You're asking me to cheer from home

“ We’re doing all we can on our end, but we need you guys to be better cheerleaders for this city”

Jesus, lord in heaven did they just say we need to be louder and flashy to attract business?! I scream to myself.

I guess I should’ve been a better “trick.” But momma always said, “don’t let no one put you in the trick bag.”

Recently I was in a meeting where a group of people actually moved their lips to say that we should be better cheerleaders for our city.

While this idea washed over me I felt a smoldering flame in the pit of my belly begin to grow. A fire that most won’t understand without some context, so please bear with me.

I moved to Columbia, SC from a small hamlet (okay town, but “hamlet” sounds better) in the low country. You see, in my tiny town, I was drowning in a shallow pool, surrounded by people that look at lightning in a bottle as fireflies, and tip their noses to dreams of cinematic grandeur. Like they invented the wheel, and dare you to try and implement it for you your own good. How dare you!! Le sigh (in my Pepé Le Pew voice) I guess I am a stinker, but that’s a story for another time. Anyway…

Now, a decade later I find myself in similar surroundings.

Although there are more people here like me than there were in my tiny hamlet, the power and control is still structured the same. While this place that I have come to call home is leaps and bounds ahead of where I was I am still troubled by the circumstances in which we exist here and not thrive.

There are several issues I would like to help address but the first is not in the arts community or even the concerns for small businesses. Many who know me know that those two things are at the top of my list.

No.

My concern is the lack of affordable housing for families in my Columbia. In a place where the politicians' tout that they want growth and development in the city, they’ve forgotten the most valuable resource of any company, corporate or small enterprise - the people.

You know, the workers that come in every day and turn the lights onto your business, the people you rely on to run the day-to-day operations, make your coffee, cook your food, and park your cars… wait I just broke the first rule of Fight Club.

If I was not a resident here, and I wanted to move here with my family, I could not afford to live anywhere in Columbia, anywhere safe and family friendly anyway.

FYI most of us can’t afford to live here as it is, with the commute in, overpriced rent just because you can, and no remedy for family living. This has an effect on where businesses locate, where developers come, how tax dollars and voting districts are decided. Isn’t it time that we speak truth to life about some of the root issues that plague our communities? What do you think?