In an 11th-hour change, Atlanta approved new rules for citizen-led petitions to include signature matching—a practice decried by Cop City protesters and voting rights advocates.
First of all, Atlanta has a “strong Mayor, weak Council” system. With the Mayor apparently having come out as a vehement card-carrying fascist (despite giving basically zero hint of such before the election, by the way), there are a lot of tricks he could use to push this shit through even against the opposition of Council.
Second, the Council basically has three factions: the rich white people from Buckhead, the mostly-poor (but not entirely poor – a point I’ll come back to) black people from Bankhead (more southwest Atlanta, but I liked the symmetry), and the and the middle-class progressives from the east side.
The Buckhead people are perfectly happy to support Cop City – and its location as far away from themselves as possible, along the dividing line between the progressives and the poor blacks – because of course they are.
The poor black people are (perhaps surprisingly) often also inclined to support it because they’re so beaten-down by both crime and institutional racism that they think more police presence + “development” (even shitty development) will help them. Moreover, Atlanta is called “the city too busy to hate” for a reason, and that reason is because of the long-standing alliance between the black leadership of the city (centered on HBCUs like Morehouse, plus the black churches) and the Buckhead business community.
So, the east side progressives are the pretty much the only faction in strong opposition (in part because it’s a fascist training camp, but also because the location for it is close to some of the east side neighborhoods).
In other words – and less charitably, but accurate – too many poor black people in Atlanta are class traitors.
First of all, Atlanta has a “strong Mayor, weak Council” system. With the Mayor apparently having come out as a vehement card-carrying fascist (despite giving basically zero hint of such before the election, by the way), there are a lot of tricks he could use to push this shit through even against the opposition of Council.
Second, the Council basically has three factions: the rich white people from Buckhead, the mostly-poor (but not entirely poor – a point I’ll come back to) black people from Bankhead (more southwest Atlanta, but I liked the symmetry), and the and the middle-class progressives from the east side.
The Buckhead people are perfectly happy to support Cop City – and its location as far away from themselves as possible, along the dividing line between the progressives and the poor blacks – because of course they are.
The poor black people are (perhaps surprisingly) often also inclined to support it because they’re so beaten-down by both crime and institutional racism that they think more police presence + “development” (even shitty development) will help them. Moreover, Atlanta is called “the city too busy to hate” for a reason, and that reason is because of the long-standing alliance between the black leadership of the city (centered on HBCUs like Morehouse, plus the black churches) and the Buckhead business community.
So, the east side progressives are the pretty much the only faction in strong opposition (in part because it’s a fascist training camp, but also because the location for it is close to some of the east side neighborhoods).
In other words – and less charitably, but accurate – too many poor black people in Atlanta are class traitors.
Thanks for the local context. So of course the group most supportive is the wealthy area least affected by the development.
Sounds similar to me to up north in the Canadian province of Ontario, the Conservatives gave cities’ Mayors veto power, but only where it’s in the interest of the province..
Toronto responded next year by electing progressive Mayor Olivia Chow, of course.