Midtown Turning Ovah
"They will not come a mob rolling through the streets,
but quickly and quietly move into our homes and remove the evil,
the queerness, the faggotry, the perverseness from their midst.
They will not come clothed in brown, and swastikas, or bearing
chest heavy with gleaming crosses. The time and need for ruses
are over. They will come in business suits to buy your homes and
bring bodies to fill your jobs."-- Pat Parker
"As this problem has been presented to us this is probably
the most dangerous ongoing situation we have encountered so far.
As we understand it, it is apparently somewhere between a fraternity
and a sub-culture of mostly African-American gay men and transgenders." Midtown
Ponce Security Alliance Public Safety Report July 2007
So when exactly did we lose the good ole Midtown Atlanta? When did
it turn around? Was it ever really ours to lose? I’ve been
in Atlanta since ‘93 and while I always thought there were
too few colored residents, I rarely felt unwelcome. But then again,
I am not a 19 year old J-setter whose weekly prance and tumble draw
police helicopters over my head. Did the death knell sound like a
door slam, like when they shut down Backstreet, the 24/7 dance bar
emporium that drew more hetero voyeurs than any other spectacle of
gay iniquity? Was it the kudzo sprawl of high end condos in the once
sweet lowdown hood which by the end of the nineties had few flats
that any of my friends could afford? Whenever it happened, that indisputably
lavender swatch that stretches north from the Fox at Ponce de Leon
to Piedmont Park at 14th Street, arguably flanked between Monroe
Dr and Peachtree St, is no longer mother’s Midtown. Unless
mother is June Cleaver run amok, rounding up undesirables with her
lasso of day pearls and hurling them into the pen abetted by her
trusty posse known as Midtown Blue.
The goal of this new Midtown breed might be the founding of a new
world someday known as Cobb South, an outpost to recenter all those
upstanding mostly white folks oppressed by suburban squalor and harangued
by the influx of low income Blacks and latinos. They are proud pioneers,
mostly but not all hetero, these recent transplants and returnees
from their forbears’ white flight, who have begun the arduous
task of tagging the untouchables, those unfit to occupy their streets
and their pristine parks. Fixed in their sights are the homeless,
whom some have labeled "street people", the transgendered
sex workers they have nicknamed "transvestitutes", and
the regular Sunday night park crowd of mostly young and male Black
gays, whom they have deemed as "the most dangerous ongoing situation
we have encountered thus far." And the vanguard of this sweeping
movement is the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance.
According to its website, the MPSA was started in 2003 by a group
of residents of business owners as a non-profit neighborhood organization
in order to address safety and security matters in Midtown. MPSA
gained local notoriety through a July 20th op ed by Sovo editor Laura
Douglas Brown "YouTube vs. Midtown Sex Workers." which
chided MPSA members for following trans sex workers with a video
camera while berating them. The videos were then posted to Youtube
in an apparent effort to shame the sex workers as a deterrent. MPSA
members have been criticized for referring to trans sex workers as "transvestitutes" ,
a derogatory term which further stigmatizes trans people. While prostitution
may be illegal, many of us do not consider it inherently immoral,
save for the ways in which sex workers are exploited or abused by
their johns and their pimps, men whom are rarely charged or arrested.
They appear equally committed in their efforts to scrub the homeless
from their surroundings. While an open letter from the MPSA to the
city council calls for a compassionate response to the needs of the
homeless, their other methods appear far more strident. They have
allegedly attempted to legally ban nearby churches from feeding homeless
to avoid attracting increased numbers. A June MPSA newsletter praises
an unnamed man for capturing "street people" in the neighborhood
in a documentary known as crackheadsgonewild.com. Several residents
have expressed concern about MPSA sweeps that disassemble makeshift
camps and thus discard a homeless person’s few possessions.
But it is the profiling of the Sunday night crowd of young Black
gays and trannies at Piedmont Park and the newsletter quote that
brands them as a public menace which has prompted the most attention.
Many of them are engaged in J-setting, a form of team dancing popular
among Black queer youth. They assemble in groups of 10 or more and
require open spaces like public parks to execute their often stunning
movements. Though an occasional fight may break out between 3 to
5 folks, it hardly warrants the hyperbole of the MPSA safety report.
The description used evokes racialized codes that have traditionally
portrayed black people congregating as an inherent threat to the
safety of white people. Such shibboleths serve as recycled alarms
deployed throughout our nation’s history to arouse the fear
of eminent Black violence and rally its preemptive containment. Midtown
resident Gus Kaufman was observing a typical gathering of j-setters
when several police cars converged with flashing blue lights and
sirens blaring. "I asked a police officer about it and he said
no crime had been committed, but that they were ‘breaking it
up.’ " Whether or not the MPSA dropped the dime, the police
were summoned thereby utilizing the state to curtail their movements
and criminalize their very presence.
Many Midtown residents have valid concerns about the safety, security
and cleanliness of their environment. Theft, robbery and property
damage should not be tolerated in any neighborhood. The brawls are
distressing for those who care about these young people as well as
those who live in the surrounding area albeit for radically different
reasons. Sex workers turning tricks in private backyards is a problem
for many people who rent or own those backyards. While the concerns
regarding these acts are not entirely grounded in age, class, race
or gender prejudice, certain responses reflect the underlying presence
and manipulation of such attitudes, and are capacitated by the power
wielded by MPSA and their largely white, middle class constituencies.
A more cooperative approach that respects the dignity and rights
of all affected groups is needed to affect resolution of these issues.
The voices of Midtowners who cherish clean, safe neighborhoods as
well as positive regard and decent treatment for all human beings
including those who are relegated to the lowest castes must be heard
now. Progressive Midtowners who are committed to upholding the diversity,
cultural richness, and queer presence that distinguishes this from
all other Atlanta enclaves are called to act now.
Piedmont Park is the central attraction of the city’s core.
It is a public venue built for the entire populace. Yet a small,
powerful cadre of neighborhood organizers is summoning the chauvinistic
pride of the gentry while assuming the authority to discern who is
acceptable and who is unworthy to enjoy the park. Today they are
watching the Black queers, the homeless, and the transgendered, almost
all of whom are people of color. They are using the criteria of race,
class and gender identity. They are part of a larger escalating regentrification
that is packaged as free market development yet heralds the displacement
of lower income people of all colors, and Black neighborhoods are
most vulnerable to these designs. It is in part driven by the self
entitlement of well heeled buyers who comprise active constituencies,
and the developers who profit from their demand. How ironic then
that Midtown, the cultural hub cherished by so many, including white
queers who considered themselves pioneers while "turning over" formerly
Black neighborhoods with little concern for the impact, is itself
now turned over or upside down depending upon where you stand. So
where do you stand?
return to mywerks
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