A large, cryptic banner hanging on the exterior of OK Cafe, at 1284 West Paces Ferry Rd NW, is turning a lot of heads.
“Lives That Matter Are Made With Positive Purpose,” the banner states.
The banner was put on display at the restaurant as Black Lives Matter (BLM) organizers are leading protests worldwide to shed light on police brutality and systemic racism.
BLM’s latest re-energization was spurred by the in-police-custody-death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Monday, May 25.
BLM was founded in 2013 after George Michael Zimmerman was acquitted of charges related to fatally shooting Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.
Many Atlantans are interpreting OK Cafe’s banner to mean “All Lives Matter,” a slogan that has come to be associated with criticism of BLM, implying that all lives are equally at risk when in fact they are not.
“It is common knowledge that White Lives Matter, you live that life every day,” Gifford Chris Jones posted on Facebook Sunday in response to the banner.
“Black Lives Matter is a reminder to those that either don’t know or don’t care that, OUR LIVES matter just as much. So stop feeling butthurt over a campaign to remind the world of what it has apparently forgotten.”
Luther Maloney was among the commenters, asking, “what in the name of all that’s holy is that ‘slogan’ supposed to mean?”
Others pledged to never patronize the restaurant again like Nicole Peete who said the “food is unseasoned anyway!”
“Yeah they’ve always had a racist history,” Claud Aguirre wrote.
“I’m pretty sure they still keep a confederate flag in the dining room of OK Cafe.”
OK Cafe late-Sunday disabled the ability to view “visitor” posts on its social media pages as negative comments and reviews grew. Only messages posted by the restaurant are now visible.
What Now Atlanta reached out to OK Cafe Sunday for the meaning behind the message but the 50s-style diner did not immediately respond.
Developing…
30 Responses
A bowl of drama, a slice of humble pie, and sweet tea please…
LoL, for real!!! She’s always been so contradictorily about what it “stood” for. She defends it but damn well knew what the confederate army was about. She brought the war right to her front door this time.
About time it came down.
I don’t want to give my money to a white supremacist though, so until the current owner sells, I don’t think I can go back there.
And giving the sales proceeds to the police department? That’s tone deaf at the very least.
The damage is done. She can retire or sell, I won’t be back till then.
Auction it off? Why not burn it. Some Nazi, red neck can buy it and hang in their home. BURN IT!!
Or throw it in trash. It’s white trash memorabilia
Sorry, but Ok Cafe has lost me for life already. Way too little, way to late..
OKKK Cafe
So… If you are threatened you give in? Is that how you propose to handle someone or a group that threatens you, your business or your property? Sorry snowflake. How much for the carving outright, right now! I’ll hang in where ever I please.
Get it, I think it would look great on your garage floor!
LOL at all those saying they will not go Doubt you go there anyway.
I wil go wherever good food is served. I don’t give a damn about the owners political leanings,
beliefs etc etc
But I dang well could bet my life that none of you soft complainers are doing one thing about the FACT of 16 to 40 year old black males #1 cause of death is getting shot and killed by ANOTHER BLACK MAN.
Go march in the hood to stop that. No you won’t do it because you are scared you will get shot.
Atlanta has so many hypocrites.
I’m glad she took it down, but I don’t think she took it down for any other reason than she saw her business failing because of it.
I also have no problem with her auctioning it off, and giving the money to the police department.
It’s her right to do so.
I’m thankful for the good cops out there– it’s an unappreciated community just like school teachers.
She is going to auction it off and give the proceeds to the police force? Not quite a total reversal. Still not ever going to eat there.
NONE OF US ARE RACIST? but yet you were displaying a symbol of hate for over a 3 decades What will you be posting now? A OK hand signal
Auctioning it off to the police??! WHAT THE ACTUAL F*CK. They might as well paint it on the front of the building b/c it’s clear where they stand. Disgusting.
I don’t think Ms. DeRose fully understands or even cares what “BLACK LIVES MATTER’ mean or what the confederate flag means.
I don’t think Ms. DeRose fully understands or even cares what “BLACK LIVES MATTER’ mean
I agree, but there’s absolutely nothing requiring her to do so.
Her mistake was slapping her personal feelings on the outside of her business. And she will most likely financially pay for that action.
I think she, like many other people, were horrified by the mass destruction and looting that we saw around the country on the news every night.
Burning a neighborhood Wendy’s to the ground does absolutely nothing for the cause.
Actually it’s just the opposite, a franchisee (possibly minority) lost something he/she worked very hard for.
There are probably about 20 employees (possibly minority) that no longer have a job, and there’s the possibility that other businesses won’t be eager to move into that area.
I’m not too keen on people calling everything racist. I think that word is overused, and
because of that, it becomes very diluted (like calling “wolf!”). I personally don’t know if Ms. DeRose is racist or not, therefor I’m not gonna judge her.
She apparently (photos) has a very diverse staff, if she was a hateful racist, those people wouldn’t still be there. That rendition of the old Georgia State flag has hung in there for years, it’s not like she hung it up last week. And it’s not a Confederate flag.
Anyway, there is absolutely no reason to threaten this woman or her business. If you don’t like her opinion, money talks. Don’t spend your money there. And just remember, if her business(es) close there will be a lot of people out of work (possibly your neighbors, relatives, or kids).
It gets white people to pay attention. The burning of that Target made George Floyd a household name.
Great way to make an impression and get people to rally around your cause.
Two black-owned businesses, and an Indian owned business in my neighborhood have been looted.
We’ve been screaming BLM for years and have been trying to get people to rally around our cause. You should’ve paid attention before people started looting stores.
And sucks that minority businesses were looted. But maybe you should try caring about minority lives as much as you supposedly care about our businesses.
You make a lot of assumptions about me.
Not surprising though…
I have only visited the OK Cafe on a couple of occasions. But I do know, through talking to the staff there, that the owners go out of their way to hire single mothers… and 50% of those mums are black. That proves to me that these owners are not racist, but are trying hard to help a well documented problem of broken family’s in Atlanta. Having read the article about the flag… let’s remember this is an Artwork. Art is meant to make people think. In the case of women’s rights it was a symbol of equally and hope, in the case of BLM it is a symbol of oppression. Both are valid. But that is what good artwork does. It encourages healthy debate. If we are to remove all art that offends, this world would be a very dull place. I also feel that consistent pressure to remove art / statues only serves to white wash history.
A flag (even a stylized one) is a design product. This wasn’t some high art piece that was created to make people reflect on the meanings of the flag. Design is when you apply art for practical purposes – like conveying a political message.
Also, hiring black people or having black friends doesn’t say anything about whether you’re racist or not. I can think of some historical examples of people that “employed” a lot of black people that weren’t exactly beacons of progressive views on race…
Wow, America really is doomed. That is the most uncivilised and uncultured reply! You portray yourself as an art critic, psychologist and race expert… maybe I should expect nothing more from a race that is barely out of nursery on a global timeline of civilisations.
It’s sad that women who gained equality under that flag so readily forget the sacrifices made for that cause and now take that freedom and equality for granted – like nothing ever happened. Americans have a very short history, my advice would be to learn it and contemplate the key events rather than jumping on a cause which is rightly designed to fight Institutional Racism and diluting into a row about a local Cafe!!! All of this nonsense is not gaining the BLM movement any ground. In fact it just serves as a distraction from the real goals it seeks.
You sure do sound like Susan DeRose harping about how “women gained equality under that flag.” Which is not actually true and you both might want to revisit history yourselves. Women never gained equality in the U.S. under *any* flag, because the Equal Rights Amendment was not ratified by enough states (and ratification votes were defeated in both houses of the Georgia legislature.) What the *U.S. Congress* passed into law in 1964 were protections against discrimination in employment on the basis of sex through Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. All but 1 GA congressman voted against the bill. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/h182 The protections against discrimination on the basis of sex were extended to education in 1972 in Title IX. But the Civil Rights Act did not enact “equality” for women (it notably did not include sex among the prohibited bases for discrimination in housing, voting, or public accomodations), and more importantly the Georgia flag had nothing to do with it since it is a federal law. This is why pointing to the former state flag as a symbol of when women in Georgia gained equality makes no sense. Of course, the fact that to many the old GA flag’s incorporation of the confederate flag makes it a symbol of slavery, segregation and racism that is deeply hurtful should be enough on its own to take it down, regardless of how one woman may feel about that flag being in place when she was privileged enough to get some additional protections under FEDERAL law.
Uh what.
Take it from an ex employee of over 3 year…she’s racist!! There’s many untold stories the media doesn’t know about but all the employees know
Reluctantly removing the flag, blaming unspecified threats. Pretty solid way to slightly annoy all parties involved. No lesson was learned here.
Still won’t go eat there…
I didn’t realize the flag was there until a couple years ago. I wrote a letter to express my concerns as an African American, but to no avail. I can’t understand why the owner couldn’t understand why this was offensive to intelligent thinking people.