We Got A New At-ti-tude

By Donna Ladd Wednesday, January 26, 2005 9:39 p.m. CST

Cue the Patti LaBelle, baby. As we prepare our third Best of Jackson issue, it strikes me that Jacksonians are starting to take for granted the idea that "best" is a superlative term that applies to their city. We got a new attitude.

A mere three years ago, the city was in a miserable cycle of public self-loathing. Even folks who believed in the city's potential could barely find an audience for such beliefs because people were so skeptical that we could ever dig out from under our mountain of negativity and believe that we could be one of the best, progressive, forward-thinking cities in America. They didn't know how to respond to the goober naysayers. They thought they were in the minority and couldn't be heard. They were engaged in some serious "stankin' thankin" as a homeless friend in New York called his drug problem—after he got clean. Stankin' thankin' gets in the way of progress.

Magic is possible when people find and support each other's positive efforts, and start stuffing their fingers in their ears whenever the bitch-and-moaners come near. If there is anything that is way out of style, so 2001, just downright square—it's that back-ass Jackson-bashing or the prognostications that Jackson cannot become a cooler city with a vibrant downtown core until every stankin' crime disappears. Next time you hear someone say something like this, just roll your eyes at them. You are not talking to a cool, or particularly astute, person, so politely excuse yourself and go find someone worth spending your time with.

And there are so many of them out there. People are stepping up, reaching out, getting involved, sharing ideas, organizing benefits and helping make the city a better place. They believe. Whereas a couple years ago, some folks would meekly say, "I wish we could be like Austin (Texas)," they're now screaming from the top of the Standard Life building, (OK, I made that part up): "TO HELL WITH AUSTIN; WE ARE JACKSON, DAMNIT!"

Think about it. In the last two years, our music scene has grown and attracted national attention, we have built an impressive indie-film market, we have spoken out and demanded prosecutions in an old festering civil-rights murder case. We have seen staunch Republicans for the first time call for prosecutions in civil rights cases. We have witnessed a record voting—no, a record progressive voting turnout—with our young people under 30 leading the South in the number who bucked the conventional wisdom and supported the non-right-wing candidate for president.

But everything that matters is ultimately local. It's the efforts to build a thriving Creative Class city that excite me most. And y'all are on fire. Right now, at jacksonfreepress.com, you can join several passionate, lengthy discussions on our new Forums, started by readers who are trying to come up with ideas not only about how to get Jacksonians to redevelop crumbling neighborhoods, but on how we can guarantee that poorer people aren't "gentrified" out of their homes. There's a lengthy (and rather geeky, but I love them anyway) talk about how the city could better use technology to make itself more transparent, open and accessible to the public. (That's one of my new memes, by the way. Here we come.)

What you'll find on our blog, or at Jay Losset's bar, or in intimate tete-a-tetes around the city, are people talking, really talking, about what they can do to help the city be the best it can be. And these are Jacksonians of all ages and races.

Now, a whiny pessimist might tell you that Jackson is just fine like it is, they don't mind being behind other cities, thank you. They've been here forever, they can wait for the DVD, and it's just fine that way. The status quo rocks, Dude. Or they say the efforts won't work anyway; never have. But what an optimist realizes is that even though we may be a bit behind other cities, we can take advantage of that fact. We can learn from other cities' mistakes. That is, we can look out for cookie-cutter national chains like The Gap trying to horn in on our success and squelch our authenticity in the process. We can pay attention to what Starbuck's has done to other places, setting up outlets right next to local coffeehouses to run them out of business.

We can look at cities that have completely turned over neighborhoods to the point that their poor residents were priced out—and spend serious energy figuring out how to guarantee low- and middle-income housing downtown and in our neighborhoods on the verge. It would be shameful to allow the same people who ran like scared rabbits after integration came to dance back into the city (after other folks have done the hard work) and run poor people out without giving it a second thought. Think about it. Ain't gonna happen if we can help it. That's another JFP meme to get used to.

I have confidence that we will do this thing right. Yes, there are some snots out there, but there are also amazing numbers of truly compassionate, determined people working on behalf of the city's future—and they have resources. They, you, are the best that the city has to offer, and I'm sorry that we can't honor every single one of you by name in this Best of Jackson issue.

The biggest piece of advice I can give—besides calling out the naysayers as the un-hip losers they are—is to stay the course. Keep mixing it up; support any and every creative endeavor that you can. Don't let media beat up unfairly on the city; encourage them/us to do the tough stories, but not to feed sensationalism. I'm thrilled to see that this kind of media backlash has really happened over the last couple years; outlets that have historically bashed the city because it was "the thing to do" or helped ratings or newspaper sales (they thought) are not reaping the rewards of that strategy.

Keep us on track. Keep us focused. Remind your media that talking down the city talks down us all, the local business climate, our residents, the people who work so hard to make it a great place to live.

And the next time someone says to you, "Well, maybe some day Jackson will ______________" (fill in the blank), just remind them of one thing.

The future is now.

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