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Atlanta Has a Policing Problem
The powers that be aren’t doing enough to protect their Black constituents
There’s a reason Atlanta is called the “Black Mecca.” This Southern city is home to a number of Black professionals and boasts a Black woman mayor, a Black male police chief, and a Black woman district attorney.
But the people in Atlanta are learning that all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk. Despite all the Black excellence in leadership, racial injustice and police violence runs rampant in the A as we saw after the shooting of Rayshard Brooks this summer. The police officers and the government officials who protect them are often the same race as the victims of their violence. Who can the people turn to for protection?
“The power players who run these institutions — prosecutors, unions, city governments — are often members of the same communities that have taken to the streets to create the largest social justice movement in American history, a dynamic that is especially true in Atlanta. Behind the scenes, those forces rage just as fiercely,” writes Malaika Jabali in an essay for GEN’s new column, Watching the Police.
“Black women are expected to be proud of a Fani Willis, or a Keisha Lance Bottoms, or a Kamala Harris, regardless of their policy record. Striving is inherently good, and ‘Black excellence’ in any form — even if it’s won on the broken backs of our country’s Black working-class masses — is lauded.”
Read her full story below:
