Did 'em's get 'em's li'l feelin's hurt?
Apparently, because these White men, and they are all men and all White, are basically shouting "I'm not a racist." Perhaps, but they were, and remain, clueless as any White man knows that is exactly what NOT to say. Not at this moment; not with today's movement.
They kick this off by claiming that a historian (we're going to grant a history professor, emeritus, that designation) had no evidence. How could that possibly be? Could it be that the founding fathers did their work behind the cloak of private corporations, Dunwoody Yes! and Citizens for Dunwoody? Could it be that there are no published meeting agendas or minutes? Could it be that there are no interim or final drafts of "Task Force" reports? You know, the reports that informed, mayhap even "drove," the actions of the founding fathers? Could it be because there is no historical record? Could that be because of the actions of our founding fathers and their co-conspirators?
They go on to enumerate what "drove" them to form a city as if it were out of their control, not an ambition of theirs, not a projection of their own egos. These drivers include areas where the city has shown epic failure but end with the old bromide of local control: "the desire to improve our community and control our own destiny, thus enhancing the quality of life for all our citizens." [emphasis added] They actually just laid that stinker right out there. They, who have turned this city over to any and every business that wants to exploit "their" citizens. They, who rose to power on promises of stopping apartment development built a city promoting expansion of rental properties throughout Dunwoody. Their city is notorious for police malfeasance and incompetence ranging from bungled investigations to DWB enforcement to citizen shootings to enforcement neglect to civil rights violations to odious sexual hijinks. It is a city well known for ethics violations and being on the losing end of numerous court cases. It is a city that has deliberately acted against its own ordinances and now has passed an ordinance violating the rule of law. Is this where they were driving? Were they driving drunk? Not unheard of.
If these drivers were so obvious, were indeed an existential threat, were the truths they hold to be so self-evident why did they schedule the referendum vote for the middle of July? Was this not to ensure minimal voter turnout so their small, but fervent group of supporters could dominate the outcome? Could it be that a November vote, in a presidential election year with a Black candidate on the ballot would all but ensure failure? Do they have a credible way to spin those facts? Do they have a credible way...
Not content with those insults they drag out the whole racial smoke screen saying that "Dunwoody had long since ceased to be a Whites-only enclave." True dat. The Whites-only enclave is called "city government." All White, predominantly male council. Only white mayors. Exclusively White male city managers. White male chief of police. Do they really expect anyone to believe that reflects the demographics of this city? That it ever did? That they ever cared that it would? Or perhaps they wanted to ensure that it didn't? Which is more plausible?
And one of the first efforts of this White Enclave was the plan to destroy the homes of people, people of color, in order to build expensive housing and ball parks effectively using housing economics to engineer, to their liking, the racial makeup of their new city. They started a promotional campaign and when that gained insufficient traction began a PR campaign based on crime in that area and the cost to "the rest of the community" in addressing that crime. This only came to a crashing halt when one otherwise loyal minion blurted out the critical role of this redevelopment in keeping those people out of our schools.
And they just cannot put down the shovel, continuing with "Racial and ethnic diversity was and is a driving force of Dunwoody’s success." Yet they would engineer a system that is exclusively White and mostly male at the topmost levels of its power structure, that is so paternalistic it is all but a modern re-creation of a plantation society. Yet we're supposed to believe there was nothing racial going on, by accident or by design.
So why has council and mayor been lily-White? Well that actually is by design. The city map was sliced up into voting regions and there were many ways to do this. The most obvious is just to divide the city into three parts, each region running east to west. This would all but guarantee a minority seat on council. Instead our founding fathers chose to slice and dice into regions running north to south. Why? As mentioned, no documents are available, but this layout all but ensures that the minority areas are divided allowing them to be conquered by White areas. Three at-large council seats ensures representation for the dominant, White voting pool. Would they have you believe this is merely coincidence? Can they still assert they actually designed this city if so much were left to chance? That anything, including diversity was a consideration?
It is worth noting these founders chose not to involve their necessary co-conspirators, Dan Weber and Fran Millar, in their retort. We have heard from Rusty Paul, mayor of the city we most want to emulate and former state Senator fighting alongside Dan and Fran, who has acknowledged "that there were issues on both sides that had racial overtones." Perhaps, no longer in the fray, Dan and Fran have had time to reflect, perhaps to regret. We will never know.
They may take umbrage at how history has judged their motivations and intentions, but we, the citizens OF Dunwoody continue to suffer from what they actually did.
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