In Birmingham, They Love the Governor

In the book “Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America,” an important quote is attributed to Howell Raines, the editorial page director of paper.

On. p.29, we learn:

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Raines had sat on the sidelines during the mid-sixties civil rights demonstrations there, leaving him with a lifelong sense of Southern guilt and a determination never again to shrink from declaring his beliefs and opinions. Embracing a simplistic, perhaps even Manichean political vision, he once declared that “Every Southerner must choose between two psychic roads, the road of racism or the road of brotherhood.”

Birmingham tried white racism; then it went all Black. That failed too.

 The road of racism or the road of brotherhood.  The road less taken, or something like. Right Frost?

Birmingham was once the capital of the South, but then the combined forces of ABC/CBS/NBC and the New York Times worked to showcase the city as one on the verge of racial Armageddon, where police dogs and water hoses kept Black people in their place.

Now, in a city that is 71 percent Black and completely dominated by Black elected officials, Black people have put Black people back in their place:

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The Alabama Department of Education will take over the Birmingham school system on Wednesday after the Birmingham Board of Education tonight declined to pass a cost-cutting plan. After months of stalling and delaying a state financial plan that included mass layoffs, the Birmingham Board of Education officially rejected it tonight. State Superintendent Tommy Bice said during a telephone interview tonight -- after a more than three-hour Birmingham school board meeting -- that he will formally intervene in the district's operations Wednesday morning. The intervention will include the appointment of a chief executive officer and chief financial officer who will run the day-to-day operations of the district. 

"Because of the resolution that was passed by the state Board of Education, we will begin full intervention tomorrow," Bice said. The state school board authorized Bice nearly two weeks ago to intervene in Birmingham's operations if it failed to pass a financial plan at tonight's board meeting.

It should be noted that the enrollment of Birmingham City School System is 98 percent Black; outside of a smattering of Teach for America overly-energetic white faces, an over-whelming tide of Blackness performs the task of educating, administrating, managing, and leading the system.

The fault of Birmingham’s fall-from-grace rests solely in its Black character (whose content we can not judge):

Superintendent of the Birmingham School System? Craig Witherspoon. 

African American. 

Mayor of Birmingham? William A Bell.  From the picture, unless Mayor Bell is an alpaca, he's an African American. 

Chief of Police? Chief A. L. Roper.  Native son of Birmingham who made good. African American. 

City Council?  Seven of nine are African-American. 

School Board? Seven of nine are African American. 

County Commissioners?  Half of them are African-American.

The road of racism attempted to keep Black people from assuming political control in Birmingham; now with Jefferson County (home to 71 percent Black Birmingham) declaring the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history, one wonders what the road of brotherhood that was begrudgingly forced on the city actually achieved.

When compared to Atlanta, a city that purportedly walked hand in hand together down the path of brotherhood (though for those paying attention to SBPDL, the inverse of this is actually true), Birmingham seems stuck in 1^st gear. When discussing why Charlotte was beginning to usurp Atlanta as the top city in the South, Atlanta’s Black Mayor Kasim Reed said:

Reed compared the situation to the early 1960s when Birmingham was the southern leader in commerce, but lost that title to Atlanta because of its attitude on civil rights. See: Alabama Gov. George Wallace and Birmingham police Chief Eugene “Bull” Connor. 

Atlanta, the mayor noted, was more progressive. “Birmingham has never caught up since,” Reed said.

Atlanta went down the road of brotherhood for as long as the road would take them; as we have repeatedly shown, that road was paved with good intentions, masked as a racial truce called “The Atlanta Way.”

Always remember: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Now, with Metro Atlanta drowning in sea of underwater mortgages (courtesy of the Black Gold Rush to The Black Mecca), the AJC publishes this dire story the same day Birmingham School System – 98 percent Black, mind you – gets taken over by the state of Alabama:

Atlanta is in crisis. That's not the message you'd expect to hear from the Metro Atlanta Chamber, the pro-business group that usually puts a cheerful face on the region's future. But it's at the heart of a plan the group unveiled Monday to jump-start the region's economy. The stark description is a focus of the "Forward Atlanta" initiative, a plan developed for the chamber to help the region regain its mojo. It puts more of an emphasis on fostering startups and developing businesses already here rather than luring companies to relocate. 

"Part of the problem is because we grew so fast for so long that even when we settled down, it doesn't feel normal," said Roger Tutterow, a Mercer University economics professor who said "crisis" is an exaggeration. "Once you go from being toward the top of the heap toward more middle of the pack it feels like unfamiliar territory." 

Sam Williams, the chamber's president, said, "It's very simple: This is the worst economic downturn in our lifetime and Atlanta is lagging in the recovery. If you're in a crisis, the first thing you've got to do is admit you have a crisis. And that's what we're doing. If you don't have a big and bold plan to get out of it, then our economy won't recover until 2020 or beyond." 

The business leaders come armed with daunting figures. Metro Atlanta is only expected to recover about 19 percent of the jobs it lost during the recession by the year's end, the chamber said, far behind many of its regional and national rivals. And the region has lost almost as many jobs as it created since 2000, growing only about 50,000 jobs during the decade. It's a far cry from the booming 1990s, when Atlanta added 70,000 jobs to 80,000 jobs a year. (Business boosters admit Atlanta in 'crisis' amid effort to boost city's economy,Greg Bluestein, June 25, 2012)

Metro Atlanta was once home to white flight communities, which fueled economic growth in the suburbs of The City too Busy to Hate that became the envy of the nation; now, it is increasingly home to Black refugees, descendants of those who partook in the Great Migration of Southern Blacks out of the South, who now return back South because they have helped destroy the economic vitality of cities like Detroit, Buffalo, St. Louis, Cleveland, and parts of Chicago.

With Black people flocking to Atlanta, the Visible Hand of Blackness descends upon a metro area, threatening to make each area that goes majority Black just another reminder of why The Bluff is a shining example of “progressive” thinking (Blight of the Living Dead, Jim Goad, TakiMag):

 If you’re visiting Atlanta and aren’t looking to be shot in the face, swarmed by smack dealers, stopped by cops merely for being white, or set ablaze by an HIV-positive crackhead squatter, stay away from the area known as “The Bluff.” There are several more wholesome attractions only a few blocks southwest in downtown: At tourist traps such as the World of Coca-Cola, the CNN Studio, and the Georgia Aquarium, the thrills are more benign than being slit in the throat with a box-cutter. 

“The Bluff” covers two Atlanta neighborhoods officially known as English Avenue and Vine City. Part of Vine City was designated in 2010 as America’s fifth-most-dangerous area. Some say The Bluff got its name because its narrow, hilly, one-way streets give it a fortress-like sense of isolation, but locals now boast that BLUFF means Better Leave U Fucking Fool. It is bounded on the east by Northside Drive and on its three other sides by roads named after black Georgia civil-rights leaders: Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard, and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. It is therefore a testament to the, er, accomplishments of black Georgia civil-rights leaders.

“Every Southerner must choose between two psychic roads, the road of racism or the road of brotherhood.”

So said Howell Raines.

The road of brotherhood in Atlanta birthed the Black Hole; based on the fact that Birmingham is now a majority Black city, strangely resembling 90 % Black Detroit in its decrepit state, one can realize that not just Southerners, but every American needs another road to go down.

Left to their own devices, Black people become an economic burden to productive people (primarily, white tax payers), who must forever work and see their wealth redistributed as punishment for their white guilt.

This system won’t last forever.

There is another way.