Ode to Greenbriar Mall and the Evolution of Black Bourgeois Atlanta

No hyperbole or writer’s license necessary, my first conscious memory was at Greenbriar mall. I was pre-school age and my mom took me to an Easter breakfast program circa 1974 when Rich’s had a restaurant on the second floor that overlooked the mall. My mother and I watched the program from the floor of the mall because of crowd. We couldn’t get into the restaurant but I know there was an Easter Bunny taking pictures and walking around. After the event was over I went to pre-school at the KinderCare on Fairburn Rd. That experience at Greenbriar Mall and KinderCare seem to be my first formal memories of my external environment.

At Greenbriar Mall there was a movie theatre (before Magic Johnson’s) and public library downstairs. I suppose it was about 1984 when Purple Rain came out and not only did I see it twice at Greenbriar’s theatre, I went back on Saturday afternoons and evenings just to hang out around the people going to see it. Purple Rain was a musical and motion picture phenomena when I was in High School. A little after that I saw one of my first and last horror movies at Greenbriar theatre; Friday the 13th. It was the one in the series that was done in 3D. The 3D imagery was a colossal waste of time (almost as colossal a waste of time as ‘Gorilla at Large in 3D’). I lost my appetite for scary films unless the young lady in my life desired to see one but even then I was not too proud to simply close my eyes during ‘the scary parts’. One of my good friends knew I didn’t like scary movies and took pleasure in scaring me by tapping on my window at night and making strange noises.

Inconsiderate as that friend was, while I am talking about Greenbriar’s role in my early childhood and adolescence I would be remiss without discussing Greenbriar Skating Rink/Jellybeans on Stone Rd even though it was not on the Greenbriar Mall property. Later the AKAs bought it. Like Greenbriar Mall on Saturday afternoons, as a teenager you had to go to Greenbriar Skating rink on Friday and/or Saturday nights. It had a dancefloor that they would open at a certain time. Oh my, I think that would have been my first time (and thankfully not the last) ‘slow dragging’ with a nubile young lady. It’s amazing but by no means surprising that ‘bumping and grinding’ is the gateway drug to ‘the real thing’. It was also around this time that I learned that there is honor among thieves if the thieves were blessed to have home training. Kaleb Robinson was the neighborhood thief and bad boy. I had a white Member’s Only jacket, my pride and joy and at first I barely noticed it was missing. I figured it was in the wash or my mom misplaced it. Turns out Kaleb climbed in my window and ‘borrowed’ it. Within a week or so he broke in again and brought it back. Later he told me he borrowed it and brought it back as a preface to wanting to borrow it again more officially in the future. As I look back on it he probably didn’t return it just out of kindness but also as an implied threat that if I didn’t let him ‘borrow’ it he’d just come get it anyway relieving me of all choice in the matter.

Of course I felt violated but I started locking the windows as I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. He did me a great favor as a kid that happened at Greenbriar skating rink in middle school. He and I were good friends and I lived right down the street from him. He went to Bunche middle and someone from there apparently wanted to fight him (who knows what about other than that it was probably a stupid reason). It wouldn’t have taken long for the skating ring staff to know something was up when all of sudden giggling, laughing and silly assed teens (male and female) all run in the boys bathroom to see the fight. It must have been 30 ninjas in there by the time they got to tussling.

As they tussled, my mind raced as I wondered if at some point I should jump in and defend my friend. Even though he had a reputation as a brawler and I certainly was not, it seemed the proper thing to do to jump in it on my friends side. I wavered and hesitated but prepared myself mentally to fight (or at least try to). As they tussled however, my eyes met my friends (sorta like Peter’s eyes meeting Jesus eyes in the exact moment Peter had indeed denied Jesus 3 times). When our eyes met I could tell by something in his eyes that he didn’t want me to jump in it. He knew I was a school boy, knew that I was much less worldly than he and didn’t want me to get involved. I’ll always appreciate him for that. Similarly as he got in high school he went from being a brawling but generalized thief to specializing in car thievery. Nearly every week we’d see him driving his latest ‘car’ acquisition, lying and saying it was his aunt’s car, or his mom’s car or whatever. Dumb ass and unlicensed teen I was, I begged him to let me drive them. He always had some excuse not to let me drive or even ride in them that long. In his own way he was trying to protect me. I only drove one and he told me ‘in no uncertain terms’ that I was not to go out of the neighborhood. It was a Toyota Celica or Supra, the closest thing to a sports car I could get behind the wheel of at the time.

I must discuss Greenbriar Flea Market which lay to the east of Greenbriar Mall as you go up Headland Dr. That was a go-to place as well in my adolescent years. Here again teenaged girls, many of whom one saw earlier or will see later at the mall, the movies and/or Greenbriar skating rink! Here again, li’l ninjas trying to get phone numbers from li’l girls. But the flea market was raunchier, racier and much more working class than even Greenbriar or the West End Mall. Even in 1986 you could do anything in there from buy counterfeit purses, shoes, jewelry, clothes or you name it. From getting gold teeth, to guns, to mixtapes (CDs didn’t exist) and yes, lip sync to your favorite beats or rap over canned beats just like 6 Flags Amusement Park later did. Just walking around the flea market was an education. Now weed related products are everywhere (and personal indulgences or not I’m not sure I agree with that high level of marketing regarding any intoxicant); but in those days only in the flea market could you get roach clips, pipes, incense and other forms of weed paraphernalia. I remember there being quite a successful portrait photographer that took pictures at the Flea Market. Every Saturday and Sunday you’d see teenage girls and boys, dance crews, rap groups and just neighborhood friends with fresh hair do’s and hair cuts, often in matching outfits in their little cliques going to the Flea Market in the finest their parent’s money could buy and getting their picture taken. This was a big thing when I was in High School. I think the main dude doing it was a guy named Dorsey but I seem to remember his studio in the Adams Park Area as opposed to the Flea Market. There was another guy doing it at Greenbriar Flea market (Harry?) that took advantage of the popularity of those portraits with teenage girls and boys. When you got a picture by ‘Dorsey’ (or Harry), his name was stamped on the bottom of the photo in gold letters. To be frank I suppose it was the ‘pre-post-modern’ equivalent of the selfie. But let’s get back to Greenbriar Mall proper.

Delta Airlines had kiosks in Greenbriar where you could purchase tickets and even check in baggage for flights. I suppose this was some kind of extension of their former facilities across the street at the Tyler Perry/Paul Morton property. The Delta employees staffing the kiosk had on the flight attendant styled uniforms and everything. When my South Fulton neighborhood began transitioning Black and white flight accelerated, one of the last white couples to remain were my next door neighbors. The retired father and the son worked for Delta. As they aged my mom and I got to be very close to them and every year they gave me something for Christmas and Easter. Because Mr. Smith worked at Delta he’d give me little trinkets and tools from Delta or his mechanics workshop. His pride and joy was a van he had customized with real seats from an airplane! When their grandson would come to spend time with them I played with him and would baby sit. They were great neighbors however I wondered why my mom never ate the cookies Mrs. Smith would bake multiple times per year. I’d gobble them down but mom wouldn’t. As I got older she said it was because of all those inside dogs the Smiths’ (no relation to the band) had living in the house. I joked with her that she let me eat them but honestly there is no way I would have rejected cookies at that age for nearly any reason. I must insert a story here about white flight however.

As I stated earlier there was a point in my neighborhood when white flight became an Exodus of biblical proportions. The Smiths remained as the community got blacker and other than a short stint in the nursing home and hospice lived out their final days in their home 60 years later. My mother and I helped them a lot as they aged and my mother and Mrs. Smiths talked a lot. In the process of talking one day my mom asked her why they didn’t move out when all of the other white people did. (Note to self, Mrs. Smith probably didn’t think that was a microaggression to be asked that question unlike some others) Mrs. Smith’s answer was very instructive regarding race relations. As good a neighbors as we became, as friendly, as loving and as close as were Mrs. Smith said there were three main reasons they did not move. 1) Their children were grown; the implication being that if they had to send school aged kids around we ninjas and to ninja schools that would be too much and they would have to get in ‘V’ formation like the other geese in ‘white flight’. 2) The second reason was because they had a menagerie of dogs and cats (some of which were blind, deaf and old enough in animal years to be geriatric to a level unheard of in the wild); and they had a home with specific alterations to facilitate them. Mr. and Mrs. Smith felt that it would be too stressful to move them to another location. as one of the dogs was extremely elderly and sickly to the point that even as a child I could tell that dog had two paws in the grave. 3) The third reason they didn’t move with the contemporaneous white flight was because Mr. Smith had made many home improvements to his home himself. Enjoying his handiwork was important to him and he couldn’t enjoy his handiwork in some new fangled house somewhere no matter how nice the house or the neighborhood was! He finished the basement himself and filled it with his tools and trinkets. He actually built a hang glider down there. When he or I had the patience I’d help him. But the point I’m making here in conclusion is that the Smiths did not stay in their neighborhood as it transitioned Black because they believe in integration (as a national goal, community goal or a personal goal). Their reasons were thus extremely practical.

Part II Fugue

I can honestly say Greenbriar accompanied my whole childhood and adolescence. As a child growing up at Ben Hill UMC in the children’s choir we would sing there during the Christmas and other programs. When I got to Douglass High School I was in the concert and marching bands and we would perform there on varying occasions. In middle School Joe Norman’s son worked at the Goldmine Arcade. Instead of going to the machine to get change I’d go to him and he’d faithfully give me way more tokens for my dollar than the requisite amount because we were neighbors. He probably felt sorry for me because I admired he and his brothers so much. They were neighbors; all older than me and handsome (which I interpreted as I wish I looked like that and had their level of success with girls), well bred, intelligent and athletic. Not only that they had an Atari video game console when it first came out. Their father was just as handsome as they were and their mother was beautiful like a Jet magazine beauty of the week to me. It was the situation I imagined I wanted for myself in contrast to my single parent mother led painfully working class and unexotic home and no siblings.

I looked up to them all of my childhood and they gave me just what I was looking for too. I’d beg for them (as older boys) to let me play sports with and take me bike riding with them. In sports and on bikes they’d make me struggle to keep up, always on the cusp of them losing me. I remember at one of my 10 or 11 year old birthday parties they dared me to get in my toy chest. I did and they promptly took turns sitting on it so I couldn’t get out for 5 minutes before I yelled and begged to be let out. That’s probably why I’m claustrophobic to this day. I got arrested for smoking weed in public at Adams Park one night in 2005 I think and they had me at the zone precinct near ‘John A White Park’. I waited hours to be taken to the Atlanta Municipal Jail (the same one Keisha is trying to turn into a ‘Weezie & Helen’ styled Help Center) until enough ninjas got locked up to be taken in the paddy wagon. Ladies and gentlemen something about being shackled, riding perpendicular lined up in individual cages spooked the shit out of me and damn near drove me crazy. I begged to be taken downtown by some other means. When my fears started scaring the other ninjas in the paddy wagon that is when they took me out. My fellow detainees were like ‘get that crazy ninja outa here’.

That being said the Norman boys were good older boys to look up to and they never left me even during the bike riding and locking me in my toy chest episodes. That being said were I of this world I’d probably sue them for mental distress and hazing me during middle school. But I couldn’t do that in good faith because they did let me hang out with them and they never embarrassed me in public, just private. Sometimes I call this kind of thing low intensity hazing. It is hard to imagine family life without it. There is an art to hazing. Overdoing it creates psychopaths and reflects your own psychopathology. Just the right amount, sensitive to individual differences makes giants out of adults and teens and can really heal wounded hearts. It’s counterintuitive but the genius of the pecking order and the reason it remains such a prominent feature of human society is that there is safety in order and hierarchy and a model of the future. My main response to the light hazing of my childhood and adolescence was that I couldn’t wait to get old enough and big enough to haze people myself; only I felt that I’d do a much better job at it. The Japanese have a whole system of this kind of hierarchical social invention. Of course some of that is why their suicide rate and bullying rate is off the chain. They got commercials about bullying and suicide like we have cell phone and beer commercials (I might be exaggerating but not by much). There is a phenomena in Japan of individuals withdrawing from society too (that I’m not exaggerating). They stay at home on the internet, order food, etc. and even die and no one knows. Some senior citizens are dying this way too. They don’t even know until you start stinking. No wonder there birthrate is so low. In China there is a similar new philosophy call ‘laying low’; they just don’t want to compete anymore.

I looked up to the Norman boys even though they scared the shit out of me a few times. When Lamont (the youngest brother) joined a club, I think it was called ‘The Executives’ or ‘the Distinguished Gentlemen’ or something like that, I wanted to join. He told me I was too little and too lame! In an effort to take advantage of my youthful desire, he decided to scare me one time. He brought over a couple of their fellow ‘Executives’ and/or ‘Distinguished Gentlemen’ and I’ll never forget my impression upon seeing them all with their jackets, sneers and hoofing as they told me of all of the girls they get and the fights they get in. They threatened me but I wasn’t scared in the least. I didn’t despair in the least. For I knew Lamont wasn’t going to let me get my assed kicked. First of all his two older brothers weren’t there and I’d appeal to them if something went wrong plus I knew his parents. How the fuck is he going to let his boys kick my ass? The Norman boys never let me get my ass kicked before. As rough as the light hazing got, no one ever physically assaulted me. They’d take it to the edge but they never did. So I wasn’t scared then. I started talking shit back and it was more a thing of trying to scare me into not wanting to join them. That being said, they were exactly right, I was too young and too lame at the time (mostly however too lame). That being said those tokens at the Gold Mine made up for all that.

Rondo & Recitative

In middle and high school you had to be at Greenbriar or Greenbriar Flea Market or Greenbriar skating rink on weekends in your best teen outfit. Good God I’d love to see pictures from that era. Girls from other schools and neighborhoods all congregated at Greenbriar in the mid to late 80s. You didn’t have to go in any store, you could walk the mall socializing and getting phone numbers from girls. This gave we boys (and later men) the illusion (warranted or not) that it took ‘game’ to score you some young ladies’ phone numbers. You had to have a couple things going for you; be cute; dress fly; be athletic; your people had money; you were popular; you could fight; etc. (more will be discussed on that later).

No outing was worthy or valid unless you got you some girl’s phone number. Of course one good number was better than a dozen ‘ugly’ chicks numbers but hey, I don’t remember being that selective in practical terms. Plus, that situation works both ways in that no matter how good you think you look there are some chicks you’d want that happen to think you’re ugly. Nevertheless at the time, my desperation for female interaction and the sign to your boys that you got some play was that you got some numbers. When we went to the mall we had to play the ‘numbers’ game. It was fun. I lament the fact that there is no way with this ‘me-too’ movement and ‘cancel culture’ aesthetic that we’d tolerate our kids interacting like that now a days…..ironically unless they were online hooking up.

I remember being in high school, still going to Ben Hill UMC and the youth choir at Ben Hill at the time was like 135 strong on average. Teens from high schools all over Atlanta were in it. Not naming dropping but ‘Sleepy Brown’ from ‘Dungeon Family’ fame was in there when I was. At the time I had a crush Tangela McMasters. I was driving then and riding motor cycles to choir rehearsal and really thought I was the shit. Some kind of way my good friend and I convinced Tangela and one of her friends to cut choir rehearsal with us. They did and we went to Greenbriar to hang out for an hour an an half or so. Everything went lovely excepting it wasn’t as fun as we thought it would be (company notwithstanding). I think we knew we unnecessarily did some wrong shit. When we took the young ladies back to choir rehearsal so their parents could pick them up from there like nothing happened they snuck back in perfectly fine. When everybody saw my car and me and my best friend, walking around the premises but not in choir rehearsal the director magically found out (or perhaps it was the Holy Ghost that told him) and we were unceremoniously suspended from the youth choir. In my active ministry days I loved to tell my young folk and kids with problems that Rev. Gneisenau got put out of youth choir and ended up in the pulpit so never despair of the mercy of God. Incidentally, the youth choir director at that time later started his own ministry and had his own megachurch situation in the Austell-Powder Springs area of metropolitan Atlanta. Recently I saw him on one of Jamal Bryant’s podcasts.

Sonata and Fugue

Oh yes, but all of this pales in comparison to fight night at Greenbriar. Yes, fight night. There were some real humdingers. These are all true stories. One Saturday afternoon at Greenbriar I heard arguing outside of the NE mall entrance. The crowd moved towards it to see what was going on and I followed the crowd with my dumb assed teenage self. I’m in a good position and when I look I see an effeminate man arguing with a straight looking dude. The straight dude was basically harassing the effeminate man. The effeminate man didn’t back down and challenged the straight man to ‘do something’ at which point they started tussling. The effeminate man had on flip flop style shoes. At the outbreak of hostilities he put the flip-flops in one hand and fought barefooted. When he got the best of the straight man he started beating, perhaps slapping is a more accurate word, the straight man with his combined flip flops. Somebody had to pull the effeminate man off him. He was really wailing on that straight guy and you could tell by the straight guy’s reaction he knew he got his ass whipped and he wanted no more. That is a true story. It was incredible to witness and counterintuitive because I would have put money on the straight dude. I learned a great lesson that day. Number one, do not pick on gay people and do not underestimate them. Later in high school I had a friend who told the story of an uncle that picked up a prostitute on Stewart Avenue (now Metropolitan Avenue). When he got the prostitute back to the motel, at a certain point he realized it was a man and became upset. He was so upset he went to fight the transvestite however the transvestite was prepared and stabbed him in the knee requiring hospitalization.

There were other ‘fight nights’ at Greenbriar mall in my High School days. As I said, on weekends high school students from all over Atlanta and South Fulton County would be at Greenbriar Mall-Burger King and/or Campbellton Rd-Krystal after football and other sporting, school and social events. High School rivalries were big then, Mays v Doug, George v Fulton, Washington v Turner, Therrell and everybody, APS v Fulton County schools, et al. Beautiful pubescent girls were everywhere as were surging testosterone filled pubescent boys like bull elephants in the musk. All combined in what for the most part was just youthful carousing. However the night wasn’t complete without a fight. One time for weeks everyone at Mays and Doug had been talking about Calvin Cameron from Mays and Frankie Caldwell from Doug as the best brawlers. It was like David and Goliath excepting they were both the same size. All under 18 Atlanta looked forward to their meeting. It did not disappoint except I suppose the length of the confrontation. Imagine 300 teens in cars and carousing the parking lot.

I distinctly remember KeKe Jones standing out of her Mercedes sunroof to get a better view of the fight. They tussled for all of 25 seconds as the crush of the crowd and the dynamic nature of the fight caused near immediate chaos. After literally standing with her upper body out of the sun roof Keke yelled out in wild acclamation ‘they fightin, they fightin’. Then fear, panic and a kind of feminine maternal instinct kicked in and she went from yelling ‘they fightin’ with excitement to yelling ‘they fightin, they fightin’ like somebody please make them stop (all in the tone of her voice). Indeed, she knew both of them and while a little testosterone is exciting, too much is scary.

I was a watcher, light drinker (but unfortunately not light enough), reefer smoker and lover not a brawler. In those days the way to teen fame and a high profile wasn’t social media. It rested in the fact either/or/and in combination your people had money, you were exceptionally cute, you were athletic, could sing for real or otherwise were distinguished or you were a brawler. Male or female you could win a reputation on those things. You could be retarded but if you had one or more of those things going for you your path through your teen years was set….or so it seemed to our teenaged minds and you’d get the mating ‘pick of the litter’. Notice I didn’t put intelligence and academic achievement in there. I didn’t because unfortunately that wasn’t enough. If you combine academic achievement and intelligence with one or more of those other characteristics now you’re really talking.

Variations

Quite a few times I saw Rev. Craig Oliver from Elizabeth Baptist fame at Greenbriar mall on a Saturday afternoon during the early 2000’s. Now they have 8 churches so I’m sure he doesn’t have time anymore. There were men’s stores and shoe store then that are no longer there. I’ve gone to the Piccadilly all of my life. As a matter of fact it was such a gastronomical presence in my life that till this day I can’t eat green beans or turnip greens without using Piccadilly’s version of those items as a standard. I thought ‘Dilly plates’ and ‘kid’s plates’ were as stable as concepts as biblical and legal ‘truths’. I had eaten them all of my childhood and adolescence. I celebrated birthdays there and other people’s birthdays as I got older. It was where my mother and I would take my grandparents or relatives when they were in town. When I was in active ministry I became affiliated with 2 churches negotiating at Piccadilly. It was a very common destination after church during this entire time and to the extent anybody goes to Greenbriar at all still is. I’ve gone there for after school programs, sports programs and bureaucratic activities and events. Like after your people go with you to court, y’all go to Greenbriar Piccadilly to eat and so they can lecture you more extensively. I’ve gone there after my various graduations and other people’s graduations.

In its heyday the Piccadilly had a water fountain of some sort in the relative center of the dining floor. You could pitch a penny or other small change in there and make a wish. As a matter of fact during childhood one of the things your parents or caregivers would do is hand you a penny or two to throw in the water fountain display at the Piccadilly after meals. My God in hindsight I must have made a few wishes during my lifetime and I wonder if any of them came true as I can’t remember them. Then of course you think you are a big boy and you stop making wishes or even being entertained by your wishes. My Lord isn’t it amazing the things we leave in childhood desiring to do as Paul told us and ‘leave aside childish things’. I’ll never forget the time my Adams Park youth baseball team the ‘Phillies’ celebrated its end of year dinner at the Piccadilly. Everyone had eaten and we were milling around by the fountain as the bill was being paid. Boys being boys we started slap boxing and tussling around and one guy got knocked off his balance and had to stick his foot in the fountain to regain his balance creating a significant and audible splash. Then as he pulled his feet out it was darn near soaked from his foot to his knee; squish, squish, squish as he walked away. Of course for middle school aged boys this is comedy and tragedy in that the comedy is that it happened and the tragedy is that if you are around it an adult is going to accuse you of being privy to it, party to it and thus contemptible in adult eyes. So we scattered from dude like roaches after one of their compatriots gets smashed making it all the more ridiculous a scene as kids run from the guy as if to give the impression that he fell in the fountain all by himself and not a one of the others had a thing to do with it. That’s when the staff doesn’t say anything but they give the parents that look. You know that look parents. That look like ‘ma’am, sir, will you please come get your child’! That look.

Those of you familiar with the Greenbriar Mall Piccadilly, even presently construed as in the past there is a long hallway that looks out over the dining room floor to the right; separated only by a curtain of sorts and lower structure. Along this corridor people sitting adjacent to the hallway line can see and eavesdrop on people coming in. As you walk down the seemingly long corridor depending upon how hungry you are, you smell the smells, whetting your mouth for the tastes and for some reason the smell of a Piccadilly, darn near any Piccadilly is nearly always the same; certainly your home Piccadilly. I promise you in my mind’s nose, I’d argue the Piccadilly today smells exactly like it did when I was a child. My default intellectual setting tells me this cannot be the case; but my child’s heart and love of stability wants to think it does. One thing is for certain, when Greenbriar is bulldozed and a mixed use facility is put up, it damn sure won’t smell like Piccadilly. It will smell like 2 Starbucks, a Krispy Kreme, a Panera Bread, and a Jason’s Deli.

Just by regularly going to the Piccadilly a teacher could see her students and meet their parents even if their parents never went to PTA or the school otherwise. Many professional organizations had their meetings there; teachers organizations and unions, Rotary Clubs, retired postal workers local 134, etc. The Ministers Fellowship met there regularly for a while and still do when it is more convenient than any other place they could have the meeting. Just by regularly going to the Piccadilly you could see nearly all of Black Bourgeois professional Southwest Atlanta at any given time. I’ve seen Andy Young, John Lewis, Hank and Billye Aaron et al. But more than that Piccadilly has played a part in my and I’m sure many other’s emotional life. I’ve taken dates there, stones along the evolution of my love life since middle school. My girlfriends during adolescence and young adulthood ended up there at one time or another. My first wife and my second wife all have scenes and meals in my mind relative to the Piccadilly experience.

When my father got sick from illnesses related to nearly a lifetime of smoking that is when he and I got close. I was an only child of divorced parents. I never remember them together and I wasted intellectual and emotional energy not only reflecting on that as a child but suffering the consequences of answers to it that were somewhat unproductive in my life. The healing came during those meals at Piccadilly. Towards the end of his life he valued the meals we got at Piccadilly. While his health lasted and he was strong enough to be mobile he and I would go and enjoy a meal, lingering as we talk. As his health deteriorated I’d go pick the food up take out and eat and hang out with him. I thank God for that Piccadilly related time and I’m sure it’s not so much because the food is that good relatively speaking. It is because of the memories, the smells and the familiar settings.

As a part of our hanging out to pay bills, pick up medicine, make doctors appointments and handle business as I would take him around we’d always end up at his favorite restaurants which were the Piccadilly, the Busy Bee and Q-Time. Even when he could no longer go to the restaurants he’d send me. Even when his appetites withered he’d get his plate and it’d take the whole week for him to nibble off it. It’s so amazing to me now as I reflect that I can damn near sense his presence as I remember the tables we sat at; his dad jokes. And let me make a point about dad jokes. You mock them, but there are one or two that you not only will remember but that you will throw out every once in awhile. My dad was a big leadership guy (I suppose the apple doesn’t fall…). His favorite thing to say about Black anything, religion, politics, academics, etc. was ‘too many chiefs, no Indians’. I’ve never heard a more apt description of the Negro predicament in America.

Speaking of restaurants and memories who remembers the ‘Orange Julius’ that was in Greenbriar Mall? That is where I wanted to go. Don’t ask me what the fuck is in Orange Julius. It was some kind of Orange frozen beverage…and orange but I have little doubt in my mind that it was only minimally related to 100% Squeezed Orange Juice (from concentrate or not). Tang, Sunny Delight, Tang, ‘bright n early’, there is a whole food products market behind imitation orange juice oftentimes based on high fructose corn syrup and other synthetic type ingredients. One thing is for certain however, it won’t kill you because I damn near od’d on all that stuff growing up. For that matter, what the fuck is ‘Cool-Aid’ really. Yeah’ you add water and sugar but like really what are those little granules? And I can’t mention that without mentioning my favorite 50 Cent story related by the Indian comedian Aziz Ansari.

‘Fiddy’ in a fancy restaurant. After the meal the waiter clears the table and brings over the dessert menu. ‘Fiddy’ looks at the dessert menu and orders something he sees that has the word ‘Grapes’ in it. Well, to this fancy restaurant this means that the dish utilizes real actual grapes (like wine is made from or like you eat in the produce section). However to ‘Fiddy’ the level of disappointment was audible when the dish came and it was not purple. He felt this injustice to such an extent that he recalled the waiter who in horror had to explain to ‘Fiddy’ that if you have a choice between real nature made grapes to base the reality of what you think ‘grape’ is and means, and the other option is that something that is ‘purple’ automatically means what ‘Grape’ is you should err on the side of what nature made not what ghetto cool-aid culture told you grape was and meant. This is not to disparage ‘Fiddy’ (his album cover in front of that wall of guns and his publication of his porn tape ‘I’m fuckin Rick Ross baby mama’, and his continued intransigence do that better than anything I could say). I don’t disparage ‘Fiddy’ at all and I’m precisely making the point that I was the exact same way as an adolescent and well into young adulthood. And don’t get on your high horses and tell me you’re so elevated you don’t do that because if I put candy in front of you that is ‘red’, and candy that is a multiplicity of other colors, you know what the fuck you think red means. You, like me don’t even need to know the name of the candy or what is in it, the gravitation towards ‘red’ candy is so strong…..like purple and aqua blue flavor. OMG why is sour apple neon green? No, not unripe apple green, neon green, like nuclear waste green!

I have very fond memories of and I am glad the Medu Bookstore has survived in Greenbriar. I spent lots of downtime in that bookstore and being able to thumb through books everybody tells you are so great only to realize within 10 pages these books are highly overrated is priceless as an intellectual and academic. Some books however you realize precisely the opposite. My first interaction with Cress Welsing’s Isis papers was in that context. When I went through my Islamic studies phase my first Quran translation and my first book on Islamic practice were thumbed through and ultimately bought there. Thumbing through books about Masonry, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, all have proved useful in my development as an intellectual. While I am giving shots out to Black bookstores you can’t talk about Southwest Atlanta Black bookstores without mentioning the heyday of the Shrine of the Black Madonna. I spent a lot of time in that bookstore too and got a chance to hear lectures from many, many different Black authors and political and religious figures.

If I’m not mistaken the chick fila in Greenbriar mall was only the 2nd one in existence at the time with the flagship being in Hapeville. The Hapeville ‘Dwarf House’ was designed for the lunch breaks of the workers at what was then the Ford plant. Oh my how things have changed. Multiple working class families with high school educated heads (father and mother) households moved into my solidly middle class neighborhoods growing up on the strength of the salaried and unionized jobs at the Ford Motor Company Hapeville Plant. My uncle in law worked there 27 years. Those Ford Plant jobs are gone. Now we are supposed to drive for Uber and Lyft and flip houses with no money…and no common sense either. Atlanta my dearly beloved. In the words of the 80’s British rock band ‘The Smiths’ front man Morrissey about Manchester, ‘So much to answer for’. And Greenbriar mall is symbolic of the failure of that promise.

Remember the excitement after integration when we were able to move out into the then suburban landscape of west and southwest Atlanta? We inherited Greenbriar and the Cascade and Campbellton Rd Corridors as white flight flew and continued their flight with the only criteria for where they want to be being where we of Negritude are not. My central problem with contemporary Black elected officials and officialdom is that the architecture along Campbellton Rd Corridor along with Greenbriar itself has been the same since the 1950’s when it was built. 10 minutes from the busiest airport in the world, a heartbeat or two or three away from 285 and a 5 minute drive from 75/85 in the jewel of the south that has added millions of citizens since 1950. And 50 or 60 years of development in the surrounding area and we Black people didn’t make shit off of the development; to the point that now foreigners and investors buy up our shit for pennies on the dollar, financed and facilitated by Black Elected officials themselves and we go off in search of greener pastures; doing the Black middle class flight that inevitably follows the original white flight out of many historical Black communities in Atlanta.

There was a time when the Simpson Rd and Collier Rd Corridor and the area going from there towards Bankhead were where the old Black Atlanta Elites lived. Now it has all the hallmarks of any urban community; crime, underperforming schools, poverty, etc. These conditions are a result of our choices, our public choices in terms of our Black elected officials and our private economic choices in terms of our priorities as African Americans; not white racism. We waited 50-60 years and didn’t develop these corridors? In the meantime we opened successful strip clubs, rappers de jour came and went hollering bout balling and whatever else they were into and trapping got bigger and more desirable than opening legitimate businesses, sustainable businesses based on sound business models based on competitiveness and legitimate rule of law based application. All along 285, that is to say, everywhere we of Negritude aren’t is well developed, particularly the northern ends of 285. There is everything from skyscrapers to lots of upscale office and ‘strip mall parks’ and other forms of private development. Campbellton Rd at 285 looks architecturally the way in did 60 years ago. That is a disgrace before God and a sign of quite frankly Negro incompetence. This however is not a terminal condition.

Presently, all of the Negro politicians in Atlanta are complaining about Greenbriar closing even though nobody did shit with the Greenbriar/Campbellton Rd Corridor in 60 years of continuous Negro habitation; not we ninjas, Black mayors, Black City Councils, etc. Southwest Atlanta was perfectly poised to take advantage of the tremendous growth and economic vitality generated by the ‘busiest airport in the world’ but apparently we sat back and waited for white folk to throw us something or as my friends from my hustling days would say ‘front a nigga something’. We could have been a kind of ‘gateway to the Black south’ and the world. We could have created the kind of long term parking lots, shuttles and traveler services in Black East Point, Black College Park and Black Southwest Atlanta, but no. We were somewhere either begging for a piece of white folk’s pie and/or rappin and going to strip clubs. Ninjas broke, underfinanced and lack academic resources in the rap capital of the south, cultural capital of the south excepting only New Orleans, Civil Rights Capital of the South and the capital of the largest African-American University Consortium in the world (if I’m not mistaken and I don’t mind being somewhat mistaken)? We’ve missed the tourism and hospitality boat even though Atlanta is one of the most visited cities for family reunions conventions. But we of Negritude in Atlanta were not organized to get at that money so we missed it or get it hit and miss (or through nepotism and wheeling and dealing).

As I close these matters down in this essay, I want to reflect and wax ephemeral on the old Magic Johnson Movie Theatre and the TGI Fridays in order to highlight a deeper problem in African America than lack of investment. It hinders our economic growth, health and sustainability. The Magic Johnson theatre never got redeveloped after it closed; prime, beautiful real estate in SW Atlanta. The old Magic Johnsons TGI Fridays after its original closing has been approximately 2 or 3 failed restaurants and 15 failed clubs since then. Not coincidentally the IHOP failed. Much of this is why mainstream retailers don’t naturally look towards Black communities even when they have statistical demographic incomes that could afford and sustain the development (that is unless they can buy it at dirt cheap prices and flip it). Our lack of bourgeois professionalism in these developmental matters is inexcusable but not surprising considering the baggage of slavery and the effects of 450 years of not only underdevelopment but a government and white mainstream that actively taught and trained us to think we don’t have the intelligence or moral qualities to develop ourselves economically.

Speaking of the Greenbriar IHOP experiment, IHOP did one of the greatest marketing and promotional blunders and failures in human history. They made the mistake of thinking all IHOPs were in markets (read urban, suburban & rural) that could handle the ‘all you can eat pancake promotions’. Lines were wrapped around the corner of ninjas coming to get free pancakes. Fuck diabetes, high blood pressure, gout and irritable bowel syndrome we’re coming on crutches, wheelchairs, and in baby carriages to load up on carbs and sugar. I’m surprise a ninja didn’t get tired of waiting and pull out a hypodermic needle and start mainlining syrup. That would have taken the old hip hop song ‘sippin on some syrup’ to a whole next level.

The waitresses were overworked and underpaid as the crush of customers meant the service times, waits and food quality wavered. Ninjas, already notoriously bad tippers thus felt even more motivated to tip less and often took the poor service personal. Tempers towards the staff rose and the staff’s tempers towards the predators (excuse me diners) rose palpably. I don’t mean no harm but the way some of us act at the perception of bad or unfair service is scary. As a matter of fact brothers, watch how your girl/girlfriend/fiancé handles bad service at a restaurant, event or occasion. Why? Ninja, that is exactly the same way she’s going to handle you when she perceives that you disappointed her or didn’t do what you were ‘supposed’ to do; which actually just means you didn’t do what she expected you to do and thus you must be wrong not her. Nut up and call corporate behind an overcooked salmon (like you’ve never eaten out in your life and you want to treat Applebee’s like they owe you a 5 star dining experience. Come on y’all.

Too much breading on the chicken fingers? Ninja fix em yourself how the fuck you want to do it. If I come over your house and you offer me ‘chicken fingerz’ at cost or not ninja I expect to get chicken fingers the way you do them. They got a menu. Have you ever been to that restaurant before? And while we are on the subject…because ninjas don’t know how to act, their children don’t know how to act. (Now this is not to say anybody else’s or other races children born and raised in America do or don’t know how to act). My plan for redeveloping Magic Theatre and its associated lots was to use the present structure and build out a little to create ‘Kidz funzone’ type of place that included most of the traditional amusement activities but also walking trails and nature and educational type activities and structures. I envisioned space for games, bowling lanes, traditional slides and swings, BMX, skateboarding park, go cart and minibike track and space for birthday parties. I envisioned rock climbing equipment, trampolines and nets and some real 1st class shit; even some shit you could see from the highway as the property is right adjacent to 285 & 166.

But then I had to face facts. The liability insurance would be cost prohibitive not simply because of the fact that our children might not have the home training to know how to act. A situation like that would not be ideal but it would not be fatal. Children can learn and be educated and helped in terms of psycho-social adjustment if the authorities are consistent and fair. The problem is that their parents and caregivers are too old, set in their ways and actually encouraged by the Jerry Springer, Real Housewives styled communication environment to realize they don’t have no muthafuckin manners and home training and thus and furthermore they don’t give a fuck about their children learning or needing to learn mutha fuckin manners and home training and what that would look like or mean if they or their children did it! That is how you end up with fights and shoot outs in the parking of the funzone.

Endless debates about who was in line first with Black young men and women under 35 bout to be grandparents. They are unmarried and don’t seem to mind if their children are reading two or three grade levels behind but they better not see another kid break their child off or treat them unfairly or protest a hipper set of Jordans than they. Seems to me you’re worried about the wrong thing. The other kids are ‘joaning’ your child because he or she can’t read but instead of locating the problem in that fact, you locate it in the teacher and what the teacher ain’t doing to protect your child. Then you elevate it to start arguing about what the school ain’t doing for your child. And then you writing letters to the district superintendent about how this doesn’t happen at the majority white schools on the north end of the county. You go on to disparage Black principals and staff who are already struggling to get kids on grade level academically when ain’t nobody willing to saying the kids ain’t on grade level academically because they ain’t on ‘grade level’ in terms of having home training and presenting themselves educable to their teachers and the administration and staff and not present themselves a disruption to their fellow students.

We ain’t holding nobody accountable but teachers; not parents, not communities, not CEO style celebrity superintendents and not ourselves as Atlanta, South Fulton, South Dekalb and Clayton communities and parents. And as Douglas, Gwinnett and Cobb trend more and more ‘colored’, if we don’t watch out we will have categorical systems of dysfunction in urban education here in metropolitan Atlanta, the home of MLK Jr, the home of the AUC center, the home of Black bourgeois bureaucratic power, home of Black school boards for 50 years etc..

Let me go a little further at the risk seeming like I’m falling prey to internalized racism and negative stereotypes about Black people. You got young couples, baby mamas and baby daddies with kids in the public school system. He sees his kid twice a month but when he does his kid better not ever get pushed, shoved or back seated. And this is not just a problem for Black working class and lower working class citizens, all Americans suffer this penchant to shelter our children so much they aren’t that well adjusted to the rough and tumble and unpredictability of life in that it will not always be pleasant and your pancakes at the ‘all you can eat’ pancake promotion at the IHOP may not be qualitatively the best pancakes you ever had in your life. And there you sit with no initiative demanding that you get your free muthafuckin pancakes hot. The way pecking orders are derived isn’t always fair, pretty or graceful but there is always a lesson to be learned in the ‘arrangement’ of affairs.