My love affair with Atlanta goes back over 40 years. As part of the ritual that is Northern Black Family returns to Southern Roots a few times a year, we would always make a stop in Atlanta and even back in the 60's you could tell something special was happening there. Something unique for Black folk and just flat fucking unbelievable for Black folk in the South. For some reason in Atlanta white people were putting Black folk in charge of real shit, shit that was actually worth something to begin with. Black folk were actually involved in real partnerships that made money. In many ways I remember Atlanta being a part of the terrarium craze of the 70's suburb community. The south was willing to let real integrated segregation grow or die on it's own and that's pretty much what Atlanta became, this incredible place where integrated segregation proved it could not only work but that everyone, yep, everyone who was motivated and yes, greedy enough to get fucking rich and even better there would be enough of an infrastructure, an equal one so that you got to keep your money exactly where you wanted it. In other words, Atlanta became a place where you could get, stay and live wealthy and just like in other big cities, you could be completely removed from what you didn't want to see, whatever that might be. See, what alot of people don't understand about the "A" is that there were always very upscale and snooty Black neighborhoods and some had almost as long a history as the snooty upscale white neighborhoods where most of my high school friends happened to live. I loved how there has always been three Atlanta's, the old white one where caste and class and history are absolutely everything and I hope they never, ever change. Then there is Black Atlanta, big and always getting bigger, encompassing everything that was once a part of the Harlem that created Langston Hughes and Bumpy Johnson, filled with opportunity and risk, winners and losers. And there is mixed Atlanta, the slightly quirky, sometimes unsure of just how southern it wants to be city that is incredibly tolerant, forward, and so very insecure about how the other cool cities perceive it. The fact that I spent so many wonderful moments and have such incredible memories of all three of those Atlanta's is why it makes me so sad, angry, pissed the fuck off and downright embarrassed when I see what being rich and Black in Atlanta means now. Seriously? To quote Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Story about Rick James..."they never should have give you niggas money!"
Love and Hip Hop Atlanta is coonin and buffoonin with neck tats and Bentley's. And understand, I'm one of the people who is out there celebrating Honey Boo Boo as an almost perfect counterbalance to this shit reality show set in a town I love. And I guess I shouldn't blame Atlanta but in way I do, because you couldn't have the show anywhere else. The racism is still palpable in southern Cal and everyone knows it, that's why so many Black artists have left and moved to Atlanta and created Black Beverly South. Totally cool with that, what I'm not cool with is the fact that there are countless successful Black folk in the "A" who, and just so it's out there I have tats and it's not that I have a huge problem with neck tats but damn, don't have tats and don't run their personal life in such a fucked up public way that it not only fucks with business, it defines their ability to do whatever it is they do. This is what bothers me the most about LHHA....maybe...just maybe if the show produced even a minor jam...something to point at and say that often watching the creative process can be messy but look at the result. Even though I intend to die before I listen to that dumpster trash "Tardy to the Party" at least something was produced other than noise to pollute the cosmos. Have any of these so called hot producers put out anything really bangin lately? But let me guess, I'm showing my age because I didn't know about the latest collabo between Benzio and Kid Leprosy or DJ Ebola...what the fuck ever. From where I sit, good music, real jams always make it to the top no matter who makes them or how much money they don't have. And if it's really good, just like always has been and always will be, word of mouth will spread a jam faster than the Internet could ever think to. So my point is simple...but it's my blog so fuck you..I can take forever to make my point. The point is that instead of finding positive...really positive Black Atlanta residents to not only showcase the fucking greatest city in the South, but also to show that when it comes right down to it, Black or white makes no difference in how you handle your business and your personal affairs, either you act like a grown up that has self respect and respect for others or you are just another user and taker, another "look at me" dancing monkey who will be broke before they realize they were rich in the first fucking place. As long as reality show producers can make money showing us images of ourselves with the worst possible habits and qualities magnified to their most absurd possibility, the people who are actually living the lives we so casually watch on LHHA are doomed to fade into either semi fame, which I think is worse than being deemed irrelevant, or worse, they actually fall for the delusion that they have a real shot at fame, that they are being taken seriously. I think that's criminal and it can really fuck with people in permanent ways. So anyway, Atlanta, I love you and I hope you ain't mad at me but you gotta talk to some of your people, they gotta chill or move, they making the family look bad and we just can't have that...not now.
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