Atlanta’s Ongoing Delusion with History
I consider myself to be an “Old New Englander”, even though I’ve lived
here in Georgia longer than I have in any other state. Sure, I can talk like a good ol’ boy and give
the right drawl depending on which part of the state I’m in. I’ll enjoy a good chicken biscuit for
breakfast and even some biscuits and gravy.
But, in my heart, I know I’m still a New Englander. I’ve never eaten grits and I don’t plan on doing
so anytime soon. I can’t stand Georgia’s
summer humidity, which has gotten even worse here in Atlanta than when I moved
to the southern part of the state in 1988.
I like seeing the beautiful women of the south, but, for the life of me,
I just can’t understand why people in Atlanta can be so delusional and still
function.
Maybe it’s the heat and humidity.
Maybe if you’re exposed to it long enough it fries that huge green
tomato in your skull. Maybe it has
something to do with the pollen, which has also gotten worse and worse over the
years.
Or maybe it’s just generations of southern self-righteousness and
ignorance. This is, after all, the state
that not only boasts of being the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement, but
also where the greatest enemy of that same movement was resurrected.
Either way, the people of Atlanta are not doing themselves any favors
when they live in continual delusion about certain things, especially when it
comes to its own history.
Take, for instance, the Olympics.
If you were to read the Atlanta newspapers or watched the local TV
channels of late, you’d think that Atlanta hosted the most perfect Olympics
ever back in 1996! They want us all to
believe that from the moment the late Muhammad Ali lit the torch until the
closing ceremony, everything went off without a hitch, that everyone was kind
and cordial to each other, and that Atlanta was the perfect and most gracious
hosts that ever could exist!
Except that is all just a pile of chicken poop.
You see, I was here during
the Olympics. And so were some of my readers.
I started my weekly column earlier that year, and I know the real
history that the Atlanta media does not want you to remember!
First of all, you know those
stories you were hearing earlier this past month about how Rio de Janeiro isn’t
ready to be hosting the games right now?
How they’re not finished with some of the arrangements? Well, guess
what? We weren’t exactly ready for prime
time either, and we had eight years to prepare for it! A lot of what we did was last-minute too, and
I seem to recall a few event locations weren’t “finished” by the Opening
Ceremony either. So we have no business at
all complaining about Rio’s lack of preparedness.
Second, we had our share of embarrassments
as well. Remember Cobb County and their anti-gay
platform? Yeah, it cost them the
volleyball venue, but it also exposed the ugly “good ol’ boy rednecks” that are
in abundance in the state. It’s like saying
“Here’s Miss America, and now here’s a close-up of the bright-red oozing and
infected pimple that’s on her butt.”
Funny, isn’t it, how the
human mind will ignore the 99% beauty and focus on the 1% ugly?
The Atlanta delusion says
that everyone prospered during the Olympics, but I was there in the city during
the games. I went to the restaurants and
stores inside the city and I saw the frustrations of those store owners and
restaurant workers who thought they’d be bursting at the seams with
international customers.
My best friend from high
school and first adopted brother came down to Atlanta that week for a visit. His first vacation in forever. He saw the rowing competition from the edge
of our cove, then I took him into the city for the afternoon. We went to the Sundial restaurant, thinking
that it would be packed since it was the perfect place to see the whole city in
an hour. It wasn’t packed. In fact, it was pretty much empty. The staff were eager to have anyone there. It turned out that while “the whole world”
may have come to Atlanta, they all pretty much stayed within range of the
venues and the Olympic Park.
Yes, there were business
opportunities, but not for everyone. In fact, attorneys blatantly violated the
First Amendment of the United States Constitution by claiming common words were
somehow copyright protected. We couldn’t even say what state, city, or country
we were in! Any merchant that wasn’t an “official
sponsor” of the games couldn’t even sell T-shirts that said “Welcome to Atlanta”
without getting slapped with a lawsuit and an emergency order to
cease-and-desist. Having $40 million to
be an “official sponsor” means you can afford an anti-American legal goon squad
and never feel guilty about it.
I don’t know about you, but
I have a problem with these kinds of attorneys and the piece-of-crap power-mongers
that hire them. There is no hell that
can be imagined that can properly dish out the kind of cosmic justice these
bitches and bastards deserve.
Don’t remember it, Atlanta
media? You were the ones that were
covering it! You were the ones pointing
it out.
And then... there is “the
moment”.
You know which “moment” I’m
talking about, Atlanta media! The one
that shocked everyone! The one that
pretty much ruined things for us.
The moment when a Christian
terrorist named Eric Robert Rudolph planted a
bomb in Centennial Olympic Park in the middle of the late-night Olympic
festivities that took the life of one and injured dozens. The moment that paused the games and ruined
our “perfect” experience.
But what really did us in
wasn’t the bombing. It was what we did
afterward. We were so damned quick to
find the culprit that we were ready to railroad an innocent person and send him
to prison. And not just any citizen; but
the very security guard that discovered the bomb and was getting people to
safety when it detonated. Richard Jewel
was his name, and he was the one that kept the loss of life to just one person.
Of course, I can understand
why the Atlanta media doesn’t want us to remember that time. They don’t want people to remember how they
railroaded an innocent person and tried and convicted him in the court of public
opinion and then tried to force the government to have him arrested and sent
away just to have the whole bombing matter closed and done away with.
But I remember it well. Hell, I
even warned the Atlanta media not to do it!
But, of course, they don’t listen to people like me. I’m just some guy on the Internet doing a
weekly column that reached out to people around the world. They’re the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and
WSB TV and WSB Radio and they’ll tell us what to think!
So, yeah, they don’t want you
to remember that part of the whole 1996 Olympic experience.
Oh, and let’s not forget our
little temper tantrum, shall we?
Yes, we threw a fit when
International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch refused to
close the Atlanta Games by saying they were “the best Olympics ever”. As if we were somehow entitled to this distinction
after all that we did! “How dare he not
bless us with that distinction”, we said.
“How dare he?!?”
All of this is conveniently
forgotten when the Atlanta media wants us to look back at the events of twenty
years ago and try to pretend it was a glorious spectacle. Oh, it was a spectacle all right. Just not the kind that we wanted.
Let’s get brutally honest
here... we do ourselves a phenomenal disservice when we try to view our history
with rose-colored glasses, no matter when it comes to the issue of slavery, to
the Civil War, to Civil Rights, or even to our time hosting the Olympic Games. Every time we refuse to recognize our
failings, we fail to learn the lessons of them.
We can’t do better the next time around because we refuse to believe
that we did anything that needed improvement.
So we’ll end up doing the same things again and end up with the same
results and then wonder why that is.
And let’s not forget that
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is
otherwise known as insanity.
Face it, Atlanta: we weren’t
that great during our time hosting the Olympics. Our ugly sides were exposed like that
hypothetical infected pimple on Miss America’s butt. And if I can remember those events clearly,
it’s a sure bet that others can as well.
If we truly want to be hosting international stages again, we need to
stop living in delusion and denial about all that went on in the past.
No comments:
Post a Comment