The Lavender Line, for all those Gays in Midtown!

The MARTA color scandal has now hit the national news!  And by national news, I mean the Gawker.  Read all about it here:

Who wants kung pao?

Some of the commenters, though, had some brilliant suggestions.  To roll with those, I am suggesting that the streetcar (assuming we get the funds, we'll find out next week!) be named the Lavender line (through midtown, gurl!).

There were also some fab reworks to MARTA's acronym:

Moving Asians Right Through Atlanta

Metro Atlanta Rapidly Transporting Asians

I vote for: Moving Asians Rapidly Through Atlanta.  But in all reality, I think it's kinda silly.  Yes, someone at MARTA should have paid attention (I love y'all, but really, you managed to not name the south or Bankhead lines Black, and that's a primary color, too) but this seems trival, doesn't it?  Has anyone noticed if Asians boycott the Yellow wood varnish or what have you?  And I never would have thought that the Yellow line was for Asians, heck, I didn't even know they lived up in Doraville, I thought they were all on Buford Highway and up in Gwinnett.  But there's something to be said for perputating stereotypes.  If they hadn't have fussed, who would have noticed? (or am I the only oblivious one?)

The Yellow Line

This morning a few of the staff and I sat around having our coffee at the shelter.  I'd like to preface this with saying that, if  you don't know me, I am a shelter manager at an international women's refugee shelter.  We offer asylum to woman and their children for any reason, be it domestic violence or sex trafficking.  We are a diverse staff, from a variety of backgrounds.  I'm there as the person who speaks Mandarin, as I studied in China when in college and picked up a minor in it.

With that being said, our director inquired for the 297th time about when the darned construction for the MARTA rapid bus line will be completed outside of the shelter.  It is the bane of our existence.  They often block the road, have torn up the road, and break the gas lines on a regular basis.  They have, however, finally paved the parking lot.  No actual shelter, yet.  One, work on that for us, please.

Anyways, that conversation lead to what Anna had seen in the news, that the Asian community is up in arms regarding the renaming of the Doraville line to the Yellow line.  Last October MARTA switched to a color based naming system rather than the directions, i.e. North became Red, East/West is Blue, and the Bankhead/ Candler Park pocket is Green.  Apparently, there's a rather large community of Asian-Americans who live along the new Yellow line and they object to the renaming of their line as because "yellow" is often used to refer to skin color with negative connotations.

Anna asked what the other colors were, and somehow this lead to our group deciding that we should rename all of the lines to be mutually offensive.  Therefore, we'd like to propose to MARTA that the North Springs line be white, the Bankhead line can be black, and the line out to our side of town, Indian Creek, can be red.  Then everyone can be offended properly and not one group feels singled out.  I think we're genisus.  Lillian, our Assistant Director, thinks we should have our own tv show in the morning.  People need to know how awesome we are.