Today, Explained - All-American divorce

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

In her Today, Explained debut, co-host Noel King heads to Atlanta to find out why some people in one of its wealthiest neighborhoods are trying to secede from the rest of the city. This episode was reported by Noel King and produced by Miles Bryan, with editing by Sean Rameswaram, fact-checking by Laura Bullard and Richard Sima, and engineering by Efim Shapiro. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. It's Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramos from this is our 1000th episode and I am thus joined by my co-host, Noelle King. Hey, Sean. Great to have you. Great to be here. And as we come together to make this 1000th episode, I'm told you want to talk about breaking up.

That is the story. Yeah. Why are told you want to talk about breaking up. That is the story. Yeah. Why are you doing this to me, Noelle? Because it's a really good story. What is it about? All right. So you and I share a journalistic interest in how the country is doing, right? We talk about this a lot. This is true.

And so one of the questions that we're always asking ourselves is, is the United States staying united? Is it falling apart? We hear lots of dire things. How bad is it really? And then a couple weeks ago, our producer Miles Bryan sent me a news story out of Atlanta. And I thought, oh, that's it. What's going on in Atlanta? There's a neighborhood in Atlanta called Buckhead. It is very wealthy. It is very fancy.

So we're talking about malls and a lot of mansions. It's where the CEOs live. It's where some of the real housewives of Atlanta live. Cardi B and Offset have a house there. Okay. They have a gun range

inside the house. Wow. So you've got this really fancy part of the city. Some people in Buckhead want to secede from the rest of Atlanta. They want their own city with their own stuff, and they want to leave Atlanta behind. So I take it we're going to Buckhead.

We're going to Buckhead, yeah. I started with the guy who's leading the effort to get Buckhead out of Atlanta. He is an operator. His name is Bill White. He moved to Atlanta from New York a couple years ago. In New York, he was a big-time fundraiser, first for Hillary Clinton and then for Donald Trump. Wow. Yeah.

He's complicated. He's fluid. Okay. Bill White has been the public face of this movement. He's been the guy all over the TV and the newspapers. So I went down to his office to meet him. You are the fellow who's causing all of the trouble here in Atlanta. I don't think I'm causing any trouble.

I think Atlanta has caused a lot of trouble here in Atlanta. So give me a sense of when this started to germinate in your mind and when you decided Buckhead shouldn't be part of Atlanta. What happened? So the families in Buckhead feel like they've been exploited by the city of Atlanta for way too long. How so? They are overpaying in their taxes. They are not getting proper police protection.

They are not getting their streets paved. They're not getting a good return on their investment in the Atlanta public school system, you start to say, you know, taxation without representation isn't a fun experience. And when you get robbed at the gas station or carjacked at a store or you get shot at, you start to say, what is going on? We start to feel like we're living in a war zone. And then it became personal. How so?

Because I had a call from my sister-in-law whose house was uh home invaded and they were not home were they robbed like yes yes completely violated broken windows uh safe broken into all that shortly after that two lovely folks came up our driveway to steal our car out of our garage, all caught on videotape. My husband says, oh, my God, there's people in our driveway, and they're getting out of the car to go into the garage. The garage was open. The gates were open, right?

And there was no way, just as a person from a small town, upstate New York, there was no way they were coming to the house to look for help. There was no way they needed to jump on the battery. No, no, ma'am. The thing is, Sean, this is anecdata. This thing happened to me. This thing happened to my sister-in-law. Right. What does the actual data say here? The data shows that between 2019 and 2021, the murder rate did go up in Buckhead.

It also went up in the rest of Atlanta. It also went up in many cities across the United States. I talked to a criminologist at Georgia State University, Volkan Topali, and he told me Buckhead is still the safest neighborhood in Atlanta. I'm guessing that probably wouldn't satisfy Bill White and that you two never really saw eye to eye on the data here? Bill doesn't even believe the data that the Atlanta Police Department provides.

The APD manipulates data. But I also wanted to ask Bill something really important, which is what happens to the rest of Atlanta if Buckhead leaves? We're creating a new city, right, which will be much less corrupt. It will be much less bloated. Bill, it will also be much richer and much whiter than the city of Atlanta as a whole. I think that's disgusting. So let me tell you about that. It's a fact. Tell me why you think it's disgusting when it is a fact.

Because listen, our support is 100% diverse. We're the most diverse community in Atlanta. It has nothing to do... You don't mean Buckhead. Buckhead is the most diverse community in Atlanta. Buckhead is whiter than the rest of Atlanta. So that has nothing to do with stopping crime. That has nothing to do with keeping our taxes.

But the word diverse ordinarily means two different types of people live there. It has nothing to do with answering our 911 calls. The only thing that it has to do with race, with Buckhead City Movement, is the human race. That's it. Thank you. Nice meeting you.

Okay. Yeah. Buckhead as a neighborhood is more than 70% white. That is not the demographic of Atlanta. It's just not. So Bill, as I've said, is an operator. He is not confined by facts and data. So I wanted to talk to some people who live in Buckhead, just regular people, and ask them, are you experiencing what Bill is saying?

So I went to this mall that is designed to look like Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. Okay. And I went to a little shared office that's right next to the Spanx headquarters. Like the successful shapewear company? Yes, the very one. Okay. I was there to meet two women who live in Buckhead, Evita Alexander-Estevez and her wife, Jade Alexander-Estevez. Check, check, check, check, check.

Welcome to Atlanta. Thank you so much. Welcome to Buckhead. Welcome to Buckhead. Your vibe is very hyper-successful, 30-something, look great, feel great, live great. Is that fair? I think that's fair. These ladies want Buckhead to secede from Atlanta.

How come? They told me about something that happened in the summer of 2020. So you remember this is not long after George Floyd is killed. There are protests in lots of American cities. Some of them turn violent. In Atlanta, there was a protest that started downtown, perfectly peaceful. And then people start going north into Buckhead. And by the time night falls, it's gotten violent. And we're like, okay, what's really going on? We went outside and we just see these cars just

stopped and police are everywhere and the fire trucks are everywhere. And we look and we're witnessing the Del Fresco's, which was next door, it's on fire because people have thrown alcohol bottles and thrown fire and just caused this huge just disruption. And we go downstairs in the lobby area and it's pretty nice. And we're like, okay, we're security. Let's make sure we're kind of protected. And unfortunately the security guard just left so these are strangers in our corridors in the lobby area people keep strangers came into the building oh yeah they vandalized the entire property yes and they broke into the um this is a vita they broke into the magianos right next door it wasn't something that we could stop we

tried to but our building was completely vandalized. And if you went around Buckhead, they robbed everywhere. I mean, I'm feeling empathy for what these two went through that night, but I'm also feeling like, does that amount to let's secede from Atlanta? I mean, that's the question. Is this an extreme reaction to something that happened all over the country, really? Jade and Evita, I should note, are's the question. Is this an extreme reaction to something that happened all over the country, really? Jade and Evita, I should note, are both Black women. And so some of this gets really tricky, right? I don't even see it as a race or a political thing at all. That's just not valid in any kind of way. Not valid. Jade, what do you think? Well, I definitely second with my wife. I feel that ultimately it's not.

And again, I work in the human resources industry, so I don't see color. I see people. I see experiences. I see, you know, lifestyles. I see things that people want to strive for. And I think that, you know, both my wife and I, we've worked extremely hard. And wherever we decide to live, if it's in the suburbs or in Buckhead, we want to feel protected. Doesn't see color. Doesn't see color. That's a case for leaving Atlanta. What's the case for keeping Buckhead in Atlanta? The case for keeping Buckhead in Atlanta is that if Buckhead secedes, it will destroy the rest of the city financially. Buckhead contributes a lot of tax dollars to the city of Atlanta, and that money is spread around for sewers and cops and roads and bridges and all the rest of it.

Something like 40% of Atlanta's assessed property value is right in that one neighborhood, Buckhead. So as you might imagine, there is some very strong resistance to this idea in other parts of Atlanta. Yeah. And you went to one such part. I did. I went to Southwest Atlanta. Which is like the opposite part of town from Buckhead. That's exactly right. And I met a woman named Trisha Harris who has made it her mission in life over the last couple of months to prevent the secession from happening. Hello. Look at your picture perfect house. Girl, you look like you got the American dream out here. I lucked out with this house.

I never lived on the south side of Atlanta before. Trisha is so profoundly against this proposition because of her son, Caleb, who first thing she'll tell you is she's raising him by herself. Caleb is nine years old. He is absolutely adorable. And he's autistic. My name's Caleb. You say Atlanta Public Schools.

And what are the other schools? Atlanta Public Schools. And what are the other schools? Think about it like Spidey senses. Everything is amplified. His sense of sound, his sense of taste, his sense of texture. And he eats like 10 foods. So he has to pass every possible test before it will even touch his tongue.

Is it the right color? Is it the right smell? Is it, you know, the right look? He's over-experiencing the world. He is exact. Everything is hyper. Everything is amplified for him. Caleb goes to a public school that Tricia absolutely loves.

She says it's helping him a lot. It is a night and day difference. He talks more. He engages more. His dedicated parapro, Mr. Washington, is a 29-year-old Black man. Yes! Mr. Washington! Mr. Washington. That's Caleb's most exhaustive exposure on a regular basis. To men.

To men. Yeah. Period. Now, the problem is, if Buckhead secedes and leaves with their tax dollars, the Atlanta Board of Education says the schools will lose about $250 million from their budget every year. Special education children are of the most impacted because of the wraparound services, which are funded out of that general fund that we'd lose 20 to 30 percent of coming out of Buckhead City. I think people are slowly coming to the understanding that if it withdraws,

it's going to destabilize the entire city, the region, the state, and our kids. Okay, I'm perfectly understanding Tricia here. And yet, I'm also finding myself starting to feel the Buckhead argument a little bit more right now because, you know, they're paying for this incredible education that's on the opposite side of town, but they feel like they're not getting what they thought was their side of the bargain, which is more safety, more police. Yeah, that's right. And what I think is this is happening all over the country. You have communities where people have different levels of wealth and different needs. Some people have a lot.

Some people have a little. And the question is, can they all live together if there's not a sense that we owe each other things? We're responsible for each other. So what's to be done? What's to be done, in my view, is to get people together, like all of these nice ladies we just heard from, and see if we can get them to agree on something. Like to get them out of their bubbles? Yeah. Okay.

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to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Today Today Explained It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Yeah, you are. Yeah, I am. So, Sean, before the break, I told you that we were going to get all of these nice women in a room together to talk it out.

And that is coming up. But before we do that, I want to tell you that it might seem like this story is a small local one. But it's actually not. It's big. This is not just a local interest story. This is of interest to a lot of people around the country who are being really, really hurt by the crazed management of their woke leaders. Atlanta needs

Buckhead. Buckhead does not need Atlanta. And that's true of a lot of places. If they're wrecking your town, leave. Do you know who that was? I want to, but I feel like I don't recognize the voice. It's Tucker Carlson. That was Tucker. That was Tucker, host of the most popular show on cable news.

And he's talking about Buckhead. Yep. And is this happening in other towns? Can I tell you what I did? Yeah. I pulled up a list of all 50 U.S. states in alphabetical order. Okay. And I went through looking for where this is happening. In Anchorage, there's a politically conservative neighborhood called Eagle River

that's trying to secede from Anchorage, which is more politically progressive or liberal. Kennedy says they can make better decisions out there than Anchorage can for the community. There's also a decades-old movement in Northern California and Southern Oregon to form an entirely new state that would ensure that rural areas have better representation in the government. The map says this is Northern California, so mapmakers and visitors might be a bit confused about this sign, claiming this is the state of Jefferson. Also in Oregon, some counties in the east are trying to secede and join Idaho. They say that the Idahoans just have more similar values. They call us, make Idaho worse for people.

You know, if they don't want us, they don't want to listen to us. They don't have to have us. Are we going to do all 50 states now? We're not, we're not. It's a shorter program. I'm going to tell you about one that actually actually that I really care about, okay? Not Buckhead. Not Buckhead. So in 2014, I was covering a story in Baton Rouge. And there was this unincorporated part of the city on the eastern half that was pretty wealthy and pretty white. And it wanted to secede from Baton Rouge City, which was poorer and much more racially diverse,

and form its own school system so its kids could have nice schools and not have to go to school with Baton Rouge kids. So I was down there reporting for a few days. Yates and the other parents at this meeting want to make something clear. Just because I was raised in the southern part of the United States doesn't mean that I'm a racist because I want something better for the middle class. It just means I want something better for my family. This is not something I ever thought would happen. Everyone's feelings were hurt. Everyone was kind of talking out of turn. But I was like, ultimately, they're going to figure it out.

Five years later, 2019, 54 percent of residents of that unincorporated area vote yes. We are breaking away from Baton Rouge City. We're going to do our own thing. Activists for a city of St. George are celebrating today after their closest step yet to incorporation. Over 16,000 people said, I want a new city. I want something different. Now, at the moment, it's tied up in litigation. But it was a thing that I never thought would happen.

And then it happened. Kind of like a blueprint for Buckhead, I guess. Yeah, kind of like a blueprint for Buckhead. Is Buckhead paying attention to what's going on in all these 50 states? I think Bill White is paying attention to what's going on across the country. The three women that we spoke to, the regular people, I don't think they're aware of this as a bigger movement at all. And I have some extreme middle child tendencies, and I saw what happened in Baton Rouge, and it did kind of make me sad. And so I had an idea that we should sit down with the three women and figure out if there was some way we could get these very nice people to agree on something. Did you find some neutral territory? No, I did not.

We went back to the little office near the Spanx headquarters. It was in Buckhead. Listen, I looked all over Atlanta. Y'all have crazy traffic. Of course. What do you do? Avoid it. Stay home.

Look at it. Caleb sat with us. You might hear him in the background a little bit. Remember, he's nine. Okay, Sean, quick recall here. We have Evita Alexander-Estevez and her wife, Jade Alexander-Estevez. They want to secede. And we have Tricia Harris, who is very against secession.

This is Tricia. This is a children's issue. This is a community issue. Unless Buckhead, I don't care what they tell you, unless Buckhead is going to erect a wall and put in a moat with armed guards and checkpoints, how do you, the concept that you can externalize crime in that way, it doesn't work. It's going to make it worse because Buckhead is contributing to the support of our most vulnerable, the kids. That's 30 support of our most vulnerable, the kids.

That's 30% of our funding gone. Let's get a couple of responses. So Tricia brought up two things that I think are really important. Buckhead taxes do help pay for the public schools where Caleb goes. And people, including criminologists, have raised the question, do you really think a lot more cops are going to help with crime? Let me get your thoughts. So I empathize with you. However, to me, well, I'm going to tell you like my mother used to say, figure it out. Okay. Poor can't help the poor. So if you destroy what you have in terms of

the good things, there will be no more of that. Ultimately, I totally empathize with you and what you're saying about your son, but we as being a non-traditional couple, we are actually starting a family. So we want to make sure that our children and our kids are also protected, where we do contribute quite a bit in the community. And it was heartbreaking in 2020 when we saw people who weren't neighbors of Buckhead destroying and vandalizing. And as we grow into motherhood and also building a family, we want to make sure that our kids and our future is also protected. That's beautifully put. But congratulations. Thank you. Baby one. Yes. Oh, Jesus. Listen, if we want to leave here, I'm going to make you a quick list. If I had had this list, just the one page, you have no idea.

No matter whether you have an inexpensive house or a multimillion-dollar house, you're contributing against what you're able to bear and to common good. Buckethead is not affluent and prosperous the way it is in spite of the city of Atlanta. It's because of it. Can I tell you what I was hearing in that conversation? Please. I was hearing two different strands of very American thought. So the Alexander Estevez couple, they are successful, they are stylish, they are self-described strivers. They want the

apartment with the view of the SunTrust Bank, and they got it. And they're real individualists. They want to protect what they have. Tricia is representing another really American mindset, which is a community is responsible for every member in the community. Neighbors should take care of each other. Cities are collectives. The problem is these are both very American ways of thinking. They just don't often overlap. And while you had these ladies in this conference room next to Spanx HQ, did you mention that it doesn't seem like there was a lot of overlap? Yeah, of course I did.

What did they say? Here's Tricia. No, I mean, I think you're right. At the end of the day, we just got a new mayor. I mean, he's doing fantastic. I mean, he's taking flak from the black community right now because it's all about Buckhead. Can we at least give this new administration time? Because a lot of your neighbors don't want this.

We are understanding of why you wouldn't want that to happen. But at the same time, it's here where we live. It's our house that got vandalized. It's our car that got stolen. So I think take the politics out of it. Like, really, if you take the politics out of it, we're just trying to protect ourselves, not our own, but ourselves. Not our community, but ourselves. And that's it. So it sounds like you didn't make a lot of headway in this room with these people. No, I didn't. I didn't. So the Buckhead people still want to bounce, and Atlanta still wants them to stay.

Yeah. When do we find out which it is? Well, there was a pretty big development while we were down in Atlanta a few days ago. I'm going to be watching to see what action is taken by the leadership here in the city of Atlanta. And with that, Speaker David Ralston, along with Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan and members of the Atlanta delegation, signaled they would not support Buckhead's cityhood at this time. The Republican leaders of the Georgia state legislature said they are not going to support a bill that would lead to a vote on Buckhead's secession, that would lead to that referendum. Their publicly stated reasoning was exactly what you heard Tricia say. Atlanta has a new mayor. He's only taken office last month.

Let's give him some time and see if he can fix the crime problem and some of these other problems. We'll be back next year if things haven't changed a lot. So where does this leave us, Noel? I mean, it sounds like even if crime does go down, people in Buckhead are still going to want to leave. It might get caught in some legal limbo. But ultimately, my takeaway here is that people are just going to look to leave. It might get caught in some legal limbo. But ultimately, my takeaway here is that people are just going to look out for themselves. Well, nobody in that room changed their minds. Yeah. I will say this, however. At the end of the interview, I was packing up to leave

and the three ladies started talking to each other. And then they started exchanging information and saying that they would try to keep in touch. They would try to find a way to keep talking about all this. Jade actually said she felt uplifted. So, I don't know. Yes, it is possible that we are stuck in our particular American trenches, the strivers versus the community-minded. But I truly think it is also possible that if we sat down with each other occasionally in a conference room near the Spanx headquarters, we might be able to do a little better. We might be able to get a little further. We might actually get somewhere together. Our episode today was produced and co-reported by Miles Bryan,

edited by Sean Ramosfirm, mixed and mastered by Afim Shapiro, and fact-checked by Laura Bullard and Richard Sima. The rest of the team at Today Explained includes Matthew Collette, Halima Shah, Victoria Chamberlain, Hadi Mouagdi, and Will Reed. Our supervising producer is Amina El-Sadi. Our VP of audio is Liz Kelly-Nelson.

We use music from Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld. Special thanks to Dan Emmergluck, Volkan Topali, and Lauren Katz for their help with today's show. I'm Noelle King, looking forward to the next thousand episodes of Today Explained, which is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Thank you.