Black Woman Attacked And Arrested By Sexual Predator Police At Waffle House

Femmefatal1981

Well-Known Member
I might get hate for this but I think these hypothetical cities should be run by only Black women. Once Black women get past the racism will still have to deal with deeply entrenched misogyny among Black men so I’m not convinced our circumstances would be too much better if Black men are allowed to take charge. I won’t get into the corruption that is seemingly inherent in most men who rise to power.
Nope...I agree
 

Femmefatal1981

Well-Known Member
Yep. Stonecrest recently did it. I have a few friends there. They're trying to attract more commerce to the area. I think they even put in a bid for the Amazon headquarters.
Yep. Stonecrest recently did it. I have a few friends there. They're trying to attract more commerce to the area. I think they even put in a bid for the Amazon headquarters.
I’m hoping South Dekalb does the same thing. If it’s good for Sandy Springs, it’s good enough for us.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
Infiltration is hard though
I'm both glad and perplexed that you wrote this because it gets to a core issue that keeps coming up. If there was an easy to middlin' way for black folks to undermine/prevail over systematic oppression then we would've done it already, right? I'm all for working smarter not harder but that doesn't mean that hard work which includes discipline, sacrifice and possibly some blood and tears can always be avoided.

the black cops who stay true to themselves and call out the double standards are shunted into the worst positions with the least influence, or unfairly over-disciplined, or driven off the force altogether. Successful black cops often seem to be the direct descendants of overseers - eager to prove their loyalty to the system by mistreating and betraying fellow black people.
Now if the thought process is that black folks can't infiltrate because we're too easily lulled or brainwashed or not savvy enough to carry out tasks in our own self interest then throw the whole people away.

Harriet Tubman had a goal which was moving slaves to freedom which was directly undermining systematic racism and when people started tryna move off message she'd pull a gun and get their a--es back on course with the quickness. Now I'm not saying we gotta resort to violence with each other but I'm not above shaming and intimidation as handy tools to remind people to keep their eyes on the ball. It totally works, just be a bw and say misogyny/misogynoir in the presence of bm, they will get you together real quick on your real problem being racism.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The goal of boycotting is not to send a message or bring awareness. The message/awareness that something is wrong and needs to be fixed is sent when beating, shooting, harassment videos go viral. The goal is to walk away from the boycott with something tangible that you did not have before which is why these little weekend to week protests are a waste of time.

I grew up in a Union town full of civil rights era adults, when they went on strike which is essentially a boycott nobody would fix their lips to say it was to bring awareness. They understood that the powers that be were aware and didn't care. So they had clear cut, straight forward demands that they put on the table and said "do this or else we go mess up your money". Now normally there was some negotiation and neither side got exactly what they wanted but the protestors didn't go back to work until a change was made and sometimes that involved hardships like making whatever pay or savings you had stretch until at least some of the demands were met. Some of those union leaders/organizers and their families were threatened and assaulted and they stayed the course until things changed. <-----That's hard AND it got results.
 

TCatt86

Well-Known Member
Yep. Stonecrest recently did it. I have a few friends there. They're trying to attract more commerce to the area. I think they even put in a bid for the Amazon headquarters.
This is the thinking of out the box.. or really thinking like white folks that black folks need to do. I'm seeing this just on a elementary school level. white folks are banding together and putting their kids in easy entry schools and then using their resources and knowledge to turn the schools around. and I'm not talking about their own money as far as resources. I mean time and creativity and grant writing expertise.

Black folks on the other hand scrambling to get their kids into the same 5 schools and crying because thousands of kids can't get into the 400 open slots. Sometimes we have to be willing to do the grunt work and build up Get in on the ground floor. That's essentially what happened with that Charter school in Louisiana that's getting their kids into top colleges.
 

Southernbella.

Well-Known Member
I might get hate for this but I think these hypothetical cities should be run by only Black women. Once Black women get past the racism will still have to deal with deeply entrenched misogyny among Black men so I’m not convinced our circumstances would be too much better if Black men are allowed to take charge. I won’t get into the corruption that is seemingly inherent in most men who rise to power.

I understand what you're getting at but black women are corrupt too. It was one of us presiding over that whole APS cheating scandal mess.

This is the thinking of out the box.. or really thinking like white folks that black folks need to do. I'm seeing this just on a elementary school level. white folks are banding together and putting their kids in easy entry schools and then using their resources and knowledge to turn the schools around. and I'm not talking about their own money as far as resources. I mean time and creativity and grant writing expertise.

Black folks on the other hand scrambling to get their kids into the same 5 schools and crying because thousands of kids can't get into the 400 open slots. Sometimes we have to be willing to do the grunt work and build up Get in on the ground floor. That's essentially what happened with that Charter school in Louisiana that's getting their kids into top colleges.

What a coincidence. I looked up city of Stonecrest to fact check the Amazon thing and this article popped up. The whole thing is worth reading but I bolded a few good parts. Maybe this is a blueprint for black communities in other parts of the country...




Stonecrest Mayor Jason Lary (right) with Christiaan Burner, CEO of Quicket Solutions. Burner's company is proposing a cloud-based platform that will propel the city into a near paperless environment.City of Stonecrest/Facebook


How to Start Your Own City
  1. BRENTIN MOCK
MAR 26, 2018

Earlier this month, Brentin Mock reported on the burgeoning cityhood movements outside of Atlanta. Now he talks with the mayor of the newest city on Atlanta’s outskirts, Stonecrest.

You may have heard about the Amazon HQ2 proposal from Georgia offering municipal naming rights to the corporate behemoth—as in, the company could have its own city called Amazon, Georgia. That offer came from the city of Stonecrest, which sits about 20 miles east of the city of Atlanta. Stonecrest has only, itself, been a city since 2017. Residents of the formerly unincorporated area of southeast DeKalb County voted in November 2016 to officially incorporate into a city. It is one of the more recent municipal experiments to hatch across the county, and metro Atlanta as a whole, since the turn of the century.

Stonecrest elected its first mayor, Jason Lary, on March 21, 2017. He was sworn in six days later making Tuesday his one-year anniversary. Lary is also the person who came up with the Stonecrest city concept and who planned it for four years before taking it to the state legislature for a vote in 2016. The city’s formation is not without haters, though. Sam Rosen wrote about the “controversial cityhood movement” happening around Atlanta for The Atlanticlast year, explaining that the original impetus for unincorporated suburbs to municipalize may have been driven at least in part by racism.

Many of the neighborhoods that became cities, starting in the 2000s, were predominantly white and upper-income enclaves that wanted more control of how their tax dollars were used by DeKalb County. Prior to becoming cities, the unincorporated areas depended on the county to deliver services such as garbage collection, policing, sewage maintenance and building inspection. As cities, these places can contract with private entities to operate these services in a more controlled and localized environment.

Stonecrest was the first majority-black city to form from this cityhood movement in DeKalb County, and so far it is the only city to form in the county’s southern parts, where the bulk of the African-American population lives. There is currently another proposal to municipalize the remainder of South DeKalb into a city called Greenhaven, but it is meeting massive resistance.

It’s similar to the resistance that met Lary when he spearheaded the Stonecrest city effort. (“You cannot be a cotton ball for the kind of work I’m doing,” Lary told Rosen for The Atlantic. “It’s some Jimmy Hoffa-level work.”) For those who oppose cityhood in DeKalb County, the fears are, mostly, that residential property values will collapse and that taxes will rise, especially if the city has a majority non-white population. The research in general, does not support that anxiety, but Stonecrest, which has an almost completely black population, has at least a year’s worth of data from its own existence to test those claims.

Citylab spoke with Stonecrest Mayor Lary to get a read-out of the city’s vital signs in its first year. And also, of course, we talked Amazon—is Lary really going to hand the keys to the city over to Bezos when he just got the keys himself? Read his responses in our interview below (edited for length and clarity).

Explain why it was necessary for Stonecrest to become a city.

As a 25-year resident [of southeast DeKalb County] I did not see the focus on economic development for our area. Everything was going to central and north DeKalb: State Farm, Mercedes Benz—just name it. We couldn't get any attention, not from the county, not from the development authority, nothing. We had to create a brand, and create our own city, and our own economic development engines to have a better shot at being successful. So that's what we did. We became a city. I ran for mayor. I won, and I created an economic development department, and we stay busy all day long just focusing on the Stonecrest brand, recruiting and retaining businesses. We were not getting that from a county that serves several hundred thousand people. So now we have 53,000 people focusing on our own business.

What have you learned in your first year as a city?

What I learned is that politics is a bloodsport (laughs). There is a millennium-sized difference between taking over an existing city versus building a new city. In building a new city, it's a double-time effort—not full-time, double-time, OK? You cannot be a part-time mayor.

You all are now developing a 200-acre sports and entertainment complex called Atlanta Sports City—how did municipalization impact that project?

One of the reasons [the developers] brought it over here was because of the formation of the city of Stonecrest. They wanted to be able to have the flexibility to operate in an environment that was not as constraining as the county’s. As a local city, we can issue the correct ordinances that we need to be more conducive for business. I think we had the defining impact on them coming to southeast DeKalb.



The Atlanta Sports City master plan, inclusive of two stadiums, one 5,000 seat stadium for regional tournaments and events, and one 15,000 seat stadium for professional soccer and other events. (Facebook/Atlanta Sports City)


Some news outlets reported that your proposal to host Amazon’s new headquarters included an offer to rename the city after the company. Is that really what you’re offering?

It is not to rename the city at all. What we offered to do was to take part of the city that we have in our industrial park area, that has 345 acres—to carve that off, and name it Amazon, Georgia. Also, they could have their own shipping distribution highway called 1000 Jeff Bezos Parkway. How neat would that be?

We'll have to create that through the legislature, and since I'm the architect of this city, I know how to do that. You de-annex 345 acres, then you get the [state] senators and the House of Representatives to support it. And with a $5 billion investment at stake, it has a good chance of happening. So it wasn't renaming Stonecrest, it was creating another city inside of an existing city.

What do you think of the criticism that cities shouldn’t be offering to give away so much land and tax breaks to Amazon?

I think that's the dumbest thing on the planet (laughs). Somebody is going to bring a $5 billion investment to your town with 50,000 jobs—and not only 50,000 jobs, but also the economic residual factor of other jobs being created and the commerce that comes along with it—and people are complaining? You can bring it to Stonecrest all day long (laughs). I'll take every job. I'll take every inch of traffic. I'll take it all.

What do you think of the proposal to turn the rest of the unincorporated land in South DeKalb County into a city called Greenhaven?

I think everybody should have the right to vote about that. People have philosophies about how they feel about the population or the size [of the proposed city] and that's all well and fine. Come to the ballot and make that difference.

Why do you think the Greenhaven proposal is meeting so much resistance?

I can think of one cool reason: Stonecrest’s [population] is 53,000, Brookhaven’s is 48,000, Dunwoody’s is 47,000—you know how large Greenhaven is?

Roughly 300,000.

Bingo. It would be the last remaining city that would be able to form throughout the entire county. And that means that the other cities couldn't annex [anymore unincorporated land]. They couldn't do anything actually. That's why they're meeting resistance.

Those who are against forming a city in South DeKalb are also worried that their property values would drop if that happened. Has that been the experience in Stonecrest?

Absolutely not (laughs). Matter of fact, our property values are going up! I live in it. I know. I get the tax bill. I don't know why people think that. I'll tell you about another bit of misinformation: They’ll say, “Well my taxes are going to double—I’ll have to pay a city tax and a county tax.”

Nope, not the case at all. Whatever service that you have in unincorporated DeKalb County, now is the service of the city. What made it even better for Stonecrest is that our property tax was such a small piece of the overall revenue of the city, we don't even have a millage rate. It's zero. So people's taxes didn't go up, and they have a better brand, and their property value increased. So we're winning across the board here.

There’s also criticism though that if the original cities formed for racially exclusive reasons, for white residents, that the answer is not to form a black city—that you can’t fight cityhood with cityhood, because it leaves the racism underlying the racial segregation in the region undisturbed. What do you think of that?

Racism? I don't feel that way. Let's make it short. I don't care what white folks do. I'm almost 60 years old. I got to worry about how much time I got left on this planet to get us together (laughs). We are a strong 95 percent African-American city that has formed on its own with its own level of commerce and its own opportunity to win.

:clap:

Because the white folks broke off [to start their own cities]—it doesn't matter to me. They can do what they do, because I'm not going to pick up my house and go move over there. I've got to make a stand right here in Stonecrest and make this work for us.

And I don't understand the philosophy behind that particular piece of it because soon there's not going to be any more unincorporated DeKalb, whether Greenhaven takes it all up, or whether some other city comes along, or whether all these other cities decide to annex [the unincorporated land] to make them bigger.

And let me give you this tidbit: if it weren't for the white folks, we wouldn't be a city now anyway, because it took their majority vote in the House and Senate to make it so. All I told the white senators and the House of Representatives was this: I don't need your free tokens; I don't need your handouts; I don't need any of that nonsense. What I need for you to do is to put us on the ballot so we can make our own decision and then I can live with the results of it from there.

About the Author
Brentin Mock
Brentin Mock is a staff writer at CityLab. He was previously the justice editor at Grist.

@Femmefatal1981
 
Last edited:

FelaShrine

Well-Known Member
Pushing for residency requirements might help, especially in urban areas. But forcing the police unions/members to pay for all of their own lawsuit settlements instead of taxpayers is probably the only thing that would shake them up enough to change their behaviour.

The only true options honestly. Relying on infiltration will just lead to the "overjay" ones who do everything possible to NOT seem like they are siding with their own thus going above and beyond with their own nastiness, sometimes worse than white people.
 

Southernbella.

Well-Known Member
I understand what you're getting at but black women are corrupt too. It was one of us presiding over that whole APS cheating scandal mess.



What a coincidence. I looked up city of Stonecrest to fact check the Amazon thing and this article popped up. The whole thing is worth reading but I bolded a few good parts. Maybe this is a blueprint for black communities in other parts of the country...




Stonecrest Mayor Jason Lary (right) with Christiaan Burner, CEO of Quicket Solutions. Burner's company is proposing a cloud-based platform that will propel the city into a near paperless environment.City of Stonecrest/Facebook
How to Start Your Own City
  1. BRENTIN MOCK
MAR 26, 2018

Earlier this month, Brentin Mock reported on the burgeoning cityhood movements outside of Atlanta. Now he talks with the mayor of the newest city on Atlanta’s outskirts, Stonecrest.

You may have heard about the Amazon HQ2 proposal from Georgia offering municipal naming rights to the corporate behemoth—as in, the company could have its own city called Amazon, Georgia. That offer came from the city of Stonecrest, which sits about 20 miles east of the city of Atlanta. Stonecrest has only, itself, been a city since 2017. Residents of the formerly unincorporated area of southeast DeKalb County voted in November 2016 to officially incorporate into a city. It is one of the more recent municipal experiments to hatch across the county, and metro Atlanta as a whole, since the turn of the century.

Stonecrest elected its first mayor, Jason Lary, on March 21, 2017. He was sworn in six days later making Tuesday his one-year anniversary. Lary is also the person who came up with the Stonecrest city concept and who planned it for four years before taking it to the state legislature for a vote in 2016. The city’s formation is not without haters, though. Sam Rosen wrote about the “controversial cityhood movement” happening around Atlanta for The Atlanticlast year, explaining that the original impetus for unincorporated suburbs to municipalize may have been driven at least in part by racism.

Many of the neighborhoods that became cities, starting in the 2000s, were predominantly white and upper-income enclaves that wanted more control of how their tax dollars were used by DeKalb County. Prior to becoming cities, the unincorporated areas depended on the county to deliver services such as garbage collection, policing, sewage maintenance and building inspection. As cities, these places can contract with private entities to operate these services in a more controlled and localized environment.

Stonecrest was the first majority-black city to form from this cityhood movement in DeKalb County, and so far it is the only city to form in the county’s southern parts, where the bulk of the African-American population lives. There is currently another proposal to municipalize the remainder of South DeKalb into a city called Greenhaven, but it is meeting massive resistance.

It’s similar to the resistance that met Lary when he spearheaded the Stonecrest city effort. (“You cannot be a cotton ball for the kind of work I’m doing,” Lary told Rosen for The Atlantic. “It’s some Jimmy Hoffa-level work.”) For those who oppose cityhood in DeKalb County, the fears are, mostly, that residential property values will collapse and that taxes will rise, especially if the city has a majority non-white population. The research in general, does not support that anxiety, but Stonecrest, which has an almost completely black population, has at least a year’s worth of data from its own existence to test those claims.

Citylab spoke with Stonecrest Mayor Lary to get a read-out of the city’s vital signs in its first year. And also, of course, we talked Amazon—is Lary really going to hand the keys to the city over to Bezos when he just got the keys himself? Read his responses in our interview below (edited for length and clarity).

Explain why it was necessary for Stonecrest to become a city.

As a 25-year resident [of southeast DeKalb County] I did not see the focus on economic development for our area. Everything was going to central and north DeKalb: State Farm, Mercedes Benz—just name it. We couldn't get any attention, not from the county, not from the development authority, nothing. We had to create a brand, and create our own city, and our own economic development engines to have a better shot at being successful. So that's what we did. We became a city. I ran for mayor. I won, and I created an economic development department, and we stay busy all day long just focusing on the Stonecrest brand, recruiting and retaining businesses. We were not getting that from a county that serves several hundred thousand people. So now we have 53,000 people focusing on our own business.

What have you learned in your first year as a city?

What I learned is that politics is a bloodsport (laughs). There is a millennium-sized difference between taking over an existing city versus building a new city. In building a new city, it's a double-time effort—not full-time, double-time, OK? You cannot be a part-time mayor.

You all are now developing a 200-acre sports and entertainment complex called Atlanta Sports City—how did municipalization impact that project?

One of the reasons [the developers] brought it over here was because of the formation of the city of Stonecrest. They wanted to be able to have the flexibility to operate in an environment that was not as constraining as the county’s. As a local city, we can issue the correct ordinances that we need to be more conducive for business. I think we had the defining impact on them coming to southeast DeKalb.

The Atlanta Sports City master plan, inclusive of two stadiums, one 5,000 seat stadium for regional tournaments and events, and one 15,000 seat stadium for professional soccer and other events. (Facebook/Atlanta Sports City)
Some news outlets reported that your proposal to host Amazon’s new headquarters included an offer to rename the city after the company. Is that really what you’re offering?

It is not to rename the city at all. What we offered to do was to take part of the city that we have in our industrial park area, that has 345 acres—to carve that off, and name it Amazon, Georgia. Also, they could have their own shipping distribution highway called 1000 Jeff Bezos Parkway. How neat would that be?

We'll have to create that through the legislature, and since I'm the architect of this city, I know how to do that. You de-annex 345 acres, then you get the [state] senators and the House of Representatives to support it. And with a $5 billion investment at stake, it has a good chance of happening. So it wasn't renaming Stonecrest, it was creating another city inside of an existing city.

What do you think of the criticism that cities shouldn’t be offering to give away so much land and tax breaks to Amazon?

I think that's the dumbest thing on the planet (laughs). Somebody is going to bring a $5 billion investment to your town with 50,000 jobs—and not only 50,000 jobs, but also the economic residual factor of other jobs being created and the commerce that comes along with it—and people are complaining? You can bring it to Stonecrest all day long (laughs). I'll take every job. I'll take every inch of traffic. I'll take it all.

city called Greenhaven?

I think everybody should have the right to vote about that. People have philosophies about how they feel about the population or the size [of the proposed city] and that's all well and fine. Come to the ballot and make that difference.

Why do you think the Greenhaven proposal is meeting so much resistance?

I can think of one cool reason: Stonecrest’s [population] is 53,000, Brookhaven’s is 48,000, Dunwoody’s is 47,000—you know how large Greenhaven is?

Roughly 300,000.

Bingo. It would be the last remaining city that would be able to form throughout the entire county. And that means that the other cities couldn't annex [anymore unincorporated land]. They couldn't do anything actually. That's why they're meeting resistance.

Those who are against forming a city in South DeKalb are also worried that their property values would drop if that happened. Has that been the experience in Stonecrest?

Absolutely not (laughs). Matter of fact, our property values are going up! I live in it. I know. I get the tax bill. I don't know why people think that. I'll tell you about another bit of misinformation: They’ll say, “Well my taxes are going to double—I’ll have to pay a city tax and a county tax.”

Nope, not the case at all. Whatever service that you have in unincorporated DeKalb County, now is the service of the city. What made it even better for Stonecrest is that our property tax was such a small piece of the overall revenue of the city, we don't even have a millage rate. It's zero. So people's taxes didn't go up, and they have a better brand, and their property value increased. So we're winning across the board here.

There’s also criticism though that if the original cities formed for racially exclusive reasons, for white residents, that the answer is not to form a black city—that you can’t fight cityhood with cityhood, because it leaves the racism underlying the racial segregation in the region undisturbed. What do you think of that?

Racism? I don't feel that way. Let's make it short. I don't care what white folks do. I'm almost 60 years old. I got to worry about how much time I got left on this planet to get us together (laughs). We are a strong 95 percent African-American city that has formed on its own with its own level of commerce and its own opportunity to win.

:clap:

Because the white folks broke off [to start their own cities]—it doesn't matter to me. They can do what they do, because I'm not going to pick up my house and go move over there. I've got to make a stand right here in Stonecrest and make this work for us.

And I don't understand the philosophy behind that particular piece of it because soon there's not going to be any more unincorporated DeKalb, whether Greenhaven takes it all up, or whether some other city comes along, or whether all these other cities decide to annex [the unincorporated land] to make them bigger.

And let me give you this tidbit: if it weren't for the white folks, we wouldn't be a city now anyway, because it took their majority vote in the House and Senate to make it so. All I told the white senators and the House of Representatives was this: I don't need your free tokens; I don't need your handouts; I don't need any of that nonsense. What I need for you to do is to put us on the ballot so we can make our own decision and then I can live with the results of it from there.

About the Author
Brentin Mock
Brentin Mock is a staff writer at CityLab. He was previously the justice editor at Grist.

@Femmefatal1981

Also, before things went left, Eddie Long was instrumental in getting Stonecrest Mall built (and if you grew up here you understand the significance of that) and he had a vision amd a team put together to facilitate the economic development of the rest of DeKalb county. If they fix the schools they will have no problem attracting black wealth back into the area.
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
@Crackers Phinn: I get your example, but what should we ask for?
When it's a company :
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

How that money gets distributed is what will get debated into oblivion. But if I was Boss of the black people last week. The dudes who sat inside the meeting with Starbucks CEO should have gotten their "pain and suffering" payoff and demanded that xyz dollars be donated to a "xyz cause" that would deliver the benefit of that money to other black people. The protesters outside should have had signs and chants indicating that they would stop the protests if Starbucks be socially responsible and donate to "xyz cause" that helps black boys/men who are likely targets of the type of profiling their employee committed. Wouldn't be no talk about forgiveness or hearing Becky's side of the story neither.
 

Femmefatal1981

Well-Known Member
I understand what you're getting at but black women are corrupt too. It was one of us presiding over that whole APS cheating scandal mess.



What a coincidence. I looked up city of Stonecrest to fact check the Amazon thing and this article popped up. The whole thing is worth reading but I bolded a few good parts. Maybe this is a blueprint for black communities in other parts of the country...




Stonecrest Mayor Jason Lary (right) with Christiaan Burner, CEO of Quicket Solutions. Burner's company is proposing a cloud-based platform that will propel the city into a near paperless environment.City of Stonecrest/Facebook


How to Start Your Own City
  1. BRENTIN MOCK
MAR 26, 2018

Earlier this month, Brentin Mock reported on the burgeoning cityhood movements outside of Atlanta. Now he talks with the mayor of the newest city on Atlanta’s outskirts, Stonecrest.

You may have heard about the Amazon HQ2 proposal from Georgia offering municipal naming rights to the corporate behemoth—as in, the company could have its own city called Amazon, Georgia. That offer came from the city of Stonecrest, which sits about 20 miles east of the city of Atlanta. Stonecrest has only, itself, been a city since 2017. Residents of the formerly unincorporated area of southeast DeKalb County voted in November 2016 to officially incorporate into a city. It is one of the more recent municipal experiments to hatch across the county, and metro Atlanta as a whole, since the turn of the century.

Stonecrest elected its first mayor, Jason Lary, on March 21, 2017. He was sworn in six days later making Tuesday his one-year anniversary. Lary is also the person who came up with the Stonecrest city concept and who planned it for four years before taking it to the state legislature for a vote in 2016. The city’s formation is not without haters, though. Sam Rosen wrote about the “controversial cityhood movement” happening around Atlanta for The Atlanticlast year, explaining that the original impetus for unincorporated suburbs to municipalize may have been driven at least in part by racism.

Many of the neighborhoods that became cities, starting in the 2000s, were predominantly white and upper-income enclaves that wanted more control of how their tax dollars were used by DeKalb County. Prior to becoming cities, the unincorporated areas depended on the county to deliver services such as garbage collection, policing, sewage maintenance and building inspection. As cities, these places can contract with private entities to operate these services in a more controlled and localized environment.

Stonecrest was the first majority-black city to form from this cityhood movement in DeKalb County, and so far it is the only city to form in the county’s southern parts, where the bulk of the African-American population lives. There is currently another proposal to municipalize the remainder of South DeKalb into a city called Greenhaven, but it is meeting massive resistance.

It’s similar to the resistance that met Lary when he spearheaded the Stonecrest city effort. (“You cannot be a cotton ball for the kind of work I’m doing,” Lary told Rosen for The Atlantic. “It’s some Jimmy Hoffa-level work.”) For those who oppose cityhood in DeKalb County, the fears are, mostly, that residential property values will collapse and that taxes will rise, especially if the city has a majority non-white population. The research in general, does not support that anxiety, but Stonecrest, which has an almost completely black population, has at least a year’s worth of data from its own existence to test those claims.

Citylab spoke with Stonecrest Mayor Lary to get a read-out of the city’s vital signs in its first year. And also, of course, we talked Amazon—is Lary really going to hand the keys to the city over to Bezos when he just got the keys himself? Read his responses in our interview below (edited for length and clarity).

Explain why it was necessary for Stonecrest to become a city.

As a 25-year resident [of southeast DeKalb County] I did not see the focus on economic development for our area. Everything was going to central and north DeKalb: State Farm, Mercedes Benz—just name it. We couldn't get any attention, not from the county, not from the development authority, nothing. We had to create a brand, and create our own city, and our own economic development engines to have a better shot at being successful. So that's what we did. We became a city. I ran for mayor. I won, and I created an economic development department, and we stay busy all day long just focusing on the Stonecrest brand, recruiting and retaining businesses. We were not getting that from a county that serves several hundred thousand people. So now we have 53,000 people focusing on our own business.

What have you learned in your first year as a city?

What I learned is that politics is a bloodsport (laughs). There is a millennium-sized difference between taking over an existing city versus building a new city. In building a new city, it's a double-time effort—not full-time, double-time, OK? You cannot be a part-time mayor.

You all are now developing a 200-acre sports and entertainment complex called Atlanta Sports City—how did municipalization impact that project?

One of the reasons [the developers] brought it over here was because of the formation of the city of Stonecrest. They wanted to be able to have the flexibility to operate in an environment that was not as constraining as the county’s. As a local city, we can issue the correct ordinances that we need to be more conducive for business. I think we had the defining impact on them coming to southeast DeKalb.



The Atlanta Sports City master plan, inclusive of two stadiums, one 5,000 seat stadium for regional tournaments and events, and one 15,000 seat stadium for professional soccer and other events. (Facebook/Atlanta Sports City)


Some news outlets reported that your proposal to host Amazon’s new headquarters included an offer to rename the city after the company. Is that really what you’re offering?

It is not to rename the city at all. What we offered to do was to take part of the city that we have in our industrial park area, that has 345 acres—to carve that off, and name it Amazon, Georgia. Also, they could have their own shipping distribution highway called 1000 Jeff Bezos Parkway. How neat would that be?

We'll have to create that through the legislature, and since I'm the architect of this city, I know how to do that. You de-annex 345 acres, then you get the [state] senators and the House of Representatives to support it. And with a $5 billion investment at stake, it has a good chance of happening. So it wasn't renaming Stonecrest, it was creating another city inside of an existing city.

What do you think of the criticism that cities shouldn’t be offering to give away so much land and tax breaks to Amazon?

I think that's the dumbest thing on the planet (laughs). Somebody is going to bring a $5 billion investment to your town with 50,000 jobs—and not only 50,000 jobs, but also the economic residual factor of other jobs being created and the commerce that comes along with it—and people are complaining? You can bring it to Stonecrest all day long (laughs). I'll take every job. I'll take every inch of traffic. I'll take it all.

What do you think of the proposal to turn the rest of the unincorporated land in South DeKalb County into a city called Greenhaven?

I think everybody should have the right to vote about that. People have philosophies about how they feel about the population or the size [of the proposed city] and that's all well and fine. Come to the ballot and make that difference.

Why do you think the Greenhaven proposal is meeting so much resistance?

I can think of one cool reason: Stonecrest’s [population] is 53,000, Brookhaven’s is 48,000, Dunwoody’s is 47,000—you know how large Greenhaven is?

Roughly 300,000.

Bingo. It would be the last remaining city that would be able to form throughout the entire county. And that means that the other cities couldn't annex [anymore unincorporated land]. They couldn't do anything actually. That's why they're meeting resistance.

Those who are against forming a city in South DeKalb are also worried that their property values would drop if that happened. Has that been the experience in Stonecrest?

Absolutely not (laughs). Matter of fact, our property values are going up! I live in it. I know. I get the tax bill. I don't know why people think that. I'll tell you about another bit of misinformation: They’ll say, “Well my taxes are going to double—I’ll have to pay a city tax and a county tax.”

Nope, not the case at all. Whatever service that you have in unincorporated DeKalb County, now is the service of the city. What made it even better for Stonecrest is that our property tax was such a small piece of the overall revenue of the city, we don't even have a millage rate. It's zero. So people's taxes didn't go up, and they have a better brand, and their property value increased. So we're winning across the board here.

There’s also criticism though that if the original cities formed for racially exclusive reasons, for white residents, that the answer is not to form a black city—that you can’t fight cityhood with cityhood, because it leaves the racism underlying the racial segregation in the region undisturbed. What do you think of that?

Racism? I don't feel that way. Let's make it short. I don't care what white folks do. I'm almost 60 years old. I got to worry about how much time I got left on this planet to get us together (laughs). We are a strong 95 percent African-American city that has formed on its own with its own level of commerce and its own opportunity to win.

:clap:

Because the white folks broke off [to start their own cities]—it doesn't matter to me. They can do what they do, because I'm not going to pick up my house and go move over there. I've got to make a stand right here in Stonecrest and make this work for us.

And I don't understand the philosophy behind that particular piece of it because soon there's not going to be any more unincorporated DeKalb, whether Greenhaven takes it all up, or whether some other city comes along, or whether all these other cities decide to annex [the unincorporated land] to make them bigger.

And let me give you this tidbit: if it weren't for the white folks, we wouldn't be a city now anyway, because it took their majority vote in the House and Senate to make it so. All I told the white senators and the House of Representatives was this: I don't need your free tokens; I don't need your handouts; I don't need any of that nonsense. What I need for you to do is to put us on the ballot so we can make our own decision and then I can live with the results of it from there.

About the Author
Brentin Mock
Brentin Mock is a staff writer at CityLab. He was previously the justice editor at Grist.

@Femmefatal1981
Yes!!! And he’s dead on about Greenhaven..it’s too big, it scares white folks and the state legislature. Heck it scares Atlanta.

But yeah, I’m 1000% here for it
 

Southernbella.

Well-Known Member
Yes!!! And he’s dead on about Greenhaven..it’s too big, it scares white folks and the state legislature. Heck it scares Atlanta.

But yeah, I’m 1000% here for it

Honestly I was shocked the Stonecrest vote went through. But I'm here for Greenhaven too, for sure. South DeKalb has always been the redheaded stepchild of the county. The segregation was wanted on both sides but the resources never flowed south, which we've talked about generally on here before when it comes to black cities. I like Lary's approach of making it clear that we don't want anything from yall but to let us do us.
 

Shula

Well-Known Member
A few months ago, a white man called the cops on my daughter because he didn't like the way she parked her car on the street. She was there visiting a friend. Y'all know these southern suburban neighborhoods where they build the streets so narrow that when people park on the street you can barely get by without scratching a car? Well, her car was parked maybe a couple of inches from his driveway because the houses are so close. Big ole white man calls the cop on this little bitty 104 lbs and barely 5 foot woman that looks barely 15. The cop came and ran her plates and everything. Yes, they will weaponize the cops against us in a second. My baby was shook but she handled it well. I'm glad it didn't escalate because that's exactly why they call. To get us our "comeuppance". The whole street is parked crazy because people don't park in their garages.

My heart is broken for this young lady. We need to be giving our girls some version of " the talk", too.
 

UmSumayyah

Well-Known Member
A few months ago, a white man called the cops on my daughter because he didn't like the way she parked her car on the street. She was there visiting a friend. Y'all know these southern suburban neighborhoods where they build the streets so narrow that when people park on the street you can barely get by without scratching a car? Well, her car was parked maybe a couple of inches from his driveway because the houses are so close. Big ole white man calls the cop on this little bitty 104 lbs and barely 5 foot woman that looks barely 15. The cop came and ran her plates and everything. Yes, they will weaponize the cops against us in a second. My baby was shook but she handled it well. I'm glad it didn't escalate because that's exactly why they call. To get us our "comeuppance". The whole street is parked crazy because people don't park in their garages.

My heart is broken for this young lady. We need to be giving our girls some version of " the talk", too.
My daughter takes private music lessons and due to some unusual circumstances, all the kids had to rehearse for their recital at a house in a different neighborhood. It was a hike so I sat in the car. Just as I was about to leave with my daughter, an Indian lady came up to my car to ask if she could help me, because she noticed I had been there for awhile.

I looked her up and down and told her I was just leaving with my daughter from her private rehearsal.

Had she called the cops on me she would have been all kinds of sorry because she did not know who she was dealing with, and that's all I'll say about that lol.
 

GreenEyedJen

Well-Known Member
I've been making a habit of commenting in threads before I've read them all the way through, which I HATE...so excuse me if this has been brought up already.

The way to get to the police force, and the government in general, is though legislation reform. Police and other government actors have qualified immunity, and in some cases, absolute immunity. In short, by virtue of their jobs, they are immune from being civilly, and at times criminally, liable for their actions.

The concept of the immunities came about after the Civil Rights Movement. See, when we get rights on paper, they just make more "rights" or legal opinions to enforce their power. We never talk about all the things that they do to hit us back after we get laws in our favor. It's a never ending thing, and it will take years upon years of education, sitting at the table, and constant pressure to actually dismantle the system in our country. Basically, at least as long as it has taken to install it. And that's with years upon years of WORK.

The first step is to educate. We, as adults, need to actively educate ourselves and our youth about the political system. Audit a government class at a college. If you've gone the legal route already, audit a separation of powers class. I'm serious. So, so much is hidden in plain sight. Once we have a generation that is truly educated on this stuff, it would be impossible for them not to want to act as a unit and pass down the knowledge to get things done. At least, I know that's what happened to me. No one had to tell me to do something. When I saw how many times they beat us, physically, mentally, and politically, I couldn't NOT act.
 

Sridevi

Well-Known Member
I've been making a habit of commenting in threads before I've read them all the way through, which I HATE...so excuse me if this has been brought up already.

The way to get to the police force, and the government in general, is though legislation reform. Police and other government actors have qualified immunity, and in some cases, absolute immunity. In short, by virtue of their jobs, they are immune from being civilly, and at times criminally, liable for their actions.

The concept of the immunities came about after the Civil Rights Movement. See, when we get rights on paper, they just make more "rights" or legal opinions to enforce their power. We never talk about all the things that they do to hit us back after we get laws in our favor. It's a never ending thing, and it will take years upon years of education, sitting at the table, and constant pressure to actually dismantle the system in our country. Basically, at least as long as it has taken to install it. And that's with years upon years of WORK.

The first step is to educate. We, as adults, need to actively educate ourselves and our youth about the political system. Audit a government class at a college. If you've gone the legal route already, audit a separation of powers class. I'm serious. So, so much is hidden in plain sight. Once we have a generation that is truly educated on this stuff, it would be impossible for them not to want to act as a unit and pass down the knowledge to get things done. At least, I know that's what happened to me. No one had to tell me to do something. When I saw how many times they beat us, physically, mentally, and politically, I couldn't NOT act.

I think Shaun King is actively working to get District Attorneys across America replaced. Most are in cahoots with police and are responsible for the plea-bargaining that forced many blacks to plead guilty so they don’t risk longer sentences.

Follow @shaunking on Instagram & Twitter if you don’t already.
 

GreenEyedJen

Well-Known Member
I think Shaun King is actively working to get District Attorneys across America replaced. Most are in cahoots with police and are responsible for the plea-bargaining that forced many blacks to plead guilty so they don’t risk longer sentences.

Follow @shaunking on Instagram & Twitter if you don’t already.

I know, I was a public defender right after law school. Shoot, most public defenders are in cahoots. It's so much bigger than DA's. We need everyone replaced.

I'm not on social media but I'll remember if I ever get on there.
 

Petal26

Well-Known Member
I never watched the full video because my stomach couldn't take it. I had no idea her damn dress basically came off. How are they saying she had a gun? There is no mention of that on the video, I'm tired of boycotting and protesting just to have something else happen again.

It was a strapless dress, and the cops kept pulling it down. They said she was shouting at the staff telling them that she would shoot them.

I'm waiting to hear that she's suing everyone.
 

frida1980

Well-Known Member
It was a strapless dress, and the cops kept pulling it down. They said she was shouting at the staff telling them that she would shoot them.

I'm waiting to hear that she's suing everyone.

I'mnow calling BS on the claim that she wa yelling and shooting. It makes absolutely no sense, and sounds like it came from the mind of a deranged racist that thinks all black people are violent.

There I always a smear campaign after a black person is victimized by someone white or in a white establishment. These anonymous witnesses come forward and spread lies about the victims to get their white brethren off the hook. The good news is that all Waffle Houses have video cameras installed in case of robberies. That will tell the true story of what happened.
 

Atthatday

Every knee shall bow...
I don’t put much stock in any video that’s owned by anyone else, especially when they give it to police first. The police have been known to alter video.

Police have been caught on video doing all kinds of treacherous things and it hasn’t stopped them at all. We’ve got to find other ways to protect each other and ourselves.
 
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