Pack Your Bags for Vegas!

Hey, Chattanooga! Are you excited? Yes, Volkswagen just may come to Chattanooga! Now, before you start patting yourself on the back or beating Tibetan monks like China celebrating the summer Olympics, here’s why you’re on such a winning streak that you need to pack and go to Vegas…immediately.

If Volkswagen comes to Chattanooga, it likely has more to do with some back-room hand job than a serious change in the community. Sure, Chattanooga has made great strides in the past few years and is barely recognizable as the repressed, oppressive center it once was. Even I recognize this, and I only moved here four and a half years ago. Saying we’ve left the dark ages would be like putting a “Mission Accomplished” sign up four weeks into the occupation of Iraq. But I digress…

Chattanooga has one overriding thing going for it: those coming to the city are passionate about turning the diaspora peoples into a united community. To this end they are gentrifying decayed and forgotten neighborhoods, reclaiming ignored schools, and bringing people together in celebrations of diversity and culture.

Well, tally-ho, you say: of course Volkswagen would want to be a part of that community!

True, but consider what we are coming from. We had an entrenched business that openly and actively discriminated against members of the community.

Yes, Sports Barn, I mean you.

While I can’t speak to their new owners, their former owners, a who’s-who of Chattanooga old money, forbade family memberships for homosexual couples or unmarried heterosexual couples. Well, the general manager claimed in correspondence to prevent unmarried heterosexual couples from obtaining these memberships, but I am aware of several unmarried, cohabitating heterosexual couples who had just such a membership. So, in essence, it was a de facto line of defense against open homosexual members in cohabitating relationships.

Please note that I am only speaking to the discrimination of open homosexuals. The closeted married types appear well catered to.

Now, with the introduction of a competing organization, Rush Fitness, things have changed. Rush wants you to work out; they aren’t interested in the particulars of your faith, your church-state sanctioned union, or your connection to a power family on the Hill. So, mark one up for a changed Chattanooga. Good start!

But what about the schools? Old money still dictates how the community as a whole fairs. Power, in the South, is concentrated in well-established hands. How can a community grow and thrive if the people living within it are more content to express “me only” views, ignoring all of the people around them? Well, think of it this way, Old Chattanooga: for every poor or minority child you damn to a life of inequality through a substandard education, there is one less qualified worker for any industry. So, your real estate investments, your business investments, your trust fund…they’re all likely to suffer if we can’t help raise the standard of education and general quality of life for all of Chattanooga’s residents. “Me only” is the surest way to ensure a demise for you and the rest of us.

And speaking of equality, minorities—including blacks and gays—add to the experience for an entire community. If everyone in the community is not equal, then the community is not equal to another; it’s that other community that is likely to get the Volkswagens and Toyotas. So, when inspectors, safety officials, or other government employees aggressively pursue and seek code violations in gay and minority run businesses (as they do), they are hurting everyone, not just those business owners and patrons who are immediately affected.

This authoritarian drive to maintain the status quo even can be seen in established events. Riverbend 2008 had to deal with some underage alcohol buyer fooling some poor volunteer into selling them beer, while Meth ran rampant through the crowd. Fine, Religious Right, you don’t like alcohol? Then offer alcohol and drug dependence counseling or host AA meetings. Start there. Don’t encourage public officials to use our tax dollars to take up an officer’s time with petty Beer Board infringements. I’d rather they be tackling the pressing issues that truly impact the community. (Let’s start with the Meth, gangs, and family violence.)

But it’s not all about the social aspects of life in Chattanooga; I know that. I’m not so naïve to believe that money doesn’t have an even larger impact than social issues in the decisions of a multi-billion dollar multinational. That is exactly why Chattanooga needs to consider it luck and not entitlement that lands Volkswagen here. If Volkswagen chooses Chattanooga, consider it a starting point from which to continue to improve, rather than an arrival.