Today is the one month anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown and none of Nashville's mayoral candidates have put forward policy ideas on police brutality and militarism in black communities

Photo credit: Al Jazeera America

One month ago today Michael Brown was shot dead by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. It was an infamous event that ignited anger and concern around the nation. There were mass protests around the country, especially after militarized St. Louis County police cracked own on organized local demonstrations. Social media coverage blew up and forced city politicians hundreds of miles from St. Louis to deal with the fallout. The federal government is currently investigating how police handled the shooting and the social protests with the possibility that any militarized police force that has used military weaponry against protesters could be forced to return the grants.

In late August local congregational leaders in Nashville sponsored a standing-room-only town hall meeting in North Nashville marked by unease, consternation and qualified support for Nashville's police department, their double standard toward non-white communities and their own military arsenal gained through federal government grants. Police officers were prompted to account for the ways they have used military weaponry in service of the public.

That meeting was attended by the candidates who have announced their desire to take over the Mayor's Office next year. One would think that after Ferguson shook the country and after the shock waves were felt in Nashville that this all-white slate of candidates would be articulating some kind of policy options for checking militarized policing in Nashville. Maybe I have not looked in the right places, but I cannot tell that they have proposed any changes to the Nashville status quo. Maybe they believe the don't need the votes.

I searched local news feeds.

And I looked at their websites. This is what I found there as of today.

School reformer Jeremy Kane is otherwise a blank slate. He says nothing about his policy ideas on the issues, preferring "to hear" your ideas for Nashville on his website. He has an air-brushed PR video on the main page that basically retreads Karl Dean's three-headed campaign hellhound: education, law enforcement and economic development. He adds reformer jargon to public education like "collaboration," which is typically code for "privatization" (subsidizing private enterprise with Metro revenue that would otherwise be used for public programs).

I cannot find any evidence that candidate Kane has said a thing about policing Ferguson or the militarization of police forces. Does he believe that charter schools are the answer? He attended the August 21 town hall meeting on Jefferson Street, but his only response to that was to thank the organizers of the event on Twitter.

Megan Barry has gone farther than Jeremy Kane in giving some detail to policy questions on her website, but those details do not seem to be updated in the last month with all of the unpleasantness arising from the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson. In her public safety meditation, she vaguely refers to the justice system "treating everyone the same". She makes no specific reference to racial inequality when she fleshes out what she means by that. She says nothing about curbing the excesses of police militarism and brutality even as she touts her council votes in support of increasing the number of cops on the streets, which is only a good thing if cops are treating everyone even-handedly (as we heard at last month's town hall, they are not).

Candidate Barry offers no indication that she supports citizen advisory committees to watchdog the actions of police armored to the hilt with weapons of war. And I have already pointed out that she seemed to deny that the injustices of Ferguson are likely to happen in Nashville based on nothing but a metropolitan structure of government. As if individuals who work for Metro government cannot make bad decisions.

For his part, Charles Robert Bone has been quieter than the rest on the question of race, police brutality, and military toys for cops. Mr. Bone seems satisfied in his website comments with the direction Nashville has taken on public safety, and so I am growing to expect little illumination from him on how he would address policing problems that affect North Nashville more than other parts of the city.

So, we have three candidates for the county executive seat, none of whom have committed any public promises that they will order policies that protect communities from militarized police. A month after Michael Brown was shot dead (according to witnesses with his hands in the air), weeks after the protests shook our country and North Nashville held a town hall meeting, how can Jeremy Kane, Megan Barry, and Charles Bone remain unaccountably quiet on what they might do to forestall the repercussions of these troubling times? How can they vie for the most powerful seat in Nashville without any clear ideas for preventing Ferguson from happening in Davidson County?

Recap of last night's North Nashville town hall meeting on concerns about police after Ferguson

Last night I left my daughter's school orientation events early to attend the "town hall" meeting at Mount Zion Baptist Church on Jeff St. I arrived 30 minutes before it was supposed to start. That was a good thing because the pews of the sanctuary were nearly full by 7:15. They had an overflow crowd in their fellowship hall in the basement to watch a video feed.

There was a panel of African American community leaders and Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson. Those are the folks who did most of the speaking. Police commanders and other cops filled the choir loft while the candidates for mayor and other elected officials not on the program sat in audience at the front.

Meeting organizer, Bishop Joseph Walker, told the audience that the Mt. Zion meeting is the first time in the US that the protests over Michael Brown's death have moved out of the street and into a building for discussion with police and other leaders.

I sat next to a woman from South Nashville who told me that the event had been announced in church at Mt. Zion last Sunday. As far as I know, the mainstream news media did not announce it until Wednesday. What kind of crowds would have shown up if the announcement had gone out across the city over the weekend?

The predominantly white mainstream print and broadcast media looked like it was in full force, so you can probably read or listen to major details and talking points any place today. I'll stick with my own impressions here.

The first thing I have to say about the meeting was that it was a bona fide town hall complete with comments and questions from the audience. It was not a faux community meeting along the lines of the Mayor's bus rapid transit plan or a planning meeting where the only way you can have your questions answered is if you write them down on a permission slip. It was not a NashvilleNext "lounge" designed to lure hipsters and Millennials. It was unadorned, free-style, old-school town hall, which was fine with me. Democracy is messy business.

Beyond meeting logistics the takeaway for me is that Chief Steve Anderson was the main focus of the meeting. I was there until about 8:45 and Chief Anderson took the brunt of questions from the panelists and from the audience on what Metro cops would do if faced with the same events as they unfolded in Ferguson and on how Metro Police are working internally and with the community to prevent racism and brutality.

His department received praise, criticism, questions and notes of caution.

He handled himself serviceably. And I got the impression from audience and panelist responses that people were satisfied with his answers. Chief Anderson opened his comments with a list of mistakes he thought Ferguson police made, the most important one: failing to diffuse the situation two weeks ago when Mike Brown was shot dead (to be specific, he was shot six times, twice to the head) by a cop and kept in the street for hours afterward. The chief also said that not releasing shooting officer Darren Wilson's name immediately was a lapse. "Within the hour there should have been a statement," he told the audience. He described the way that the police handled the aftermath as appearing to be a conspiracy. He argued that they should have been more transparent from the beginning.

However, his ostensible list of mistakes did not include any mention of use of military equipment by police in protest situations. I was troubled by that.

In his comments on how the police would handle protests after police shootings, Chief Anderson told the audience that his department would meet with community leaders before the protests in order to cover organizing and coordination. He said something about "wanting to be with" peaceful protesters. He said that he would allow protesters to break "some of the law" by marching in the streets as long as community leaders understood that the police would maintain order at the end of the day.

Again he had the opportunity to address the use of military weapons on innocent protesters, but did not.

Finally, after a representative from Pacify Nashville read off a list of military weapons that Metro Police could use on the community, Chief Anderson spoke to the problem; but only after he read a list of the ways that military equipment had been used in the 2010 flood and in other emergency situations to help people in distress. It came across to me as dancing around the problem. The real issue here is that the weapons are designed for the battlefield. The possibility of using them against strikes and marches flips social protest to war. They were not designed for less grisly pursuits.

The police chief said that he would not use military equipment in the community "unless absolutely necessary." He only elaborated by saying that police would use it to protect property and life. Then again, the St. Louis County cops would probably argue that they only used it because it was absolutely necessary to protect Ferguson property and life last week as they were gassing residential areas from armored vehicles. The Pacify Nashville rep asked him point blank and the police chief seemed to be reserving the right to use them. Can you imagine a natural disaster where sound cannons like the ones used to drive away Ferguson protesters would be needed by the Metro Police? I cannot.

You can jump to a list, culled by the New York Times a few months ago, of the $4 million in military toys Metro Police has to play with. It is one thing to have an armored truck for use in authentic hostage situations; it is quite another to own a $600,000 "mine-resistant vehicle" and to reserve the right to use it to protect property during social protests. When was the last time Metro Police had to deal with mines?

In the end, I was left with the impression that we are just supposed to trust that the police won't viciously use the military weapons according to the purpose for which they were made. Is trusting the police good enough for the North Nashville community?



UPDATE: Pacify Nashville posted a video of the question they posed to Steve Anderson as well as his response. You will see that as Pacify Nashville read the list of military weapons in the question, gasps and shouts from the audience became louder. After Pacify Nashville asked Chief Anderson to define "strikes and riots" as situations that allow military weapons to be used, the audience applauded in response before the Chief's reply.





Clearly there is great concern in the community about weapons that allow police to scale up police brutality with military weapons. Military weapons do nothing to promote community policing and civil contact with neighborhoods. If there is a committee formed between the police and local citizens in the aftermath of Ferguson, it needs to come up with proper guidelines on the acquisition and use of military weapons by police departments. At some level, Metro Police will have to demilitarize if they want to earn the trust of the community.

Megan Barry should explain her claim that a consolidated government helps Metro Nashville avoid a Ferguson-like tragedy

In the only statement I have seen from mayoral candidate Megan Barry on the implications of the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO and the resulting protests and police crackdowns in St. Louis County, she tweeted the following with a link to an Atlantic article on city-county consolidation:

Good piece @CityLab on city/county gov't. Nashville isn't perfect - but consolidated gov't helps.

Helps what? Helps make sure that African-Americans in Nashville get more equitable opportunities? Helps make Nashville less racist? Helps to keep police from turning their powerful military-style weapons against nonviolent protesters and innocent neighborhoods?

Reading the Atlantic piece sheds little or no light on what Ms. Barry is driving at. It claims that consolidated government would "knock down some of the structural barriers that prevent black residents in St. Louis County from succeeding." How has the consolidation of Nashville and Davidson County knocked down structural barriers? Before April 1, 1963 (when Nashville's consolidation became official) one of the most dramatic revolutions in Nashville history occurred when Nashville desegregated. It was in no way facilitated by consolidated government.

Instead, the Nashville sit-ins emerged, lead by young African-Americans--trained in non-violent tactics--who challenged segregated lunch counters by sitting in "Whites Only" areas. They were beat up by violent white mobs and then arrested by the Nashville police. They resisted without returning the violence. They tactically refused bail. As more waves of demonstrators filled up the jails, other African-Americans engaged in a crippling boycott of Downtown businesses.

The climax of the sit-ins occurred after the home of African-American Alexander Looby, who lived in North Nashville, was dynamite-bombed. The next day a large number of Nashvillians marched to the courthouse, where they were greeted by Mayor Ben West, a moderate who had before that day had left questions of segregated lunch counters to storeowners. In a dramatic moment sit-in leader Diane Nash asked Mayor West if he thought segregation was wrong. Mayor West responded: " I appeal to all citizens to end discrimination, to have no bigotry, no bias, no hatred." Taylor Branch tells the rest:

"Do you mean that to include lunch counters?" asked Nash, pressing the issue. She was standing face to face with the mayor. Her bravado hushed the crowd into silence.

"Little lady," West replied trying to be genial, "I stopped segregation seven years ago at the airport when I first took office, and there has been no trouble since."

Nash bored in relentlessly, "Then, Mayor, do you recommend that lunch counters be desegregated?"

West, a moderate white politician skewered in public before an emotional crowd answered the crucial question with a single word, "Yes." This drew cheers.

A short time thereafter Nashville businesses began to desegregate.

Consolidation was still 3 years away. What helped Nashville in 1960 was not unifying city and county governments. What helped Nashville was a disciplined protest movement with a clear strategy, practiced tactics and a willingness to suffer for their cause. What helped Nashville was an economic boycott that brought business leaders to their knees and forced them to see change as progress. What helped Nashville was a mayor who when cornered saw the wisdom of embracing the people's cause, which was also the just cause (even if he continued later to equivocate as moderates do). What would a Mayor Barry be willing to do to help take such a step?

What also helped Nashville was a national context: a movement that would leverage federal laws making segregation illegal. But before Nashville became the first US city to consolidate, it became the first southern city to desegregate. The disciplined non-violent action against segregation at lunch counters and movie theaters continued up through the year of consolidation until the next year with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (making desegregation the law of the land). So, how can Ms. Barry claim, without explanation, that "consolidated gov't helps" keep us from becoming St. Louis County, where racism still seems to have a free hand?

Frankly, the Atlantic piece she calls "good" seems to be using the publicity of the Michael Brown slaying and the situation in Ferguson to draw the frenetic traffic of the last 10 days to arguments that the author deeply holds without real connections to breaking news. As a result I do not find the article compelling. It provides practically no comparative evidence for judging whether events in Ferguson are more likely to happen because of unconsolidated St. Louis instead of consolidated Indianapolis. It makes the bizarre claim that poor people in Ferguson are more prone to predatory lending. As if they are not in cities with consolidated government, like Nashville?

The number of payday lenders has exploded in Nashville as have the campaign donations those lenders give to council members, mayoral candidates, and people running for the General Assembly. If our consolidated government "helps," as Megan Barry claims, how do so many predatory lending outlets charge poor Nashvillians such sky-high interest rates while lining the pockets of powerful politicians? Davidson County no more makes consumer protection from predatory lending a priority than St. Louis County seems to. Is Ms. Barry indicating that she might use consolidated government to regulate the lenders? That would be a breath of fresh air after Karl Dean, who once crowed: "The less regulation of business we do, the better."

I do not have any objections to the concept of consolidated government. It does a lot of good things for Nashvillians. I would not want the separation that plagues St. Louis.

By the same token, I believe that candidates for the Mayor's Office should formulate clear ideas on how they would govern in a crisis like the one in Missouri without reaching for rationalizations just to make us feel better that we are not like them. Ferguson is preying on the minds of many Nashville voters. We should expect clear answers from candidates; not convoluted references to consolidation designed to make our city seem sheltered against prejudice and military-like crackdowns.

Consolidation did not save Nashville from segregation. Why would it shelter us from resegregation?


UPDATE: The Mt. Zion Baptist Church Facebook page announces:

a town hall meeting to discuss the recent Ferguson, Missouri, riots and launch Nashville Unites, an initiative with the following objectives: 1) foster dialogue between police and citizens; 2) propose a community liaison program between precincts and their communities; 3) develop youth leadership; 4) highlight Mt. Zion’s mentoring program for adult men; and 5) commit to follow-through on all initiatives so as to build trust and ensure a more peaceful city that is a national model for collaboration

I am hearing that Megan Barry as well as other candidates for office have signed on to participate. I appreciate that they have put their "ice bucket challenges" on hold long enough to respond to pressing matters that concern the actual responsibilities of a mayor. Maybe we will get some substantive answers from her on what if anything consolidation has to do with stopping police brutality in underrepresented communities. The mayoral candidates are coming to North Nashville.



UPDATE: According to a commenter below, Ben West's historic encounter with Diane Nash happened somewhat differently than the way Taylor Branch reported. The Nashville Mayor was said to be speaking out of school on his role in integrating the airport:

On the steps of the courthouse with Diane Nash and Mayor West that day was Rev. C.T. Vivian. When West proclaimed to have integrated the lunch counters at the airport, it was Rev. Vivian who reminded the mayor that it was President Kennedy who had integrated the airport as this was federal property. West tried to take credit for something that he had not done as to appear that he had been supportive of the cause. After Vivian called him on it, and Nash put the question to him again, the mayor searched his heart and agreed with Miss Nash. (Heard Rev. Vivian tell this account himself).

Go to the comment section to read the rest of her or his thoughts.

 

Racism and the "stage-managed narrative" in transit and ballpark plans

Last year I gave Metro Councilmember Scott Davis a pass on his view that a new east-west bus rapid transit line would help "low-income residents" in his district even as it won't help the same classes in North Nashville. Based on the opinions of poli sci professor, Sekou Franklin, maybe I should not have been so quick to concede CM Davis's boosterific points for "the Amp".

Dr. Franklin's recent column is a scathing reflection on the transit injustice wrought by MTA and Karl Dean's administration and the minions supporting "the Amp":

...Amp advocates, backed by the mayor’s office and Metro Transit Authority officials, selectively picked winners and losers for the project. They relied on flawed data, steered federal civil rights officers away from studying North Nashville bus routes and backed zoning changes to boost the appearance of higher ridership in the West End corridor, which stands to benefit the most from the Amp.

The pro-Amp group’s East Nashville angle also has been an insincere attempt to inoculate itself from racial and civil rights scrutiny. Pro-Amp advocates claim that Amp terminals east of the river will help working-class blacks, when in reality, they are located in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The project could actually accelerate the displacement of blacks who still remain in the Main Street-Five Points area.

The Amp debate also has exposed how Nashville’s leading officials exploit the politics of race while lacking any real commitment to systemic racial inequities. Similar to the debate about the Sulphur Dell ballpark, Amp supporters have brought attention to distressed communities and African-Americans, but only to bolster a stage-managed narrative of Chamber of Commerce boosterism — a narrative that is not intended to help African-Americans or distressed communities, but meant to convince urban pioneers that Nashville is the premier Southeast destination.

The irony is that the so-called distressed neighborhoods for both projects (Germantown for Sulphur Dell and Main Street-Five Points for the Amp) are places where working-class African-Americans are being pushed out in record numbers.

In both cases (a new ballpark and the east-west connector) development for the business sector has taken priority over residential interests and social justice. Metro Nashville does not seem committed to balanced, smart and sustainable growth, but seems more bound to a malignant growth that devours quality of life and historic communities. The scales are tipped toward money and power. If you don't have much like the predominantly white Courthouse class does, then you are only in the way.

The truly sad part for me personally, is that there does not seem to be a critical mass of people organized at the grassroots who care enough to speak up for equity in development and in mass transit. The opponents who do speak out are ignored, pigeonholed and marginalized, even by North Nashville council members who are supposed to represent them.

AMPartheid

More like: "moving for whom?"

I am grateful for the opportunities to meet some great leaders since moving to North Nashville ten years ago. Because our kids attended the same public school here, I have had more occasions in the past year to enjoy conversations with two such leaders, Sekou and Tene Franklin. I was impressed, but not at all surprised today to find Sekou's thoughtful, timely, and honest response to the Mayor's transit plan. A number of us have expressed frustration that the bus rapid transit project leaves our community behind in favor of subsidizing and further skewing West Nashville growth. But few of us are as adept as Sekou is at drawing out the nexus between a historical context of prejudice and contemporary transit decisions:

Since last year, community leaders have asked the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to extend the Amp route to North Nashville, which has one of the largest concentrations of blacks in the Mid-South region. North Nashville also has a historic tie to unjust transportation policies, most notably the Interstate 40 development that dislocated scores of residents, churches and businesses in the 1960s.

Many North Nashville neighborhoods are under-resourced and need better transportation options. The community also has a high number of hospital workers, renters, senior citizens, disabled residents and college students, all of whom could benefit from an Amp stop. However, MTA officials rejected pleas for an Amp terminal in North Nashville in the initial phase of the project. This snub could lead to a system of transportation apartheid in which some communities receive the bulk of transit investment — in this case, more than a $1 billion for neighborhoods in the Amp corridor — while others such as North Nashville are rendered invisible.

In February 2011, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) sent a civil rights team to Nashville to assess whether the MTA was following federal civil rights law. The two-day visit occurred during the initial phase of the Amp design. In their visit, the FTA officers were shown routes in West, East and Southeast Nashville. Yet, for unexplainable reasons, the MTA did not allow them to visit North Nashville. This was yet another example of how communities such as North Nashville are treated as if they are invisible.

That last paragraph is galling. It is shameful that transit leaders intentionally ignored North Nashville on the question of lawful access to transit. It also casts a pall on the arguments of east-west corridor supporters who say they honestly believe West End is a better choice without any reference to MTA's shoddy treatment of North Nashville on a question of civil rights.

The shameless roll out of an east-west rapid transit corridor is the extension of the historic injustices that do not disappear with new generations leaders. While some local progressives attempt the tortured logic of scolding the Mayor for wanting to govern "the fun parts" while absolving him of responsibility for extending the time-honored, sanctioned neglect of North Nashville, Sekou Franklin reminds us that this BRT transit policy, in doing nothing to break from an infamous tradition, is the natural extension of that tradition. The link is not so easily severed just because Mayor Karl Dean is an odds-on jolly for taking down a Republican in a hypothetical run-for-office.

No degree of public relations can cover up the wounds reopened for some in North Nashville. You can pat your progressive self on the back all you want about supporting transit and helping some boiler room workers exit West Nashville faster at quitting time to access the same slower, lesser infrastructure they know all too well along points north. But liberal preening will not alter the reality that AMP extends Nashville's legacy of unequal development, and it serves disproportionally white, affluent communities before any other.

As such, it is transportation apartheid. Sekou calls it out for exactly what it is.

On a possible legal challenge to the Mayor's bus rapid transit neglect of North Nashville

Apparently, I am not the only one who believes that Mayor Karl Dean's bus rapid transit proposal leaves North Nashville in the dust of Davidson County's economic disparities. North Nashville leaders more powerful than I am believe it, too; and strongly enough to consider legal action:

A lawsuit against the city could be in store if Metro officials don’t alter a proposed bus rapid transit project so that it steers toward North Nashville, according to a Nashville lawmaker.

“That’s certainly an option,” said state Rep. Brenda Gilmore, D-Nashville, who represents a large swath of the low-income, predominantly African-American area and is part of a group of a few dozen North Nashville residents concerned about the issue. “And there has been some discussion about that.

“Historically, North Nashville has just been neglected,” she added, stressing that litigation would be a last resort and that the group hopes to work with Mayor Karl Dean to address the concerns. “It’s pretty clear that wherever BRT has gone across the nation, businesses, housing and amenities have sprung up immediately. We would like to see some of that wealth spread.”

Gilmore, who plans to reach out to Dean in hopes he will meet with the group, said any lawsuit from the group would have an “economic disparity” focus but didn’t elaborate further on a potential cause of action. She cited legal action in Los Angeles she said led to the re-routing of a BRT line to include a low-income neighborhood there.

Even the possibility of litigation underscores what was bound to be a hurdle for a proposal to place the 7.5-mile East-West Connector from 5Points in East Nashville to White Bridge Road by way of Broadway and West End Avenue.

This route cuts through affluent West End-area neighborhoods such as Richland and Whitland – which happens to include some of the project’s loudest critics – but doesn’t deviate from a straight line to include the low-income area north of Charlotte Avenue.

Three things come to the fore in this article:

1. We should all acknowledge the lingering effects of racism and classism on the uneven economic development of west Nashville and North Nashville. Prejudice and class consciousness influence the quality of development, the extension of infrastructure and the flow of money across both ends of town even if individuals may not themselves be intentionally prejudiced against people of color or the working and lower classes. It is not unfounded or unsubstantiated to argue that economic disparities endemic to the ebb and flow of capital benefit west Nashville more than North Nashville. Neither is it untoward to argue that individuals are often prompted and limited by such a system. Karl Dean's transit policy perpetuates the racist and classist system insofar as it makes little attempt to serve the masses of Nashville's humanity in North Nashville. In my opinion, North Nashvillians have a case against this BRT plan.
2. The Mayor never faces tough buck-stopping questions himself. He always farms out the harder, uglier stuff to underlings. Other people take the falls. Nothing ever sticks to him. Likewise, with BRT. One of his two communications shills on the Metro payroll referred the Tennessean to the Metro Transit Authority, even though Karl Dean treats BRT like a signature policy when credit is involved and when bold vision is the tagline. The Mayor, who is the Tennessean's two-time "Tennessean of the Year", should be more accountable to North Nashvillians left behind by his new transit idea. Given the way he ducks difficulties, I'm not betting he will, especially if a suit is filed.
3. In attempting to defend MTA against charges that transit policy is biased in favor of affluent neighborhoods, the CEO unintentionally sustained the point that those neighborhoods enjoy better infrastructure due to their enjoyed wealth. David Lipscomb gets better bus stops because the university has the money to pay over and above what Metro does to provide them. (Recall that Green Hills' Julia Green Elementary got iPads for their 3rd graders after parents raised the funds and Metro matched the donations.) And which stops are likely to be better maintained? Ones that reflect the most basic investments or ones with a bankrolled quality ? Again, the point here, unfazed by MTA spin, is that wealthier west Nashville communities enjoy better infrastructure precisely because they are wealthier. Economic development continues to be uneven and prejudicial, rather than mutual and impartial.

National Museum of African American Music abandons Jefferson Street

The intersection of Jefferson St and Rosa Parks Blvd is one of the most important intersections around Downtown Nashville, and it has been historically misused by developers and planners who treat it more as a transitional, pass-through crossroads oriented to cars and not people. As a result, the four corners of Jeff St and Rosa Parks now possess a gas-station, a drug store (parking lot in front), a predatory lender and a vacant lot. The lot had been slated to bring the intersection up with the construction of the National Museum of African American Music.

Now comes word from the Tennessean that the museum dedicated to African American culture is giving up on predominately African American North Nashville:

Organizers behind Nashville’s long-discussed National Museum of African-American Music are no longer committed to building a facility near Jefferson Street and are seeking Mayor Karl Dean’s assistance to find space in the tourist-concentrated part of downtown, ideally in the city’s old convention center ....

A museum near Jefferson Street would likely be inaccessible by foot for most tourists on Lower Broadway. Sharon Hurt, executive director of Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership, said though she previously hoped Jefferson Street would land the museum, she’s no longer sure it’s the ideal spot ....

Metro Councilman Jerry Maynard, a supporter of the museum project, called the old convention center “a fine place to have it,” adding that it would be a “boost for downtown and a boost for tourism.”

He downplayed the loss for Jefferson Street, which could benefit from the museum as the corridor undergoes a revitalization effort.

“We’ll find some other uses for that land,” Maynard said. “There’s endless possibilities of organizations or institutions that would like to be at the corner of Rosa Parks and Jefferson Street.”

Yeah, maybe they can find another payday lender, a new pawn shop, or a bail bonder to drop into that spot.

This is just another example of resources and planning efforts flowing away from North Nashville. Even the business leaders and CMs who view North Nashville as their territory are writing us off. Frankly, I believe that North Nashville leaders who are not seething at the tragic neglect driving this called audible likely have ulterior motives. The silence of "civic designers" who have drooled over the area for ballparks and charter schools is also sad. No one is standing up for North Nashville.

Maybe if the Mayor had put more effort into spreading rapid mass transit evenly around the city to places like Jeff St then inaccessibility to Broadway wouldn't be blamed for lack of commitment to seeing this 10 year project to its end where it most appropriately belongs: on Jefferson.


UPDATE: The homepage of NMAAM still has a banner mural of its concept located at the Jefferson St location. Notice the North Nashville view of Downtown on the horizon:

Might be a good idea to replace that one with a new one since they're fleeing Jeff St.

By the way, I put a post on their website questioning the decision and linking to this blogpost. I assumed when I put it up that it would be taken down immediately in order to protect their brand (and it was), but I was surprised to see several weeks of February status updates that I did not see earlier today. The most recent update that I saw earlier was late last year. Just to confirm that, here is what another reader posted in February:

This afternoon there are lots of 2013 updates.

The lily white Scene

Genma Holmes observes that the Nashville Scene's coverage of the Belle Meade Country Club's acceptance of its first African American also caters to a culture to which the publication is already predisposed:

The Scene and its commentators have debated in depth the merits of David Ewing, Darrell freeman and others becoming members, or not, of the exclusive club located in West Nashville. What I find more interesting is the lily white makeup of the media outlet that is reporting on the lily white complexion of a social club. I also find it ironic the number of events around town that are sponsored by The Scene and NFocus that caters to the constituents of Belle Meade Country Club. Now compare that to the number of events that have a more diverse, modest income crowds that are not sponsored. Hmm.

Every once in a while Scene writers will try on an article of populism or two, but it always comes across as awkward given the way the publication trains on and caters to Nashville's high bold-and-beautiful society running the West End-Warner Parks corridor. I have never understood why the the racial make-up of the Belle Meade Country Club matters so much to the kids blogging for the Scene. Surely, there are more pressing progressive challenges that this city faces, and the Nashville Scene seems generally slow to consider them.

Nashville Scene judges Belle Meade a better place than Centennial Park for kids, dogs, and families

Nashville Scene writers tend to mount the high horse when the subject of excluding certain groups of people in Belle Meade pops on to their radar. Yet, since May 17, they've said nothing about the fact that their parent company's Movies in the Park event has been removed from the gritty hydrangeas and the streetwise ducks of Centennial Park to the nerve-settling pastoral milieu of suburban Belle Meade's Percy Warner Park.

The "alternative" newsweekly's professional flack told local public radio that the rationale for the Belle Meade move is to keep "this a place where people feel comfortable bringing their kids and their dogs and their families". Reportedly, there was some gang activity at one of last year's events that included gun play (no injuries), and the intrepid newspaper blinked and it is fleeing to the exurbs with its films. Even so, the marketing director did not seem to grasp the sobering and breathtaking implications of what she was saying: predominantly white West Nashville is no longer as safe for kids, dogs, and families as 99% white Belle Meade.

Capt. Dobie woulda cleaned up Centennial Park's mean streets
because white flight was not an option

This should prick all kinds of historic issues for those of us in North Nashville. West Nashville is flooded with events and services at a level that we do not enjoy. Resources flow west and east in this city, and rarely north and south. So, if the Nashville Scene judges West Nashville unfit to hold events for kids, dogs, and families, how much more will they feel led to neglect the families in our diverse communities because of their own fears?

I don't necessarily blame Scene bloggers for promoting and not criticizing the move, because they have to think about their jobs in an uncertain journalism world. However, they've dropped a couple of perches from their moral high ground on the problems of prejudice in lordly Belle Meade. After all, country clubs in places like Belle Meade are by definition exclusionary. And where country club aristocracy was not built on institutionalized segregation, then it exists with the aid of economic inequities and hoarded resources that never even trickle down to working class and under-class folk. Criticizing the Belle Meade country club for leaving other wealthy people behind is inconsistent with stifling a critical voice against your own company retreating from every other strata of Nashvillian for Belle Meade without the aid of double standards. And starting off the new Belle Meade run with "The Help", a movie about white housewives and their black domestic workers seems at once a further twist and startlingly poetic.

Metro Parks did not respond when journos asked them about the move, which does not look good for them either. They do not seem exactly out in front of this story. What is worse, however, is the perception that they have no control over functions at their more urban public parks even in predominantly white West Nashville.

The move from white West End to the even whiter exurbs smacks of white flight. It also betrays a false sense of security that gangs are only an urban problem easily solved by a more suburbanized setting. As if youth gangs do not have cars. As if youth gangs have not been expanding in suburbia for the past 40 years. So, maybe Metro Parks hopes that the Belle Meade PD can be more effective at walling out gang activity than their own rangers and Metro Police have been securing parks. We also should not ignore the cynical possibility that this may be a strategy for the parks department to save money on security in a lean budget year.

Whatever the reason, it does not look good, and I wholeheartedly agree with those have observed on Twitter today that it may indicate tacit racism and classicism on the part of the newspaper and Metro government.

Privatized neighborhood a factor in the murder of Trayvon Martin

Ariella Cohen insists that the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman blows apart the myth that gated communities are safe. On the contrary, the gated community may have been a cause of Martin's murder:

Though the setting of this tragedy may not have much bearing on the criminal investigation, the issue of place is something that should not evade public scrutiny. Martin was deemed “suspicious” while walking in a gated community.

While the logic Zimmerman used to arrive at this conclusion cannot be rationalized or even understood, I would argue that the privatized nature of his neighborhood partially enabled his skewed sense of authority. As anthropologist Setha Low wrote in a 2007 essay published in Next American City, gated residential communities “intensify social segregation, racism, and exclusionary land use practices, and raise a number of conflicting values” ....

Low, author of Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America, argues that there is no evidence that gated communities are any safer than any other neighborhood. Furthermore, she points out that while a security gate “can provide a refuge from people who are deviant or unusual… the vigilance necessary to patrol these borders actually heightens residents’ anxiety and sense of isolation, rather than making them feel safer.”

Reading these words in light of the Trayvon’s killing, I can’t help but wonder if his walk to 7-Eleven would have ended differently if he had been on an open street instead of in a gated community.

I agree that privatized neighborhoods do foster an atmosphere of fear, but there are also larger factors in ungated communities like the ones the editorial voice of the Christian Science Monitor lists:

Many cities have learned that the best way to fight crime is to bring people together, starting with things as simple as block parties, more sports and summer jobs for teens, or a healthy voter turnout for local elections. Mutual respect and even affection in the public sphere can reduce fear.

Examples of this approach are growing. Boston pioneered a technique in the 1990s by bringing church ministers and police together to persuade young people to avoid gun violence. Chicago helps ex-offenders meet up with neighborhood residents to restore their community bonds. Britain has begun to adopt some of these American methods after recent urban gang riots.

Yet tough economic times make it difficult for working people to be neighborly, go to community meetings, or engage with police and other officials. More residents are renters and thus not putting down roots. A neighborhood’s shift in ethnic or racial makeup can reduce trust and a sense of shared civic values.

Shared civic values are beset on one side by pressures to privatize and on the other by diminishing government commitments to infrastructure and programs and willingness to bow to the fickle vagaries of the housing market. These larger structural obstacles to community aggravate ethnic/racial tensions that make violence probable.

Tennessee among the 10 worst states for children living in poverty

The Anne E. Casey Foundation released news of a study of US census numbers from 2000 and 2006-2010 that finds that concentrated poverty has been on the rise as has the number of children who live in the areas of concentrated poverty.

Even more troubling for us is that the study finds that southern children are more likely than kids in other parts of the US to live in areas of concentrated poverty.

Most troubling for us is that, with Tennessee having 13% of its children living in areas of concentrated poverty, we are among the states exposing the highest number of children to concentrated poverty. And Tennessee almost doubled its exposure of kids to impoverished areas in 10 years.

It is also worth noting without surprise that there is a racial component: only 3% of all children living in areas of concentrated poverty are white.

Try as we might to sell Tennessee as an attractive destination for families to live and to work, our state is becoming an increasingly risky place for children to live.

One eyewitness's snapshot of the Nashville power structures during desegregation

The 54th anniversary of the desegregation of Nashville public schools is upon us. I have been reflecting on that tumultuous history and catching up on accounts of the time. I came across this interview with one of my favorite authors, Will Campbell, a white preacher and writer who acted as a kind of scout for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He has some interesting insights not just on how the entrenched wealthy class in Nashville used poor whites to do their dirty work, but also on the influence of the news media within the halls of municipal government:

[Benjamin] Houston: Where do you think that the power was in Nashville, based on your behind-the-scenes understanding? Where were the bases of power in Nashville in terms of running the city? ....

Campbell: A man who was the chairman of the board of trustees at Vanderbilt University was the publisher of the Nashville Banner.

Houston: [James G.] Stahlman.

Campbell: Jimmy Stahlman. He was by far the most powerful man in Nashville. He had allies, certainly, in high places, but that's partly because those allies were the ones who had stock in the Nashville Banner and he was beholden to them, the Nashville Life and Accident Insurance Company and so on. The governor at that time [Frank G. Clement], he was a good man who just wanted the controversy to all go away. He did not want protests to be happening, but he knew that he couldn't stop it.

Houston: You have commented elsewhere that politics in Nashville were fairly modern for their time in the 1950s, and yet the social and cultural mentality was much more conservative. Can you elaborate on that dynamic?

Campbell: What was it, ten or twelve, the Fugitives?

Houston: Twelve, the Agrarians.

Campbell: Yes, who were intellectuals, and they were widely respected. People would say, "he is a great poet, he is a great man, a great writer." And they couldn't go on to say, "but he is a bigot. He doesn't like black people, and he doesn't like poor people." That's another thing that troubles me . . .  Whites didn't realize that the very people who were recruiting them for the White Citizens' Council wouldn't wipe their feet on them, and used them only for their cause.

Have the power alignments and the tools of wealth in post-segregation Nashville changed much since 1957?

The troubling prospect that charter schools may be a wormhole to resegregation

A consortium of progressive groups including People for the American Way, Advancement Project, Center for Social Inclusion, and African American Ministers in Action produced a short video just posted to YouTube on how venture capitalists are bringing down a diverse and functioning school district in North Carolina by privatization; further indication that charter schools are not the answer to our problems. Metro Nashville Schools has firmly committed itself to charter schools and has also been under criticism for a redistricting plan that purportedly resegregates Nashville schools. We should be levelheaded about the priorities of venture philanthropy in propping up charter schools in our community.

Please share this video with others, especially with other public school parents.

Black and white, poverty and wealth: side-by-side look at demographics at Eakin vs. North Nashville elementary schools

Germantown south of Monroe Street and Hope Gardens were once zoned for high-demand Eakin Elementary. Here are the West Nashville school's demographics:

Source: ProPublica. Click on to enlarge.

Compare to the demographics of three North Nashville public elementary schools recently maligned in the media:

Source: ProPublica. Click on to enlarge.

Source: ProPublica. Click on to enlarge.

Source: ProPublica. Click on to enlarge.

"Urban core" Facebook group considers charter option in place of partnering with North Nashville public schools

Some would rather switch than fight:

It is worth noting that the North End feeder school, Buena Vista, is 97% reduced price lunch and 97% African American. A charter school may provide sanctuary for kids from gentrifying families here, but it will not change the dysfunctional class and race dynamics of the system. Our neighborhood quality of life will not rise without the quality of the schools rising and a charter will not help them rise.

Buena Vista demographics. Source: ProPublica

So, would a charter school essentially become an exclusive island apart from both Buena Vista and the area magnet schools?

Portlandia Mayor frames economic development with a community-based focus

Wouldn't it be refreshing to even hear this once in a while in a growth and budget strategy outside of election year politics?

The Neighborhood Economic Development (NED) Strategy—developed by the Portland Development Commission and the community partners on the project advisory committee—outlines how community partners, business leadership and public partners can use focused neighborhood-level actions to collectively foster economic opportunity and neighborhood vitality throughout Portland. The strategy adds significant depth and direction to the Neighborhood Business Vitality component of the City of Portland’s Five-Year Economic Development Strategy.

“This strategy is about prosperous, complete, healthy and equitable neighborhoods—key components of the Portland Plan,” Mayor Sam Adams said. “Now it is time for implementation. We’re going to get it done. We’re determined, and it’s within our potential to achieve this strategy’s goals” ....

Subtraction by addition: Metro Planning shares their first recommendations for redistricting

Metro Planning Department's first proposal ("Alternative A") for council redistricting based on changes in the 2010 U.S. Census was put online yesterday. It caused a buzz in the social media. Planning's suggestions for District 19, which includes Salemtown, are substantial and significant for a district that had been considered within the allowable range for an "ideal population".

Here is a superimposed map of 19 and the new alternative, District 13:

Current Dist 19 is outlined in purple. Proposed Dist 13 is outlined in red.

Community leader disputes council's minority candidates

Local Nashville blogger, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and fashion specialist Genma Holmes challenges those council candidates running for re-election on the claims that commitment to minority spending on the convention center project has been met (you may remember that I recently posted a podcast of Jerry Maynard making those claims):

local elected officials who represent the poorest residents in Nashville voted to fund a project to bring visitors in a down economy with tax payer dollars based on property taxes when a large number of Nashvillians have lost their homes to foreclosure. Brilliant!

The [Music City Center] Project has had its share of controversy which is being swept under the rug now that 2011 elections are around the corner. We are being given the three-piece-chicken-and-biscuit-special speeches while ignoring what the community of color has really gotten from the project. A wing, a dash of hot sauce, with prayers on the side. “We are getting 20% in minority spending”, I have heard a few potential candidates say lately. No one has asked the obvious follow up, “20% of what actual dollar amount?” Please.

The Mayor’s chief cheerleader for the MCC, Walt Baker, was revealed as a racist, at least in his emails. The PR firm debacle was all over the place. And very recently, Metro Finance Director, Rich Riebeling, one of Mayor Karl Dean's top advisers, failed to disclose fully personal business dealings with a prominent attorney and a local engineering firm, which have both won large contracts for the downtown convention center project. Wonder if any color folks bid on those contracts?

Music City Center omens realized

SEIU representative Mark Naccarato lists the many predictions about new convention center construction made by critics that have come to pass:

We have been proven right on nearly every claim we’ve made about the MCC. The city’s bond rating has fallen because of it, nearly all of the construction and sub work was given to out-of-state firms, and minority- and women-owned business contracts were not awarded at the levels your people promised the council and the African-American community. We also predicted that you would get played into handing out major tax breaks (i.e. lost revenue) to try and close a deal on a hotel. Looks like that’s happening too. Every other city in the country is ditching Convention Centers and TIF’s, but not Nashville.

Tennessee Republican lawmaker says she did not know that blackface was offensive and "Some of my greatest friends are black"

Gospel-singing, white General Assembly legislator Terri Lynn Weaver posted a picture of herself and a pastor on Facebook. In that photo, captured by WSMV before being being scrubbed off her site, the pastor is shamelessly dressed as an old-school "Aunt Jemima," which was a Jim-Crow era mammy caricature.

Rep. Weaver initially responded to media queries defensively, seemingly insulted that someone (like State Senator Thelma Harper) would accuse her of being racially insensitive, even as she resorted to the cracker cliché about her best friends being black. That was yesterday. Today the General Assembly's Black Caucus called for Rep. Weaver to appear before the House Ethics Committee and she is apologizing, although she is pleading ignorance and defending her intentions.

Once again red-state Tennessee is embarrassed by Republican stupidity as the story is national via Wonkette:

doesn’t everyone have a pastor who dresses up as offensive caricatures like this. And in response to the furor over this offensive stereotype, the woman is now defending herself in the most stereotypical way possible. Yes, that’s right: “I’m the least racist of anyone. Some of my greatest friends are black.” Problem solved.
Yes, stand strong, white lady! There was probably no other costume for her pastor to wear, anyway. 

Besides that wince-worthy moment where another white person justifies their insensitivities with the virtue of friendship, it is remarkable that another Tennessee conservative who claims to embrace "values" feels comfortable with disparaging caricatures of our bygone Jim Crow era. It is beyond regrettable. It is valueless.