Welcome to my newsletter by me, King Williams. A documentary filmmaker, journalist, podcast host, and author based in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a newsletter covering the hidden connections of Atlanta and everything else.
Holiday Events:
Snow Days at The Children’s Museum of Atlanta
Stone Mountain Christmas is open now until January 2nd.
Margaritaville at Lake Lanier will host License to Chill: Snow Island until February 25th.
Six Flags Holiday in the Park starts Saturday, November 18th, and lasts until January 3rd.
Winter Wonderlights at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens.
1. Banning the ‘shiesty’
Atlanta rookie city Councilman Antonio Lewis introduced a bill banning ski masks. The current form of the bill would have a stipulation that this will not apply to healthcare workers or the hijab worn by Muslim women. The bill still has not been voted on but is already eliciting a variety of responses. However, due to a myriad of factors, the bill could be a solution in search of a problem.
The ‘Shiesty Mask’
The ‘Shiesty mask,’ as it’s now called, a moniker given by its association with the fashion choices of Memphis rapper Pooh Shiesty, is nothing new. Pooh Shiesty is a rapper on the record label 1017, a subsidiary label founded by Atlanta rap veteran Gucci Mane. Pooh Shiesty's career has been paused after an incident in 2020 and 2021, resulting in a 5-year prison sentence that he began serving late last year.
The ‘Shiesty mask,’ alongside the perception of ‘black airforces,’ related to the AAVE associations of the popular Nike shoe, the Air Force 1, has been recently adopted again as a crime-adjacent fashion. This trend has been a part of hip-hop since the arrival of West Coast crime rap in the late 1980s. The styling, colors, teams, and associations of some articles of clothing are connected to the rappers, hoods, and/or lifestyles they are associated with.
Banning ski masks taking shape across the US
Ski mask robberies have been used for decades, but only recently have they come back into fashion and concern. The masks have exploded in popularity again, giving would-be criminals a much easier ability to conduct actions.
Some leaders see this as a public safety issue versus a fashion issue. In Philadelphia, a city experiencing an uptick in violent crime, the city has already moved to ban ski masks. And they may not be alone.
Flash robs, the other fear factor
The mask has been gaining prominence again with the series of flash-robs, quickly occurring mass robberies. The phrase is an interpolation of the term flash mob, where groups of people quickly assemble at a location to perform, typically dancing and captured online.
In these instances, flash robs are typically coordinated, sometimes at the behest of organized crime, local gangs, and others just for individual desires.
The instances of flash robberies have grown since the start of the pandemic, at the same time as many police departments across the US simply stopped policing as a counter-protest strategy due to the then-ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. While media coverage has been proliferating on cable and broadcast news.
Crime porn and the impact on perceptions
Aided by fear-based local and national news stories in combination with the proliferation of online accounts deliberately disseminating violent propaganda and crime porn.
For more on crime porn accounts and its impact on Atlanta, read my June 2021 newsletter entitled Atlanta Is Losing The Narrative
What is crime in Atlanta like now?
Despite the overindulgence of crime porn accounts, online accounts, and local news, overall crime this year by only 2%. Overall crime in Atlanta went down consistently from 2020-22. And robberies, the activity most associated with the Sheisty mask, are down 18% year-to-date.
Atlanta’s overall crime rate is lower than it was 5, 10, and 20 years ago. Despite this, proliferation of fear-based content continues.
The conservative backlash to crime is now a Democratic one, also
But it should be noted that despite the constant social media and local television/print news covering violent crime, it’s down nationally. Since the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent police and conservative backlash, police across the nation simply stopped policing, stopped enforcement, and/or left forces entirely.
But it’s not just in Atlanta; Democrats across the US are slowly retreating from criminal justice and alternative policing methods. Reflecting national trends that see the party slowly moving away from many of the last decades’ policing reform efforts and criminal justice and moving closer to a law order-based governance.
For more on the start of the national trend of Democrats separating from policing reform and criminal justice efforts, read my July 2021 newsletter entitled A shift from 'the left' for Democrats on policing
The problem with a mask ban
The state of Georgia already has a ban on mask dating for a few years. But rarely, if ever, enforced. The potential new mask ban faces a few hurdles, first the US Constitution and second, practicality in enforcement.
The constitution
A potential mask ban and the enforcement measures needed could face constitutional scrutiny under the 4th amendment.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Enforcement
The issue comes in enforcement: how would this work, and considering most robberies are done away from security and law enforcement, would this band even be the best use of political capital and policing resources?
The current decision being weighed by the city council may not be solving anything. Rather than passing laws restricting firearms in public spaces and providing more access to check-downs of would-be shooters and policing endeavors related to preventing crime, policing the shiesty could be an issue of allocating policing efforts in the wrong direction.
This could also be circumvented by the city simply urging private businesses to ban non-medical masks and hijabs from entry. Or by changing state laws.
This is aided by a proliferation of new gun laws, providing the availability of more guns and less enforcement of gun safety measures in states like Georgia, but also taking place across the US—another factor in the uptick in violent crime in some cities.
Proliferation and parody of the shiesty mask online
In 2023, this has led to a series of memes, videos, photo shoots, album covers, and social media content related to the proliferation of the shiesty mask. Anyone could enter the term in Amazon to get the exact mask. The mask now comes in hundreds of style combinations and is routinely part of fashion collections. Not to mention the official online store of Pooh Shiesy.
Parodying the sheisty mask with its partner, black Air Force 1’s
The shiesty mask and the infamy associated with its partner in crime, the black Nike Air Force 1. The biggest being parody videos, tweets, and memes. The biggest videos on the correlation belong to Atlanta-based comedian and social media influencer Desi Banks.
Banks’s recurring ‘black airforce/white airforce’ skits routinely get millions of views on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Banks is often seen in the videos wearing the shiesty mask alongside a pair of black Nike Air Force 1’s parodying a long-standing colloquial belief in hip hop and some black Gen X/Millennial cultural circles dating back to the 1990s.
Banks’s juxtaposition of a comedic criminal/angry person versus a person wearing a pair of white Nike Air Force 1’s parodying upstanding/joyous citizens. There are multiple versions of the black/white AF1 parody, including a wedding, picking up a child, attending Thanksgiving, and going to Waffle House, to name a few.
Banks isn’t alone as there are thousands of parody’s on the idea online. Many of these are paired with the shiesty mask. The kids were always in the joke.
2. Tuesday’s municipal runoffs
Tuesday’s results for several runoffs across the metro yielded a few surprises. The runoffs produced even less in an overall election season with a meager turnout. Only 3.8% of all registered voters in Atlanta voted in the runoff—and less than 15% turnout for the November races.
Tuesday also saw South Fulton, East Point, Morrow, Peachtree City, Roswell, and Snellville complete their council elections. At the same time, Brookhaven will see two-time city council member John Park become the next mayor. Park is now the first Asian American mayor in Georgia's history. In Villa Rica, incumbent mayor Gil McDougal lost to Leslie McPherson.
Tamara Jones vs Alfred ‘Shivy’ Brooks, the race of the 23’ season
But the biggest race of the day and the 2023 season was an Atlanta Public Schools (APS) at-large board seat. That race saw the incumbent Tamara Jones losing to challenger Alfred ‘Shivy’ Brooks. Brooks managed to retain nearly 75% of his November voters for this runoff, resulting in a comfortable win.
In November, of the 4 (out-of-5) APS seats up for election in the last month, incumbents won 3-out-of-4 races. Jones vs Brooks was the only runoff.
But the race between Jones and Brooks was the notable exception in an election year defined by an abysmal overall turnout. Both candidates saw themselves receiving over 12,000 initial votes, and separation between them was at a difference of less than 300 votes. Brooks managed to retain nearly 75% of his November voters for this runoff, resulting in a comfortable win.
Alfred ‘Shivy’ Brooks
Brooks is a current school teacher who has become prominent for his online activism in the past two years. This has included a growing support base for his banned books and t-shirts in protest of recent book bans and his being vocal on the increasing politicization of public education.
Brooks’s life took an unexpected turn earlier this year as he had to deal with the accidental death of his son, Bryce, in a spring break accident. Since then, Brooks has decided to run for office again, this time for the Atlanta Public School Board. Brooks failed to unseat incumbent Michael Julian Bond in 2021 from the Atlanta City Council.
Brooks’s notoriety and overall favorability have been a strategy during this campaign season. His social media presence increased campaign awareness and included an appearance on the nationally syndicated talk show, The Jennifer Hudson Show.
3. Twitter almost got a $10m tax break from Fulton County
The Fulton County Development Authority (now named Develop Fulton) decided not to give Twitter (now named X) a 10 million dollar tax break. The 4-4 vote was not enough to not move forward with the idea after an outcry began on social media.
Twitter/X believes the $10 million tax break would be used to keep around a dozen jobs and a large data storage operation in Atlanta, its southeast hub. Develop Fulton stated that the tax breaks given to Twitter/X would yield $16 million in new taxes over a decade despite the abatement. Develop Fulton has come under scrutiny over the last few years over its use of tax breaks for economic development. This includes a 2021 AJC investigation alleging that the organization issued some $328 million in tax breaks over a 3-year period.
Twitter/X is in a series of financial problems.
It should also be noted that Twitter/X is currently involved in several lawsuits over lack of payment. This ranges from former employees, property management firms, and vendors. In May, Twitter/X was evicted from its Ponce City Market offices after over a million dollars in non-payment of rent.
This is not the first time a data center has been rejected this year for tax purposes, as QTS, another technology company, requested $45 million. After vocal opposition, the company declined to pursue the incentive.
4. Young Thug’s RICO case has started
The RICO trial of Jeffery Williams, bka Young Thug, and his former record label/crew YSL began this week. The trial is notable for the prominence of Young Thug, its ongoing shenanigans, and the rising national prominence of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. As well as Willis’s scope of using the state’s organized crime racketeering bka RICO laws against YSL and Thug.
Young Thug’s attorneys must prove that his lyrics, persona, and social media posts do not implicate him in the crimes he’s being accused of. Williams has been in jail for 570 days and is facing decades in prison. Young Thug’s racketeering conspiracy charge, plus the two gang charges, each carry a penalty of 5 to 20 years in prison.
For greater context, check out the podcast, King Slime, a miniseries with veteran Atlanta music journalist Christina Lee and crime reporter George Chidi. It’s available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other outlets.
Other red clay news:
The attorneys for the family of a local Atlanta pastor who APD murdered have been released.
A judge rejected the effort to dismiss the case in the DA charged in the Ahmaud Arbery case.
The Atlanta Botanical Garden is planning a 9-acre expansion.
Georgia Power is considering another rate hike.
The Georgia State Senate passed a resolution in support of Cop City.
Braves executive and scout Paul Synder has died.
2 people who pled guilty to burning the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was murdered get probation.
-I’m back to close the year strong! Expect something every day this month!
-KJW