Where are our self-ordained Atlanta politicians when you need them?
Cop City is an expansive and expensive project that is set to be a training facility for already over-militarized police officers and breaks ground later this year. Cop City will see the destruction of the forest north of Atlanta, the South River Forest, which comprises land stolen from the Muscogee and was also a plantation and prison farm.
Wow. That’s a lot of oppression in one short breath, ain’t it?
Its $90-million and 85-acre construction has already claimed the life of climate activist Tortuguita, who was murdered by police while inside his tent, fighting the destruction of the lands that help protect the city of Atlanta even better than the police department.
Anyway, when it comes to issues pertaining to Atlanta and Black folks, political savant Killer Mike and the superfluous word user, who is a stumbling thesaurus Clifford, “T.I.” Harris.
While their rap songs may have been about different topics, they were never afraid to harmoniously speak on Atlanta politics, including attempting to quell the anger of protestors and, sure, rioters in the city of Atlanta (because the Boston Tea Partygoers were rioters too if we are going by the destruction of property as the definition) but I’m sure if you own businesses in the city, you might have a bit more at stake. During a press conference two years ago, T.I. and Killer Mike, both business owners, make extremely impassioned speeches that, well, if there were ever a Grammy/Oscar mashup for best rap duet in a dramatic scene, these two would definitely win the Gromscar.
T.I. standing there wearing exhaustion and a flannel button-up, looking like he broke up with his barber and it’s too late to apologize, pleaded with the city, which he rose “up out of the wreckage of the struggle” from, to keep the peace all while calling Atlanta, “Wakanda.” Even though Wakanda, of course, is not real.
Immediately after Troubleman’s troubled testimony, Killer Mike grabs the mic and starts off with, “I didn’t want to come and I don’t want to be here,” showing you his pledge to the city he loves so much that he even showed up to the press conference on his day off, “I got a lot of love for police officers,” Murderer Michael continues his verse, I mean speech, by detailing how several members of his family are Atlanta area police officers.
I do not know what that is supposed to mean. I think this is what a debate teacher would call pathos?
But seriously, where are these guys? After Killer Mike went rogue on anyone who questioned his campaigning for Kemp and against Abrams, whether it be diet, implied or explicit, he had to know that stating he respected Brian Kemp’s campaigning and taking pictures with him in his office would somehow garner some support for Kemp or at least link the two in the future, whether Killer Mike liked it or not. Implying that he respected his campaign is so daft because any person with two neurons to rub together, unless, of course, they had too much green in their eyes, could clearly see that Kemp’s motives were self-serving and the man with a shotgun in his campaign commercial, protecting Georgia’s landlocked borders from Mexico, could not possibly be where restorative justice or any justice for Black people would start.
While the city listened to T.I. and especially Killer Mike, did either of them listen to the city?
Instead of bringing awareness to a project that 70% of Atlanta residents opposed, they are going about their regular normal lives with no response about Cop City. I mean, sure, Killer Mike comes from a long line of lawmen, but at the very least, you would think that with Troubleman’s troubled history with the feds, and Atlanta area police in particular, he would feel some sort of way about its construction.
Again, I do not want to take away any of the good these two may have done for the city.
T.I. was appointed to a special task force by the now-former mayor, Keisha Lance-Bottoms, that would repurpose a county jail for community outreach and Killer Mike goes to barber shops, and that’s cool, the same Keisha Lance-Bottoms that oversaw the approval of Cop City.
Neither of them has spoken about, to my research’s knowledge, or posted about it on social media, even though Killer Mike was surely directly asked by several people on Twitter.
If Atlanta is indeed Wakanda, then we’ve got some terrible excuses for Black Panthers.
