I thought I would, I really thought I would. Well, I am a fickle creature. I don’t.
I think the only things I miss are the hard copy Creative Loafings, and the accompanying easy access to live entertainment. It was a photostream on Flickr I saw today that helped it dawn on me — I DON’T miss Atlanta! And really, I realize I don’t particularly like it after all! And here’s a few reasons why.
- Atlanta has no proper sense of its own history, or future. A few patches of historical buildings and architecture remain, but other than that, it was mostly torn down after white flight, urban renewal, the construction of the interstates, etc. Hence, leaving large swaths of it a blighted, bombed-out eyesore. Then, when someone wants to come along and fix it up, you get endless hand-wringing from the alternative weekly columnists about the evils of “gentrification.” And/or from the very same hypocritical white urban gentry who live in the renovated lofts in the first place.
- Wine-sipping yuppies. I used to have these neighbors that had these dinner/wine parties on their front porch every other night. (This was in a “gentrified” neighborhood by the way.) I can’t really put my finger on why I hated them so much. I didn’t even know them. But even if they had ever acknowledged my existence and invited me over, I wouldn’t have gone. I’m sure I would have been bored out of my skull by whatever they would have been talking about. Probably their expensive European vacations or Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.
- Hipsters. I used to spend a fair amount of time seeing bands in Atlanta, but only b/c I liked the bands, not b/c I had any urging to be a “scenester.” Young white hipsters annoy me for some reason. I don’t like people who try so self-consciously hard to be “cool.”
- Sevananda. GOD I hate that place. If you don’t know, it’s the health food store in Little Five Points that sells copies of Workers World to the same dreadlocked unwashed who can afford $12 raw vegan smoothies.
- All the bicycle riders in Decatur who don’t “Share the Road” like the bumper stickers on their Volvo wagons implore the rest of us to do. They are especially aggravating to pizza delivery drivers in the Emory area. They run red lights and will flip you off if you think it’s *your* turn on green.
- Those Marxist sticker-covered Volvo wagons all around Decatur.
- Panhandlers, in L5P and downtown, and elsewhere. God help them, I feel bad for addicts & the homeless and wish I knew what it would take to help them. But they frighten me. I enjoy being able to shop without them accosting me at every turn.
- Seeing “Kill Whitey” stickers around town. OR to put it a kinder way, the uber-segregation and undeniable racial tensions of Atlanta. Yes, my suburb has plenty of minorities, but they’re not nearly as cordoned off into their own neighborhoods.
As Obama would say, “Now look.” I’m NO FAN of white bigotry either, rebel flag stickers, KKK, etc. I find ALL interracial hate unsettling. As you can see from the above bullet points, and my blog in general, I am plenty comfortable with hating my OWN race. There are plenty of other, completely VALID reasons to hate people! OK, get ready, I will very rarely say this, but now, ON THE RECORD, I am admitting it: I am indeed aware of my white privilege. I do not feel comfortable in situations where I am the only white person. I guess b/c I’ve lost my privilege I feel hated. It could all be in my mind, perhaps. Well, I am admitting it. Go me.
Just so you know, I don’t feel comfortable in situations where I’m the only bipolar person, rednecky person, libertarian-y person either. I pretty much don’t fit in anywhere anyway. But before you call me a racist, remember that the reason you have neighborhoods that are 99% black is because white people don’t live there. Ninety-five+ percent of the white liberals in Decatur live in the white part of Decatur. I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but … can it be considered “racist” to not want to live in a black neighborhood? (I’m sure it could be argued, though I am in no position to do so.) Of course, if whites move to the black neighborhoods, they’re considered gentrifiers — there’s that white privilege again. The other side of the coin is, of course, when black people move into white neighborhoods, there’s that feeling of “there goes the neighborhood.” Hence it remains segregated.
I used to live in the middle of an all-black area, near the intersection of McAfee and Candler Road, just south of Memorial drive and north of I-20. It’s just a fact; I’m not saying this to say “ooh lookit me I CAN’T be racist at all since I lived in a black neighborhood.” It was down a long, one-lane driveway at the bottom of a hill, by a beautiful creek. My then-boyfriend from East Cobb shivered in his shoes going down there to see me. Rumor had it that our neighbors were scared of *us* because they believed we did voodoo down there. Welll … I plead the 5th.
Well said, whitey.