The "Amistad Occupation" ("We Want Free") in Atlanta is fundamentally different than most others that are taking place around the nation.
Atlanta has a different mix of power swirling about which makes the chances of a racially conflict inevitable. No. Not between "White and Black". Between the "Black Progressive Establishment" and the "Black Progressive Perpetual Protesters".
Dr Walters told us that the worst political decision that Black people could ever make is to dilute the Black voting strength by splitting into different parties. Dr Walters was correct IF ONLY one considers "Black political strength" as evidence of Black prosperity and our "permanent interests" delivered. The more accurate consequence of this mandate is that the "Malcolm X Political Football Game" effect has been fortified, forcing the community to agree to look past some of our dysfunction, making us susceptible to blaming outsiders as a necessary means of maintaining the "congregational unity" that this scheme is fundamentally based upon.
This past weekend in Atlanta - the framework that was seen in Newark's "Brick City" was evident.
The young Black mayor who cut his teeth as a "community organizer" during a sit in at Howard University during his undergraduate years to protest the affiliation of Republican operative Lee Atwater with the school - got a taste of what it is like to be on the receiving end of a protest that is intent on willful confrontation against the establishment.
Mayor Reed figured that he could allow the group "Occupy Atlanta" to say their peace in Woodruff Park, making their daily trek to various skyscrapers each day during their daily protest walks. Reed suspended the enforcement against "urban camping" - the law that was passed to keep the homeless population - the overwhelming majority of which are Black - from encamping within the park as their primary domicile.
Up to that point only minor points of clarification had been volleyed from both sides. Both the mayor and the spokespeople from "Occupy Atlanta" sought to publicly clarify their respective points in order to quash the rumors about each other's intentions.
This past weekend the pre-planned "Atlanta Hip Hop Day" decided to fuse their activities in with "Occupy Atlanta". This new scene has proven to be the turning point in the relationship between the city and the protesters.
The agenda of the organizers of both groups was to get more young Black people involved in the "anti-capitalist" movement. "Occupy Atlanta" was initially dinged as being "two White". While this attribute was used to indict "The Tea Party" - proving that most Blacks are not interested in their message and unwelcomed.................it served as motivation for Progressive Blacks to find a way to get more Blacks connected to the left-wing "Amistad Occupation" nationally.
In Atlanta the "Civil Rights Pharisees" (the power base of influencers who leverage their past actions in the Civil Rights Movement to define the messages and indictments of today, largely avoiding accountability for what happens on their watch) and the "Fight The Power" Black Activists (the younger, more street level progressive activists who have the same ideology and political loyalties as do the "Civil Rights Pharisees" but don't have the embedded network of institutional power that they have.) are two ships that largely float side by side - advancing progressive social and economic and political agenda items. Elections, in which they each work to get their respective base out to vote for a platform that largely overlaps is their key point of commonality.
"Occupy Atlanta" is showing their divisions.
The notion of "Civil Disobedience" brings stars in the eyes of the "Civil Rights Pharisees", making them hearken back to the days of their sit ins and protest marches. There is a natural alliance between them and the old-heads have been largely supportive.
As "Occupy Atlanta" expands their critique from the nebulous indictments against corporations and bankers and instead focuses on the administrivia of the plot of land that their occupation will reside (in Woodruff Park) this situation produces the inevitable conflict with the city's majority Black/all-Democratic powerbase.
As Mayor Reed is attacked by the Occupiers and becomes the "threat that will evict them from the park using 'police thuggery' - the alliance between the "Civil Rights Pharisees" that will go with the Atlanta political establishment that they have cultivated for decades and the "Fight The Power" forces that is attracted by the Occupation's energy - will become strained.
Mayor Reed held a press conference in which he had several local area preachers behind him as a message of their support for the administration.
"Fight The Power Black Activists" labeled these otherwise progressive, Democratic-machine preachers "Handkerchief head Negroes" for standing with the candidate that just a few years ago voted into office lest the "Last Black Mayor Of Atlanta" vacated the office. The streak of 6 Black mayors (Maynard Jackson twice) would have been broken.
It is clear that one not need to morph into a "Herman Cain Black Republican" to don a silk scarf upon his head in the view of the "Guardians of Blackness". The main qualifier is to DISAGREE with what their congregational sect of Blackness believes to be "proper Negro actions and beliefs".
Less problematic than the expected name calling is WHAT they are butting heads over.
When the Atlanta Public Schools placed the integrity of about 50,000 (predominately) Black children these forces did not splinter. They instead attempted to find the "State Republicans" that are seeking to knock Blacks out of power and worked to impose "Justice Thurgood Marshall Justice" where the judge is put on trial for prosecution and the criminal defendant is made into the victim.
A local activist, Joe Beasley attempted to find that unifying villain. Woodruff Park has a shadow cast upon it by the Georgia Pacific corporate tower. GP is owned by Koch Industries. In his 6 degrees of separation Mr Beasley was content to argue that the young Mayor Reed had seen his chain tugged by the Koch Brothers. For Beasley and those who think as he does - it doesn't matter if Mayor Reed received the same phone call that Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker received from "Koch". His job was to plant that name "Koch" that appears in so many LampBlacked Yellow Journalist Press outlets as they syndicate what Rachel Maddow told them - that he accomplished his task.
On "Fight The Power Radio" yesterday "Fight The Power" (Derrick Boazman) challenged his listeners to tell him why the protests should be moved. What disruption are they causing? He failed to make note that IF these protesters were to walk down to Atlanta City Hall and summon the line up of homeless people to come to Woodruff Park and occupy the tents that have been set up - THEY WOULD BE ARRESTED. He could not fathom that the answer to his question is NOT that "The laws of the city of Atlanta" are being broken by one group. It is that the CREDIBILITY of the City Of Atlanta and its institutions are being undermined as it is forced to enforce its laws in a disparate manner.
How does a law maker (State Senator Vincent Fort) who MAKES LAWS advocate for the violation of the law yet retain his credibility? He is but one of the masses of "Inside Outsiders" who run on a perpetual platform of "changing the system" from the inside. The fall back to his failures is that......."he has not yet gotten the majority numbers of radical progressives to CHANGE" thus his presence is needed to witness what the scoundrels are doing at the conference table and report to the people of the "Pittsburgh Community" what they are doing. By riling up his base as to what these forces are plotting - they can look past the eroded communities that his strategy has presided over. No net organic change.
In closing - all of these forces are using the "Amistad Occupation" ("Give Me FREE") to promote the agenda that they had all along. Sadly the "Black Community Permanent Interests" are nowhere to be found in any of it. It is a purely ideological agenda.
More "Black value" is lost by the squandered attempt to produce uplift through the institutions that they now control in our community than anything they can exclusively put upon the bankers in Atlanta. I did not see any of them ripping down "I Buy Abandoned Houses" signs that had littered every telephone pole in their districts for last 8 years. These are the people who conspired with the home inspectors and mortgage brokers to artificially inflate the home values in the areas with the most foreclosures.
The success of these fighting factions has been to identify an external enemy and stick to it. When they start stepping on "In Grown Toenails" of the machine that runs politics in Atlanta - they are going to hear some screams of pain.
No comments:
Post a Comment