Trip to Atlanta and Chapel Hill from Mike Merrill on Vimeo.
We went to the South! Atlanta! Chapel Hill! Helen! Kmikeym made this video which you have probably all seen by now BUT if you haven’t… well. Here it is. So. We went to the South and let me tell you how pleasantly surprised I was with the NBD nature of race relations- especially in Atlanta. Now I was there for all of one week and I am NOT saying that I think racism is dead in the South. Racism is not dead anywhere in the world as far as I can tell but Atlanta was the most integrated city I have ever been to. It helps that 60% of the population of Atlanta proper is black, but it wasn’t just that I saw a lot of black people. It was that wherever we went- nerdy coffee shops, hipster breakfast places, a basketball game, a late night museum/martini dance- there was an equal number of black and white people just doing their damn things. And it wasn’t like they just showed up and ignored each other- they came together to the martini dances and coffee shops and chit chatted about the wait at the brunch places! I realize I may be coming across as some 1950’s cowpoke here but I have lived in four major metropolises in my life, with varying racial demographics: Denver, Portland, New York, and Dublin (Dublin being a moot point here). Without knowing better I would consider each of these cities to be more progressive and “post-racial” than Atlanta, Georgia. Not so! Even in New York, the Great Big Melting Pot or whatever, there are the businesses and neighborhoods where black people hang out, and the pockets of Puerto Ricans, Italians, Koreans… I’m not saying that there’s no overlap but still the invisible boundaries are apparent. And so it was incredibly gratifying to see a vibrant black middle class coexisting so seemingly effortlessly with the white middle class. Since I was visiting Kmikeym’s brother- a young professional who works for CNN.com- I didn’t have the time nor opportunity to learn about class relations in the city. I know that Atlanta is known as much for it’s sprawl and traffic as anything else and I’m sure that as with other American metropolises there are layers and layers of politics, history and ethics related to the suburbs, the surge in urban renewal, and the plight of the poor of all races. I know it’s not all roses. But the city took me by surprise and made me think that the South has been forced by history to open its’ closets and bare it’s skeletons and is possibly, like Germany, better for it. The North and West would be wise to have a meaningful airing of our own.
Also I went to Chapel Hill and saw Moose and his wife and an old friend from Denver who I will call Sassy. The town was great- like a smaller, more rural Portland- but really it was just a precious pleasure to catch up with my deep homies and see how happy they are in their adult lives. Sassy took us over to her Grandma’s house- Grandma Sassy you might as well say because she was a straight shooter who sized each of us up shrewdly but hugged us all tightly when we left. She apparently treated Michelle Obama the same way and had a picture to prove it:
On a different note: you guys! I need to catch up on my damn documentation! I have, since my last entry, made lots of Power Year progress! I:
* read two of the books on my list
* listened to multiple volumes of another Moose mix AND a sweet Slow Jamz compilation from Astral Hellion
* attended a yoga class
* had about a billion hang outs
* applied for the Signal Fire backpacking trip
I need to blog this shit and I will. Just know I’m chipping away slowly and I haven’t given up.