I feel most at home in a place I feel heard, understood, and appreciated for who I am. Whether it be with my partner, my friends, my family, or alone in a space I have created for myself to enjoy, the feeling of being at home is one where I feel valued.
Unfortunately, I am starting to feel less at home in Atlanta for that reason, as the Atlanta City Council has affirmed to the people who live here and want their voices heard that it will not listen.
On June 5, hundreds of Atlantans turned up to City Hall to voice their dissent regarding Cop City, the $90 million project ($67 million of which will be covered by taxpayers) that will destroy hundreds of acres of Atlanta’s forest to build an unprecedentedly large police and fire training facility. There were over 15 hours of public comment (the second longest in Atlanta’s history, preceded and followed by other sessions concerning Cop City) with over 95 percent of the more than 300 people attending opposed to the project.
“I am here today because I am urging you to stop Cop City and allocate the proposed funds toward creating better accessibility for the city of Atlanta,” Barry Lee, a queer deaf and disabled artist, said during public comment. “… Anthony Hill, Matthew Zadok Williams, Shukri Ali Said, Scout Schultz, Brianna Greer. These are just a few names of disabled people killed by police here in Georgia.”
“Disabled people are a part of the Atlanta community,” Lee continued. “This facility won’t make our community safer, it will tear [it] apart. Why aren’t you putting these funds into making Atlanta a more accessible place that actually helps communities flourish instead of using these funds to destroy, traumatize, and promote violence against vulnerable communities at the hands of police? This proposed facility only furthers the unnecessary violence against our community members. Should Tort’s death have been enough for you to look into your own conscience to withdraw your support for this facility? Or are most of you in such a codependent relationship with Brian Kemp, the cops, and corporations – or, excuse me, I should call those corporations ‘outside agitators’ – that you’re just too afraid to speak Tort’s name.”
On June 6, the Atlanta City Council voted 11–4 to approve $31 million in funding for the construction.
The vote followed closely after three members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund — a nonprofit dedicated to raising money for bail, attorneys, and housing assistance for arrested protestors — were released on bail after their home was raided and they were arrested on accusations of money laundering and charity fraud.
“In a healthy democracy, there should always be room for public debate, for protest, and for residents’ concerns to be taken seriously by their elected officials,” Kendra Cotton, the CEO of the New Georgia Project, an organization dedicated to registering and engaging a majority Black, Brown, and young voters, said in a statement.
“The number of people who showed up ahead of Tuesday morning’s vote on funding for ‘Cop City’ demonstrates just how committed Georgians can be to making our voices heard, whether that’s in the streets, at the ballot box, or in the halls of power. We believe in the democratic process, and a key part of that process is the assurance that we can lift our voices in protest without facing the prospect of state-sanctioned violence and jail time, which is a very real threat in Georgia as evidenced by last week’s GBI and APD arrests of three Atlanta Solidarity Fund members. I commend the folks who showed up at City Hall on Monday knowing full well that many of our elected officials, in particular our governor, are committed to suppressing their voices and criminalizing our right to protest. I’m heartened that these arrests did not discourage Atlantans from speaking out.”
How can any of us, especially those of us who have called Atlanta home for decades, feel at home in a city run by people we put into power who don’t feel any responsibility to us? How can those of us who bravely spend time protesting, organizing, and following the democratic process, feel at home when we get arrested or murdered, as Tortuguita did, more often than we’re listened to?
The answer is that we make a home for ourselves. We fight for each other and what we believe in, and we demand we’re listened to. When we’re not, we just speak louder.