[applause]
DULCE SLOAN (VOICEOVER): Hello, friends,
I'm Atlanta-raised celebrity Dulce Sloan.
Now Atlanta has been called many things--
the Black Mecca, Wakanda, a Black utopia.
It's basically the opposite of Portland, Oregon.
But does The A live up to the hype?
I'm at Pond City Market to talk to fellow ATLian
and cultural curator Bem Joyner of Atlanta Influences
Everything to find out.
My name is Bem Joyner, co-founder of Atlanta
Influences Everything, which is a civic-minded creative
consultancy known for our popular
phrase and shirt in Atlanta.
You said a lot of--
it sound like a very Atlanta thing
because it sounds like you've got a bunch of, like, slashes
on your business cards.
BEM JOYNER: Hell yeah.
Like, do you also DJ?
No, but there is a DJ in the store.
There's always a DJ.
OK, we've been talking about this question for decades.
As Black people who live in Atlanta
or who are from Atlanta, is Atlanta a Black utopia?
I don't know if I would say a utopia.
We still in America.
Black Mecca, Black utopia, Wakanda, all of the things.
It's a place where Black people are comfortable.
Right.
Utopia makes it seem like, you know, ain't no crime,
ain't-- you know, ain't no-- ain't no problems,
you know what I'm saying?
Well, it is interesting because where your story is,
we're in The Pull Up and we're at Ponce City Market.
But you know and I know for a long time,
on this back street, this street
used to be very sketchy.
Man, it's crazy you say that because the other piece
of that-- remember the name of the Kroger
that was right here.
Yes, and I don't care how--
I know y'all call it Beltline Kroger.
It's Murder Kroger.
We don't care.
And when they tried to change it,
we called it Murder Kroger.
So this is a multi-layered thing.
Yeah, there are the perceived streets
paved with gold for Black people
to achieve whatever they are trying
to achieve without a barrier.
Right.
But there's also, like, multi-layered classism
here, too.
That's just how Black it is.
You know--
DULCE SLOAN: Right.
It's aggressively Black where it's tribal like Wakanda.
Right.
It's a safe Black place to be Black.
And you have a fair shot to make
it what you want it to be.
Do you think that Black people here
have a different experience than Black people
from other places because we've seen generations
of Black wealth, and Black higher
education, and just upward mobility for Black people?
It is rooted in the Black narrative kind of going back
to W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington's debate
on Blackness that took place on the Atlanta
University Center campus.
So, yeah, and we want to tell that narrative all the way up.
But if you look, none of these other Black cities
have anything like the Atlanta University Center.
Right, so there are four HBCUs,
Historically Black College Universities, in Atlanta.
It's Morris Brown, Clark Atlanta,
Spelman, and Morehouse.
And so, you know, if people grew up here
to see, like, not only one Black school,
but four Black universities--
Yeah, and so it's that post-secondary education that
Oakland, Chicago, Detroit-- they don't have the Morehouse
and Spelman thing.
And I think, along with the consistent Black mayors--
DULCE SLOAN: Yes.
--that became the attraction.
Is the fact that Atlanta has had Black mayors for 40
some odd years--
has that made a significant impact on the city?
Most definitely.
And the mayor that kind of set everything off,
Maynard Jackson, he put forth those policies
and took that risk.
He understood that police chief, police force,
superintendent, teachers, everything
that the public sector could touch,
that that also had to be on mission like what he saw.
And if he couldn't get buy-in from the working class
people in those sectors, that this was the mission.
So everybody got to get along,
so we have to understand.
So, I mean, that's a very interesting thing for you
to come-- for someone to come in and just
go-- especially a Black man to come in and go,
OK, we got a chance.
Yeah.
So compared to the rest of the country,
is it easy to be Black in Atlanta?
So the way we engage with Blackness,
the way we engage with white people,
we didn't know that it was odd until you start traveling
or you get these other stories.
We're like, man, you talking to white people like that?
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
You just have more confidence, whether it's loud
or whether it's quiet confidence,
than the average Black person.
And we don't know that that's odd
until people start exposing us to the rest of the world.
It's like, oh, you don't move like that where you from?
I think white Atlantians are unique in their experience
with Blackness, for better or for worse.
Atlanta seems to have become a safe place for that.
As somebody who grew up here, is from here, what
do you love about Atlanta?
The ability just to be my Black self, you know,
whatever I say that is.
[applause]
I like that.
DULCE SLOAN (VOICEOVER): So there you have it.
Atlanta might not be Wakanda, but it is a city where you
can just be your Black self.
[applause]