought the punchline for
Speaker 4: the song would be Atlanta.
Speaker 3: It's not Atlanta.
Speaker 2: That's a hot take.
Speaker 4: I mean, think about it. With the gentrification of Atlanta,
Speaker 4: the culture that Atlanta has broadcasted to the world has
Speaker 4: been pushed out to the suburbs and beyond the same places.
Speaker 4: I'm rid of the great calls out for not being Atlanta.
Speaker 4: I'm struck by all the murals around the city with
Speaker 4: black women with gold grills and bands who knots and
Speaker 4: neighborhoods they used to be black but are decidedly not anymore.
Speaker 3: It's like the city.
Speaker 4: Puts black folks in the public art once it has
Speaker 4: successfully priced out all the real niggas. But the myth
Speaker 4: of this magical land for black people persists.
Speaker 2: I'm Katie and I'm Eves.
Speaker 4: In today's episode The Myth of Atlanta.
Speaker 2: So for four or four day You're coming for Atlanta's nick.
Speaker 4: I mean yeah. I think James Ballways said it best.
Speaker 4: I love America more than any other country in the world,
Speaker 4: and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right
Speaker 4: to criticize her perpetually. And that's how I feel about Atlanta.
Speaker 4: I love the city so much, and I want to
Speaker 4: see it be the city it purports to be.
Speaker 2: That's fair enough. Let's hear these myths.
Speaker 4: Before I get into the particular miss of Atlanta. Are
Speaker 4: you familiar with the tale of Atalanta, the renowned huntress
Speaker 4: of Greek mythology.
Speaker 2: Not really tell me about it.
Speaker 4: At Talanta was known for her exceptional speed and unwavering
Speaker 4: commitment to virginity. She declared that she would only marry
Speaker 4: the man who could beat her in a foot race.
Speaker 4: She also declared that any man who lost to her
Speaker 4: would be killed immediately. This served to dissuade would be suitors,
Speaker 4: as at Talanta was known as one of the fastest
Speaker 4: runners in history and was confident that no man would
Speaker 4: best her. One of the suitors, Hippomenus, challenged Attlanta to race,
Speaker 4: but he knew he couldn't beat her based on his
Speaker 4: speed alone, with the help of the goddess Aphrodite, Hippomenus
Speaker 4: executed his plan. He placed three golden apples along the
Speaker 4: race's route, each more irresistible than the last. Caught off
Speaker 4: guard by the shimmering temptation, Atalanta couldn't resist pausing to
Speaker 4: retrieve the golden apples. In that pivotal moment, her focus wavered,
Speaker 4: allowing Hippomytus to surge ahead and claim victory in the race.
Speaker 4: In his Essay of the Wings of Atalanta, which is
Speaker 4: the fifth chapter of the Salts of Black Folk, du
Speaker 4: Bois revisits the myth of Atalanta and its relevance to
Speaker 4: the city of Atlanta. He states, if Atlanta be not
Speaker 4: named for Atalanta, she ought to have been. Du Bois
Speaker 4: warns against being tempted into thinking that golden apples are
Speaker 4: the goal of racing and not mere incidents. By the way,
Speaker 4: he uses his myth to critique the materialistic pursuits and
Speaker 4: values that he observed in the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Dubois is onto something.
Speaker 1: I think it makes sense for him to draw that
Speaker 1: connection between the two, and you know, I love a
Speaker 1: connection to sort of mythology in something.
Speaker 2: So he has some points.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I first heard of the myth while reading doctor Maurice
Speaker 4: Jay Hobson's The Legend of the Black Mecca, Politics and
Speaker 4: Class and the Making of Modern Atlanta. In that book,
Speaker 4: he traces the rise of the black elite and the
Speaker 4: bargains they made for prosperity. The book illuminates the wide
Speaker 4: gap between the black political elite and the poor city dwellers.
Speaker 4: It really complicates the long held view of Atlanta as
Speaker 4: this mecca for black people. The book conformed a lot
Speaker 4: of my thoughts about Atlanta as a myth maker. So
Speaker 4: let's get into these myths. Myth Number one Atlanta is
Speaker 4: the City Too Busy to Hate. To promote Atlanta as
Speaker 4: a racially progressive city and to distinguish Atlanta from the
Speaker 4: racial violence occurring in other Southern cities, city leaders coined
Speaker 4: the moniker the City too Busy to Hate in the
Speaker 4: nineteen sixties. Here's Ambassador Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta,
Speaker 4: reflecting on what he's most proud of about Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I'm most proud of the fact that we set out
Speaker 1: a slogan as cided to visit the hate, and it
Speaker 1: looks like we're living.
Speaker 4: Up to it. Blying this phrase were the deeply embedded
Speaker 4: segregation laws, policies, and practices that restricted all aspects of
Speaker 4: black folks lives. But Black Alantans were making progress, but
Speaker 4: always within the constraints of racial inequality. For example, in
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty the city of Atlanta had forty two barks
Speaker 4: for whites, three for blacks, twelve swimming pools for whites
Speaker 4: again three for blacks, sixteen recreation centers for whites. Guess
Speaker 4: how many for blacks three three thirty for blacks. There
Speaker 4: were four thousand hospital beds available for whites in only
Speaker 4: seven hundred and eighty for black folks. And despite some
Speaker 4: three hundred thousand African American citizens of Atlanta, no African
Speaker 4: Americans were serving on the Atlanta Board of Aldermen, Board
Speaker 4: of Education, nor the boards for recreation, the library, or
Speaker 4: public welfare. Separate and unequal, And even after the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court had ruled against segregation in schools in nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 4: Atlanta schools remained segregated until nineteen sixty one. Gradie Hospital
Speaker 4: was ordered by the Supreme Court to desegregate all of
Speaker 4: its facilities in nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 2: Do you think Grady did that, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: It waited till nineteen sixty five to fully desegregate.
Speaker 1: It sounds like Atlanta still made time to hate, basically exactly.
Speaker 3: Atlanta was busy, but it made time.
Speaker 1: So where did the phrase come from? Did people like
Speaker 1: come together and vote on the city motto or something?
Speaker 3: Girl? No Girl?
Speaker 4: This was a marketing campaign created by Helen Ballard, a
Speaker 4: Coca Cola employee, and endorsed by and popularized by then
Speaker 4: mayor Ivan Allen. Have you heard this phrase before?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had heard it before.
Speaker 3: What were your first impressions when you heard it?
Speaker 1: So it sounds very rose colored glasses, very like harp
Speaker 1: sound in the background, rainbow, the city too busy to hate.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was before my era where people
Speaker 1: were really serious about it. You know, I grew up
Speaker 1: in the nineties in Atlanta, but I never I guess
Speaker 1: I never fell for it because I saw the world
Speaker 1: around me.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a low income area. I grew
Speaker 2: up where niggas was fighting.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're hating and we're writing, all right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I never fell for it.
Speaker 3: So you've been woke, girl?
Speaker 2: I always saying that definitely would never say that about myself.
Speaker 3: But I'm giving woke.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll take you there.
Speaker 4: So the slogan highlighted Atlanta's commitment to economic growth, emphasizing
Speaker 4: the city that prioritized business development and cooperation across racial
Speaker 4: lines rather than racial division. This strategy helped attract businesses, investors,
Speaker 4: and visitors to Atlanta. As we see, Atlanta is full.
Speaker 4: I know you don't believe that, but no, I.
Speaker 3: Don't believe that, but in attractive visitors.
Speaker 4: It showcased the city that was forward thinking, and it
Speaker 4: really set the stage for Atlanta's reputation in the country
Speaker 4: and throughout the world.
Speaker 1: The word choice of the phrase is really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Too busy to hate, not too moral, not too kind,
Speaker 1: and not too intelligent, just busy.
Speaker 4: They're like, girl, I'll hate you later when I got
Speaker 4: time moved.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It was purely marketing, aimed to set Atlanta apart from
Speaker 4: other cities in the Deep South like Jackson, Montgomery, Birmingham,
Speaker 4: and as I mentioned before, Atlanta had its racial disparities
Speaker 4: too in public accommodations and representation in local politics.
Speaker 3: And in nineteen o six, white.
Speaker 4: Atlantans committed a bitter massacre against Black Atlantin's killing at
Speaker 4: least twenty five people in wounding dozens.
Speaker 3: But I know what you're thinking.
Speaker 2: What am I thinking?
Speaker 3: That was nineteen oh six?
Speaker 4: Atlanta became the City Too Busy to Hate in the
Speaker 4: nineteen sixties. The city has moved on.
Speaker 2: You got me?
Speaker 4: Well, let me tell you about the Summer Hill Rebellion
Speaker 4: of nineteen sixty six, which happened while Ivan Allen was mayor.
Speaker 3: And spreading the city too Busy to Hate gospel.
Speaker 2: I'm listening.
Speaker 4: The rebellion began following the police shooting of an unarmed
Speaker 4: black man named Harold Prather, sparking protests against ongoing inequities
Speaker 4: such as discriminatory policing, poor housing, inadequate public services, and
Speaker 4: urban renewal policies affecting the neighborhood. Mayor Ivan Allen blamed
Speaker 4: Stokely Carmichael and the Student nine Violent Coordinating Committee also
Speaker 4: known as SNICK for inciting violence, using that all too
Speaker 4: familiar outside agitator's trope to explain why Summer Hill was rebelling.
Speaker 4: In a photo essay pamphlet I found in Ivan Allen's
Speaker 4: archive at Georgia Tech, Julius Leicester wrote about why they rebelled.
Speaker 1: Thus it began. How many other times had white policemen
Speaker 1: shot black men? How many other times had white policemen
Speaker 1: beaten black men and taken them off to jail? How
Speaker 1: many other times? But this time was the one time
Speaker 1: too many. In Cleveland, it was not being able to
Speaker 1: get a glass of water in a bar run by
Speaker 1: a white man. In Watts, it was the simple arrest
Speaker 1: of two men on a traffic violation, always something that
Speaker 1: has happened an infinite number of times before, but on
Speaker 1: one occasion it becomes the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back.
Speaker 1: His testimony definitely doesn't align with what Ivan Allen would
Speaker 1: like to telegraph about Atlanta to the rest of the world.
Speaker 4: Nah, it was indirect opposition, and Julius Luster calls out
Speaker 4: directly how black politicians are used as mouthpieces to quell
Speaker 4: dissent from the black masses.
Speaker 3: He writes.
Speaker 1: Ivan Allan says Snick is responsible for the rebellions. Those
Speaker 1: black men he has bought off with tea and cookies
Speaker 1: can say, as did the Reverend Otis Smith. Our main
Speaker 1: concern is Stokely Carmichael. Whether or not we have a
Speaker 1: riot is up to him. The Reverend William Holmes Borders
Speaker 1: can say, We've got to stop him before he stops us.
Speaker 2: Doctor O. W.
Speaker 1: Davis can say, mister Carmichael is an albatross around our next.
Speaker 1: Whether Snick lives or dies is not important, because the
Speaker 1: black community will continue to fight until a society is
Speaker 1: created in which the black man will be able to
Speaker 1: fulfill himself. In that society, there will be no place
Speaker 1: for the Ivan Allens who think a city's image and
Speaker 1: progress can be separated from the people of that city.
Speaker 4: I think it shows that because this was are in
Speaker 4: in nineteen sixty six, and actually in Ivan Allen's archive
Speaker 4: there was a note saying that they got it from
Speaker 4: a Negro girl passing it out on the street. So
Speaker 4: I think sometimes we can get this idea that people
Speaker 4: were like buy into this back then wait, they got.
Speaker 2: What from a Negro girl passing out on the street.
Speaker 4: They got the photo essay that the quotes come from. Okay,
Speaker 4: like they were passing it on the street, trying to
Speaker 4: get people to understand why they were rebelling. And it
Speaker 4: just shows that, like people were aware that this myth
Speaker 4: was in fact a myth. It wasn't true you know,
Speaker 4: they're doing urban renewal what we would call like gentrification now,
Speaker 4: but the urban renewal is very violent.
Speaker 3: They were just coming in and knocking down people's homes.
Speaker 4: I'm going to be condemned. There's a picture in the
Speaker 4: essay of a man just like holding up a rat.
Speaker 4: These are the conditions they were living in, and they
Speaker 4: saw that it was violent to have people living like
Speaker 4: this in your city while you're like telegraphing this like
Speaker 4: international great city to the world.
Speaker 3: That's violence and that's hateful.
Speaker 4: And I think just this artifact that I'm very glad
Speaker 4: that they have it in the archive, shows that people
Speaker 4: were already aware that this was some bs even back then.
Speaker 1: Governments and politicians and authorities and power make it seem
Speaker 1: like the people can't see what the hell is going
Speaker 1: on right in front of them. It's like, I can
Speaker 1: starkly see this big difference between how you're portraying the
Speaker 1: city to the outside world and how we're literally living it.
Speaker 2: And this made that clear.
Speaker 4: And it's like this was a public kitchen that was
Speaker 4: very grassroots, like you're not going to see this in
Speaker 4: the AJAC not at this time. You're not going to
Speaker 4: turn on the evening news and hear the members of
Speaker 4: Synic saying that there's going to be no room for
Speaker 4: Ivan Allen's if they think the city's image can be
Speaker 4: separated from the people. You know, they're not going to
Speaker 4: get that airtime. So you have to put it out
Speaker 4: to yourself, you know, passing it out on the corner,
Speaker 4: like hey, hey, you heard the news, like this is
Speaker 4: what we do and this is why we're doing it,
Speaker 4: Just like putting it out theirself and not really waiting
Speaker 4: on these establishment places to validate your experience and how
Speaker 4: you see what's going on right before your eyes.
Speaker 2: And I think it's powerful for it to be.
Speaker 1: We've talked about previously in episodes about the power of
Speaker 1: photos and storytelling and how they can really show what
Speaker 1: was happening. But you know, in this way, often when
Speaker 1: we have situations like this, when the media is misrepresenting
Speaker 1: the reasons that protests are happening, you end up having
Speaker 1: to create a counter narrative. But it feels even wrong
Speaker 1: for me to use the term counter narrative because it's
Speaker 1: really the true narrative and the media's narrative is the
Speaker 1: counter narrative. But that's what it becomes because whoever is involved,
Speaker 1: whatever the mainstream media says is the thing that's going
Speaker 1: to settle into people's spirits because that's the thing.
Speaker 4: They're going to hear over and over. It's going to
Speaker 4: be the historical record exactly. So you got to come
Speaker 4: up with your own. And I think the picture is
Speaker 4: really like you can say, so you're blue in the face,
Speaker 4: like this is what they're doing.
Speaker 3: But that picture of the man who owed the rat,
Speaker 3: I don't need to hear nothing else.
Speaker 1: All I need to see was a rat, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, no more evidence needed, no care close,
Speaker 1: Like this is germ.
Speaker 3: How would you get a hold of this?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe you.
Speaker 4: But what really strikes me about the myth is Atlanta's
Speaker 4: focus on outside perception versus internal relations. It's kind of
Speaker 4: like a microcosm for America itself. I know you've heard
Speaker 4: of the myth of American exceptionalism, and I think that's
Speaker 4: what this myth is getting to Atlanta. Exceptionalism, Like it's
Speaker 4: just not the case for the majority of black people
Speaker 4: who call the city home. And this myth is really
Speaker 4: foundational to the city's lore. And appeal. And this Atlanta
Speaker 4: exceptionalism is still weaponized today. Remember during Atlanta's twenty twenty
Speaker 4: George Floyd protests, when protesters took to downtown and Atlanta
Speaker 4: Americacilia's Bottom held a press conference with rappers Killer Mike
Speaker 4: and Ti, and Ti said.
Speaker 5: Atlanta is a place where we can set an example
Speaker 5: of prosperity. When you don't get treated right in New York,
Speaker 5: when you don't get treated right in LA, when you
Speaker 5: don't get treated right in Alabama, Atlanta has been here
Speaker 5: for this city.
Speaker 4: Don't deserve it.
Speaker 5: We can't do this here. This is what condo, It's sacred,
Speaker 5: must be protected.
Speaker 4: This is what kanda, Atlanta's special.
Speaker 3: We don't do that here.
Speaker 4: Mind you, these are multi millionaires who made a lot
Speaker 4: of money talking about how Atlanta is the trap the
Speaker 4: hood both sold drugs and did other illegal activities in
Speaker 4: their youth at least what is still doing very illegal
Speaker 4: things in the city to this day, allegedly. But when
Speaker 4: a coalition of people come together demanding better for the
Speaker 4: city from elected officials and from sworn quote peace officers,
Speaker 4: you get on TV and tell them to stop, tell
Speaker 4: them to respect law and private property.
Speaker 3: Because this is Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he didn't fall out say the city too busy
Speaker 1: to hate, but it's like he internalized it. It's like
Speaker 1: this little marketing slogan is the bloodstream of so many
Speaker 1: folks in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: That's the thing about marketing slogans, right, They're catchy, often
Speaker 4: earworms that stick with us, and most importantly, they're selling something,
Speaker 4: and unfortunately too many of us have bought in.
Speaker 1: Stay with us because after the break, we'll get into
Speaker 1: myth number two.
Speaker 4: And we're back with more myths about Atlanta. Myth number two,
Speaker 4: Black political representation is a win for all black Atlantans.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of Keisha Lance Bottom summoning Killer Mike and
Speaker 1: t I during George Floyd protests, I remember when she
Speaker 1: was elected in twenty eighteen and there were shirts and
Speaker 1: buttons and status updates that proudly stated I have a
Speaker 1: mayor named Keisha, as if having an identifiably black name
Speaker 1: automatically makes you gang gang.
Speaker 4: And this isn't a new phenomenon in the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 4: It goes way back before Atlanta even had a black mayor.
Speaker 4: Pop quiz uh oh okay, So what time period did
Speaker 4: the moniker black Mecca come.
Speaker 2: About nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3: Okay, why do you think that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like girl, just because like the city
Speaker 1: was burgeoning, you know, but it was still pre sixties.
Speaker 2: I think it came before a more modern era.
Speaker 4: Okay, I could see why you would say that, but
Speaker 4: it actually started way before it actually happened in the
Speaker 4: eighteen sixties. So remember there's like the Freedman Bureau was around,
Speaker 4: that was in Atlanta, and so there's also the Battle
Speaker 4: of Antietam in Maryland, which was a Union victory that
Speaker 4: gave the North a lot of momentum in the Civil War.
Speaker 4: So when General Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground, newly
Speaker 4: free slaves followed him to Atlanta and found refuge here
Speaker 4: because there was a lot of Union troops around, and
Speaker 4: you know, the South lost. So Atlanta they're like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is the new South. We're focusing on industry development.
Speaker 4: You know, they lost all their free labor from the
Speaker 4: slaves Civil Wars, so they're like, we're a new city.
Speaker 3: We're going to be industrious being.
Speaker 2: Focused on industry. That sounds really familiar.
Speaker 4: Some things never changed, and it was also in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: Piedmont Park specifically where Booker T. Washington delivered the infamous
Speaker 4: Atlanta Compromise speech. Here's a pull quote from Booker T.
Speaker 1: The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of
Speaker 1: questions of social equality is the extremist folly.
Speaker 4: In other words, black and white leaders agreed that Black
Speaker 4: Atlantans would submit to white political rule in exchange for
Speaker 4: education and due process under law. It really codified segregation
Speaker 4: and struck a deal with white supremacists. But some middle
Speaker 4: class black Atlanta's did benefit, particularly business owners. There was
Speaker 4: a cluster of businesses on Auburn, av And Hunter Street,
Speaker 4: and you know, the city was segregated, so they had
Speaker 4: to study stream of customers. They was.
Speaker 1: They was cool with it, but black folks still can't
Speaker 1: vote or really participate in civic life fully.
Speaker 3: Nope, couldn't.
Speaker 4: Georgia had an all white primary until nineteen forty and afterwards,
Speaker 4: black leaders John Wesley Dobbs and At Walden founded the
Speaker 4: Atlanta Negro Voters League, which basically broker deals with white
Speaker 4: political candidates like, oh, we'll get the black people to
Speaker 4: vote for you, Like we're gonna support this group. But
Speaker 4: they didn't really consult Atlanta's black working classes.
Speaker 3: They're just like, yeah, so.
Speaker 1: They just picked without seeing what regular black folks wanted.
Speaker 4: Basically, yeah, like back room handshakes type of deal. Scholar
Speaker 4: Tamiko Brown Nagan calls this tactic the Atlanta way. Black
Speaker 4: elites compromise with white business leaders at the expense of
Speaker 4: the poor.
Speaker 1: But still using the poor to win elections and ignoring
Speaker 1: their needs once in office.
Speaker 3: Ugh, don't it sound familiar?
Speaker 4: M M? I mean we're seeing the same thing right
Speaker 4: now today with Mayor Andre Dickens and cop City. Nobody
Speaker 4: wants it, but it's see Atlanta way. So now we
Speaker 4: got the city of Atlanta cutting down a forest during
Speaker 4: a climate crisis, mind you to build a training facility
Speaker 4: to teach cops to kill Nigga's.
Speaker 2: Better tell us how you really feel.
Speaker 4: I'm just calling it how it is. And Atlanta has
Speaker 4: a long history of doing this for decades, Black leadership
Speaker 4: has elevated white elites and business interests, even when, maybe
Speaker 4: especially when they go against the wants and demands of
Speaker 4: the black masses. And when it first started, poor black
Speaker 4: Atlanta saw these black leaders as puppets or simply white
Speaker 4: men in black face.
Speaker 1: And I know, folks in the city still feel the
Speaker 1: same way, especially when these actions impact their day to day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and current black leaders are aware of this, you know,
Speaker 4: they're aware of how they're perceived. Here's Mayor Andre Dickens
Speaker 4: at Morehouse trying to convince black students that cop City,
Speaker 4: a militarized police training center, was good for the black community.
Speaker 1: That's like a classic case of telling people that they're hurt,
Speaker 1: where protesters stand up in a situation and them actually
Speaker 1: not being hurt because he completely dismissed what they were
Speaker 1: saying and basically was deeming it invalid in that moment.
Speaker 1: But it's like, let your these people are your constituents.
Speaker 1: There are people who voted for you, maybe some of them,
Speaker 1: some of them aren't, but they live in your city.
Speaker 1: This is a city that you're claiming to take care
Speaker 1: of and to care about and to be doing actions
Speaker 1: that are supposed to be moving the city for for
Speaker 1: its residents. And just merely or simply saying you're not
Speaker 1: a sellout when there are so many things that say
Speaker 1: the exact opposite that are on that resume, so many
Speaker 1: actions that are on that resume. You're telling us to
Speaker 1: check out is cognitive dissonance. I don't know what else
Speaker 1: to call it.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're trying to highlight the black stuff, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean playing basketball with y'all, I may die the fuck. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's very interesting that clip in particular, because like you're
Speaker 4: trying to tell these black men you're at Morehouse. You're
Speaker 4: trying to tell these black men who you know, even
Speaker 4: though they're going to have degrees. The police don't care
Speaker 4: men walking around with your degree, like, oh, don't shoot me,
Speaker 4: don't arrest me.
Speaker 1: And even if they did, it wouldn't do anything. They
Speaker 1: should write through that paper papers stand girl, and clearly
Speaker 1: bodies are thin to them too.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And it's like, as a black person in Atlanta,
Speaker 4: you are twelve times more likely to give killed by
Speaker 4: the police as a white person. And I can only
Speaker 4: see this going up once you have this training center
Speaker 4: where they're learning how to kill you more effectively, more efficiently.
Speaker 4: They're learning the script of fearing for their lives no
Speaker 4: better little acting school moment. So I think the thing
Speaker 4: about this myth is that the black politicians really play
Speaker 4: into it. They use their blackness, their black names, their
Speaker 4: high top phase. To Gardner, political goodwill as we heard
Speaker 4: andres like you got the wrong resume on the black
Speaker 4: stuff on the race card, like you're a black man, sure,
Speaker 4: but you don't give a fuck about these black men
Speaker 4: you're speaking to. And it's such the Atlanta way, you know,
Speaker 4: because once the city government began shifting from white to black,
Speaker 4: these black politicians really pushed the racial solidarity over civil
Speaker 4: unrest through voting campaigns. It's like racial pride read representation
Speaker 4: in politics was touted over class consciousness.
Speaker 1: Kind of like, don't say anything bad about this fellow
Speaker 1: black person publicly because they're a fellow black person.
Speaker 4: Very much so, you know, it happens during the the
Speaker 4: child murders, which took place during the first black mayor
Speaker 4: of Atlanta, Mayor Jackson's administration. Doctor Hobson's Black Meca book
Speaker 4: talks about this in this third chapter. But the children
Speaker 4: that were kidnapped and murdered were poor, and a lot
Speaker 4: of people call them hustlers and runaways, trying to suggest
Speaker 4: that they deserved what happened to them, or they were
Speaker 4: kind of in on it. They were living the wrong
Speaker 4: lifestyle in Atlanta's black working class, and poor organized their
Speaker 4: own community patrols because to them, the first black mayor
Speaker 4: was too busy bolstering the Black Mecca image while sacrificing
Speaker 4: Atlanta's poor to play politics with the whole murderer on
Speaker 4: the loss at least one because people did not believe
Speaker 4: that man did that all by himself. But that's a
Speaker 4: different story for a different day. But you know, you
Speaker 4: got to consider the timing. So the Atlanta child murders
Speaker 4: were happening between nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 4: Atlanta's black political leadership were trying to post the nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty eight Democratic National Convention, and they're also e in
Speaker 4: the nineteen ninety six Olympic Games. Remember, like all this
Speaker 4: stuff they started playing eight years before. And so the
Speaker 4: tim's families and neighbors believed Atlanta's black city administration downplayed
Speaker 4: these murders to show that social and economic progress have
Speaker 4: been made in the South and thus promoting a city.
Speaker 3: Too busy to hate.
Speaker 2: The original myth.
Speaker 3: I told you it was foundational.
Speaker 4: And now it's time for the last myth of Atlanta
Speaker 4: after the break myth number three.
Speaker 3: Atlanta is the land of milk and honey for black folks. Now,
Speaker 3: this last myth.
Speaker 4: I see the most in media from reality TV, like
Speaker 4: The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Fabulous, Going with the Wind, fabulous Okay.
Speaker 4: And Love and Hip Hop. So like every Tyler Perry
Speaker 4: movie where the characters are lawyers and businessmen who live
Speaker 4: in grand mansions with higher help. There's this idea that
Speaker 4: every black person in Atlanta is well off, but really
Speaker 4: those people are just taking up the most airtime in actuality.
Speaker 4: As of twenty twenty two, Atlanta had the highest income
Speaker 4: inequality in the US. So in twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 4: median household income in Atlanta for white families was over
Speaker 4: eighty three thousand, compared to black folks, which was just
Speaker 4: over twenty eight thousand. And black households make up forty
Speaker 4: eight percent of the city's total households right now, but
Speaker 4: we own just seventeen percent of the housing wells. And
Speaker 4: according to some experts, this income inequality is rooted in
Speaker 4: racial disparities from generations ago.
Speaker 2: So what are some of those causal factors like redlining.
Speaker 4: Redlining, mass incarceration and while the city was too busy
Speaker 4: to hate white folks, those white flight and day asses
Speaker 4: away from black people and starting all white on clives
Speaker 4: around the city, like the Buckhead neighborhood. Hell, just a
Speaker 4: couple of years ago, Buckhet tried to secede from the
Speaker 4: city and take its tax dollars from the rest of Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, I remember that little city hood movement. They
Speaker 1: were trying to separate themselves from the blacker neighborhoods in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: But beyond Buckhead, Atlanta has been hyper fixated on class.
Speaker 4: So it makes sense why the success of upper class
Speaker 4: black folks would contribute to myth number three. The myth
Speaker 4: helps perpetuate itself. The more people think Atlanta is the
Speaker 4: land of milk and honey for black folks, the more
Speaker 4: the upper class gets telegraphed to the world as the
Speaker 4: ballers and movers and shakers they desperately want to be,
Speaker 4: so they produce media, essay, shows, movies, whatever to feed
Speaker 4: the myth. W. E. B. Du Bois, a prominent Atlanta resident,
Speaker 4: popularize the term Talented tenth and is nineteen three essay
Speaker 4: The Talented Tenth, emphasizing the importance of developing the best
Speaker 4: and most educated individuals within the African American community to
Speaker 4: uplift and guide the masses towards progress. In a way
Speaker 4: from societal challenges. Du Bois wrote, the.
Speaker 1: Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved
Speaker 1: by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then among Negroes,
Speaker 1: must first of all deal with the talented tenth. It
Speaker 1: is the problem of developing the best of this race
Speaker 1: that they may guide the mass away from the contamination
Speaker 1: and death of the worst in their own and other races.
Speaker 2: Sounds like the black.
Speaker 1: Politicians really took this line of thinking and ran with it.
Speaker 1: Ran it ran into the ground.
Speaker 4: They really really did, which, you know, du boys didn't
Speaker 4: anticipate the talented ten the manifesting in the way that
Speaker 4: it did what we've been seeing this whole time. Forty
Speaker 4: five years after writing that essay The Talented Tenth, du
Speaker 4: Bois offers a self critique of the concept.
Speaker 1: He writes, I assume that with knowledge, sacrifice would automatically follow.
Speaker 1: In my youth and idealism, I did not realize that
Speaker 1: selfishness is even more natural than sacrifice. When I came
Speaker 1: out of college and into the world of work, I
Speaker 1: realized that it was quite possible that my plan of
Speaker 1: training a talented tenth might put in control and power
Speaker 1: a group of selfish, self indulgent, well to do men
Speaker 1: whose basic interest in solving the Negro problem was personal
Speaker 1: personal freedom and unhampered enjoyment and use of the world,
Speaker 1: without any real care or certainly no arousing care as
Speaker 1: to what became of the mass of American negroes. Damn,
Speaker 1: the talented tenth really sold folks out for those golden apples, child.
Speaker 4: Because with everything's for sale, that includes black folks who
Speaker 4: are seen as disposable. The boys tried to warn us
Speaker 4: in the of the Wings of Atlanta, the chasing of
Speaker 4: the material will be the city's downfall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, think back to the nineteen ninety six Olympics when
Speaker 1: the city cleared entire black neighborhoods to make Atlanta more
Speaker 1: attractive for all the international media coverage and tourism.
Speaker 4: Back to the external image of the city versus what's
Speaker 4: really going on. I mean, she didn't sweet for all
Speaker 4: black folks here. I was traveling around the country last
Speaker 4: summer and this lady in Philly was saying she wanted
Speaker 4: to move to Atlanta because black folks had it better
Speaker 4: down here. And I'm no expert in Philly. That was
Speaker 4: only my second time out there for real, but I
Speaker 4: can say that thirty six percent of black households in Atlanta,
Speaker 4: that's over one.
Speaker 3: Third, have a zero zero net worth.
Speaker 4: And folks love to talk about Atlanta's black business, which
Speaker 4: the city does have more black owned businesses than other places.
Speaker 4: I will give y'all at but if we're keeping it
Speaker 4: a buck, they don't solve the problems of poverty and
Speaker 4: wealth inequality. Between ninety two and twenty twelve, black people
Speaker 4: created two million businesses. Okay, those businesses captured zero point
Speaker 4: three percent of the national sales revenue, and that was
Speaker 4: down from the one percent they were capturing before.
Speaker 3: But hey, even if you.
Speaker 4: Are able to claw your way up to the upper
Speaker 4: echelons of black society, remember the nineteen oh six race
Speaker 4: right took place partly because white people were jealous of
Speaker 4: black business owners getting too the money in, so they
Speaker 4: burn their businesses. And whoop they asked. Even after Booker
Speaker 4: t made the speech saying segregation was okay as long
Speaker 4: as black people could live their second class citizen lives
Speaker 4: in peace, the goalpost always changes. So while the black
Speaker 4: elite business and political class may feel like they're doing
Speaker 4: their big one now, history shows that white folks can
Speaker 4: and will turn on you just it's like you turn
Speaker 4: your back on the black masses that check that.
Speaker 1: This one is my favorite, one favorite fly, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: we do see it in media so much, and it's
Speaker 1: one that black people Atlanta, outside of Atlanta and inside
Speaker 1: of Atlanta love to perpetuate like it's black Hollywood. That
Speaker 1: I think that's also part of this strope too. You know,
Speaker 1: we literally do have a lot of filming happening here,
Speaker 1: but that's not what black Hollywood has always referred to as.
Speaker 1: Like before the tax incentives started coming in heavy like
Speaker 1: they come in now, we were calling it black Hollywood
Speaker 1: already because there are so many black celebrities. There's a
Speaker 1: big hip hop culture here. There's a lot of more expensive,
Speaker 1: fancy things that black people can do here than a
Speaker 1: lot of other metro areas that have a lot of
Speaker 1: black people in the United States. And it's tiring, especially
Speaker 1: when you ain't rich and you hear like me.
Speaker 2: Because you're just like, it's not true.
Speaker 1: And I see it everywhere all the time, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people think that that's aspirational, and
Speaker 1: it's not always asked, at least not my idea of aspirational.
Speaker 1: You know, I can only speak for myself and my
Speaker 1: own perspective, but seeing the glitz and the glamour and
Speaker 1: the large homes and all that on television, it's still,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, not doing anything for
Speaker 1: any of us here, and perpetuating the myth isn't doing
Speaker 1: anything for any of us here, especially the people who
Speaker 1: move here and end up saying I'm still struggling. Bro,
Speaker 1: I'm still here and I am still working a lot
Speaker 1: of jobs.
Speaker 2: To make enough money. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I definitely think it is aspirational and like you're like, oh, well.
Speaker 3: I saw this on TV.
Speaker 4: Like, I really do. Think about the lady I met
Speaker 4: in Philly a lot. I had went to this like
Speaker 4: vegan restaurant, and you know, there's a lot of musclem
Speaker 4: people in Philly, so it was like all muscle people
Speaker 4: in there. I was the only one who didn't know
Speaker 4: how to order. I was like, well, what you got.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna just get what you guy. So we like
Speaker 4: started up a conversation and she heard out from Atlanta.
Speaker 4: She was so excited, like, Oh, I'm.
Speaker 3: Gonna go there. I'm gonna give me a man, you
Speaker 3: a man.
Speaker 1: First of all, has she not hurt I'm about dating
Speaker 1: in the city. I don't know nothing about it, but
Speaker 1: you ain't gonna get you, all right, that's what I heard.
Speaker 1: So she got hope.
Speaker 4: It's because she's consumed media like a lot of us have,
Speaker 4: that has shown Atlanta in this way. There's like, oh,
Speaker 4: you should come here. Tyler Perry is good for the
Speaker 4: myth of Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Tell me about it.
Speaker 4: It was darvy back back woman when she met that
Speaker 4: bus driver. They were going out on the town. Okay,
Speaker 4: she got her a good black man who loved her
Speaker 4: and her kids, had a good job, was loving, she
Speaker 4: had a auntie, was a nice house after she got
Speaker 4: kicked out of that other house. And I'm not confusing
Speaker 4: that there's so many question I see him up, but
Speaker 4: he's good for perpetuating it. And I think it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, this myth has its roots in like the
Speaker 4: eighteen hundreds and then again in the nineteen sixties. At
Speaker 4: this point, I feel like it's just like it's not
Speaker 4: autopiolate a little bit, like you don't have to really
Speaker 4: do much to continue to perpetuate it because it's just
Speaker 4: like so steeped that everybody's like collective imagination, like this
Speaker 4: is what this is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and people are still telling people, you know, as
Speaker 1: we talked about before, you know, move to Atlanta.
Speaker 2: But they're telling them to move to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, the cost of living is low here,
Speaker 1: but like you can live like a king, and you
Speaker 1: can live like a key.
Speaker 4: Can follow your dreams, which like, of course, like follow
Speaker 4: your dreams. But yeah, I just feel like the myth
Speaker 4: is holding the city back and it's holding people back.
Speaker 1: Where do you think we would be if we didn't
Speaker 1: have that myth? What do you think would have improved?
Speaker 4: I think there would be more class consciousness and like
Speaker 4: not people who are you know, aspiring like billionaires, like
Speaker 4: temporarily embarrassed billionaires, you know, who just like don't guide it,
Speaker 4: but like align themselves like politically with that class. You know,
Speaker 4: it's like no, baby, like let's eat them.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So I think that would be a huge difference. And yeah,
Speaker 4: like just like more community focused and not so individual,
Speaker 4: not like oh I'm I'm going to get up, I'm
Speaker 4: going to eat I'm gonna be the next taller Perry.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It would be better if this myth didn't exist, because
Speaker 1: people come here and try to flex.
Speaker 3: They celebrity themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all appearance. It's all on the outside.
Speaker 1: And I've heard stories of just about dating, about the
Speaker 1: things people say on dates where they're trying to flex,
Speaker 1: like they got stuff and then got it, and that's
Speaker 1: shown very quickly when you like, you know, gott to
Speaker 1: pay your own check or something like that.
Speaker 4: You know what, everything would be better every if we
Speaker 4: can get rid of these myths. I had to break
Speaker 4: it down for four or four day, Like I said,
Speaker 4: I do love the city. You know, we grew up here,
Speaker 4: got our degrees here that are young adults and our
Speaker 4: regular adult here. But yeah, I just think like Atlanta
Speaker 4: as a missmaker is so interesting, Like the city itself
Speaker 4: is a storyteller and is lie that's really interesting, just
Speaker 4: like about the character of the city and like the
Speaker 4: people who like call this place home and like living
Speaker 4: in this like mysicical land but also in reality and
Speaker 4: having that duality fight each other often.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and going back to this idea of it coming
Speaker 1: out of the ashes, it being a feed phoenix, it's
Speaker 1: also done that is in its own image. It can
Speaker 1: constantly recreate itself and its symbology, so it fits there too.
Speaker 4: And now it is time for role credits, the segment
Speaker 4: where we give credit to a person, place, or thing
Speaker 4: that we encountered during the week eves. Who are what
Speaker 4: would you like to give credit to today?
Speaker 1: I would like to give credit to my yoga students.
Speaker 1: I'm a yoga teacher and I have been getting a
Speaker 1: lot of new students lately and meeting up a lot
Speaker 1: of new people and getting to know them and teaching
Speaker 1: different kinds of people. And I just love getting to teach,
Speaker 1: you know, this important practice and being able to pass
Speaker 1: on the knowledge that I do have, and people come
Speaker 1: to me and trust me in places that can be
Speaker 1: so vulnerable because a lot of the students who are
Speaker 1: coming to yoga practices are people who are everybody's going
Speaker 1: through things, you know, everybody's bringing their own thing. We're
Speaker 1: all going through things, but you know, coming there to
Speaker 1: get better and to learn this practice that is a
Speaker 1: practice toward liberation and freedom and getting in touch with
Speaker 1: themselves and tapping in and you know, honoring their bodies.
Speaker 1: And that's a really big job. And I'm grateful that
Speaker 1: people trust me enough for me to hold that space
Speaker 1: for them.
Speaker 2: And also just the people that come to me.
Speaker 1: They're all different, and they all have their own characters.
Speaker 1: They tell me stories, and I just love being able
Speaker 1: to connect with people in this way. And yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to continuing the relationships that I do have
Speaker 1: and meeting so many more people along this path.
Speaker 3: Okay, hello, and shout out to all of easy Yoga
Speaker 3: students who may be listening.
Speaker 4: I would like to give credit to real niggas and
Speaker 4: I am breathed. Okay for all of y'all still out there,
Speaker 4: I would like to give credit to real niggas. Like
Speaker 4: as we've seen this episode, a lot of people pretend
Speaker 4: to be real niggas, put on the costume of a
Speaker 4: real nigga.
Speaker 3: They and that's a real nigga, real nigga, real nigga.
Speaker 3: I want to give you your credit. And on that note,
Speaker 3: we'll see you next week.
Speaker 2: Bye, y'all.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Eves, Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
Speaker 1: It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison. Follow us
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Speaker 1: us an email at Hello at on Theme dot Show.
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