Things to Do This Weekend: Diversity in Atlanta

When I was a senior in high school, surveying the country in terms of finding the state that would house me for the following four years, I remember looking at Emory University. Beautiful campus, fantastic housing options, a faculty that included Elie Weisel and Salman Rushdie... though the glossy pages of the brochure appealed to me, I scoffed and pushed it away. "Why would I want to live in Atlanta?" Far from the beach or coast, this legendary capital of the South did everything but call my name. I listed every generalization possible to excuse my going down there, but the leading factor was that I did not believe it would be diverse enough--racially, ideologically, culturally--to make me feel comfortable.

I am now five months into my Southern living, and my position on diversity in Atlanta has shifted. In fact, it is usually the first thing I exclaim about to out-of-state friends and family, "It's nothing like what I expected." Martha Farnsworth Riche, former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, said, "Atlanta is incredibly positioned to embrace diversity as a positive force, perhaps the leading city in the country in this regard. Anybody in the world can come to Atlanta and be at home." And to some extent I am finding this very true.

Take this past weekend for instance. In celebration of Labor Day, the city hosted the following events:

• College football kickoff, featuring the University of Georgia Athens Bulldogs vs. Boise State
• Dragon*Con, the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film
• 15th Annual Black Gay Pride Conference
• The Decatur Book Festival

Walking through downtown I shared the sidewalks with Storm Troopers, go-go dancers, Sorority sisters sporting "Theta's love the Dawg's," and countless people in "I [heart] NERDS" t-shirts. We made it to events for all but one of the main weekend attractions--attending a (free) OAR concert at Centennial Olympic Park to support the Bulldogs, mingling with Darkwing Duck and the numerous incarnations of True Blood's Sookie Stackhouse at the Hyatt in downtown, eyeing in awe the line for Wiliam Shatner's panel that snaked around four city blocks, and spending a lazy Sunday morning wandering around downtown Decatur picking up freebies and talking shop with local authors.

I was wrong in the sense that diverse options do exist. But what I have noticed is that between the options, the diversity slows. How wide a berth did the football fans give the pride go-ers? How were Michael and I the darkest ones (barring the over-tanned sorority girls) at that OAR concert for the Bulldogs? The "if you build it, they will come" theory holds true, but instead of building one giant place for everyone, it seems like dozens of little option houses have sprung up. And what we need to do now is get people to mingle.