Richmond, Virginia, your PR team is clearly on crack. Or maybe they’re just drunk. I find it hard to believe, however, that alcohol alone is responsible for the myopic, spit-take worthy blunders I have endured over the last few years of living in this city. When Virginia, and Richmond in particular, makes headlines for our governing body’s repeated attempts to turn the state into a theocracy, we are not only clawing backwards against the tide of history, we are endangering the city itself.



Richmond, Virginia, your PR team is clearly on crack. Or maybe they’re just drunk. I find it hard to believe, however, that alcohol alone is responsible for the myopic, spit-take worthy blunders I have endured over the last few years of living in this city. When Virginia, and Richmond in particular, makes headlines for our governing body’s repeated attempts to turn the state into a theocracy, we are not only clawing backwards against the tide of history, we are endangering the city itself.



The recession hit Richmond hard. With government spending slashed, thousands of jobs were lost; big businesses collapsed or fled, and unemployment and government assistance skyrocketed. It wasn’t all hopeless, though; Virginia Commonwealth University, both the medical and Monroe Park campuses, hold a large part of the city’s economy afloat, attracting students through VCU’s impressive reputation for medicine and the arts. Students are a wonderful, renewable source of disposable income, and their presence supports businesses and the college, which in turn provides jobs.

The thousands of students who graduate from VCU every year represent a glut of educated, intelligent young people who want nothing more than to make good use of the degrees they have earned. However, the chances for those students to do anything productive in Richmond is a rare one. The job openings simply aren’t there for many graduates, and the openings that exist are so crowded with applicants that your average chances are slim at best. Faced with this reality, many students elect to leave, bound towards larger, more welcoming cities.

What’s more, businesses simply aren’t moving here. Neither large corporations nor smaller businesses are cropping up. People don’t want to move here, and those that are here don’t seem to be staying. Why?

Richmond has plastered the downtown area with signs and banners announcing the fact that it is the new “arts district.” First Fridays are touted as being big business for local artists and restaurants; theoretically, Richmond would love nothing more than to be a thriving arts city, attracting business and talent through a reputation as a community both diverse and talented. It’s a great goal; smaller Southern cities have had success staying afloat by playing to their strengths, and art is one of Richmond’s biggest. However, people certainly have the option of pursuing their artistic careers elsewhere–and many are taking it.

While social conservatives, such as those currently dominating our General Assembly, might not think they need to keep us artsy-fartsy liberals around, the fact is that artsy-fartsy liberals fuel the nonprofits, gallery spaces, and art studios that they’re trying so hard to market. Ideally, we would be encouraging artists to stay here and open businesses for a large audience of local residents, students, and tourists. We should be able to boost tourism through well-marketed arts events, from music to gallery showings to festivals, by welcoming any and all to our city’s doorstep.

The problem is that social conservatism, from “fetal personhood” legislation to the absolute refusal to grant even a modicum of rights to the gay and lesbian community, sends the message that these people are unwanted, unnecessary, and would do better to try and make their mark somewhere else. Someplace like New York City, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, or any of the northern cities whose economies are doing better, whose policies are less blindly theocratic, and to whom some of our best and brightest can flee. Even as we mourn our inability to get ahead, we drive our city’s sons and daughters away.

Richmond police have been cracking down on local shows and events, to an extent that borders on the creepy. They’re on your Facebook; they’re keeping track of venues, and they’re keeping extra-close tabs on the people responsible for organizing them. Recently, when Bitch City, an event promotion group I work with, tried to host an event legally, with all the proper alcohol permits in place, the VABC forwarded a friend’s number to Richmond City Police, who subsequently called and threatened to arrest us all if we followed through.

If they’re concerned over the legality of smaller, homegrown events, and ensuring that underage drinking and possible drug use, or even just sound violations, are kept to a minimum, why aren’t Richmond police reaching out? Rather than funnel all their energy towards preventing events entirely, why not open up the lines of communication and help these budding organizers create events that are within the lines of the law? Would it mean we’d have to drink less, play earlier, and card at the door? Probably. Local bands, though, have shown time and again that what’s most important to them is the simple act of making music. Using the long arm of the law to simply squash local events isn’t the right answer, and it isn’t helping anyone.

Worse, Richmond, and the state of Virginia at large, can’t seem to stop making headlines–for all the wrong reasons. The city is actively attempting to re-brand itself. Venture Richmond bends over backwards to try and make us seem like a fun, hip place to live and work and move, from those now-ubiquitous RVA stickers to their considerable efforts to increase tourism. Tourism is big business. We aren’t making headlines for our tourism literature, though. We’re being mentioned on national news programs, websites, blogs and by word-of-mouth, all over the country, for our exceedingly backwards stance on gay marriage and reproductive rights.

The “Virginia is for Lovers” slogan became glaringly inappropriate the moment we started dictating which kind of love is the right kind, and being the punchline to a nation-wide joke isn’t doing us any favors. We’re on the verge of making history by refusing the rights of women, just as we once made history by refusing the rights of minorities. Over and over again, Virginia is putting itself on the losing side of history.

When Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli took some time out of his busy schedule to pen a letter to state colleges suggesting that they deny their students protection against discrimination based on sexuality, we made headlines. The Washington Post ran a story on the rage that Cuccinelli provoked among the students of those colleges, and VCU firmly declined to follow his little “prompt.” Still, it was national attention, and cast Virginia as a place that was actively pursuing policies that put LGBT students and faculty in danger, as well as endangering their jobs. LBGT couples are not only the victims of our state government’s tireless efforts to deny them the rights of marriage, they are being denied rights of hospital visitation, adoption, and being sent the message that they are less than people. I am thankful every day that my friends haven’t fled the state en masse in response; I honestly couldn’t blame them if they did. Cuccinelli might have retracted his letter, but it was without apology, or any concessions to the rights and feelings of those he continues to marginalize.

As media attention increases for the controversial “personhood” bill, and another bill requiring an invasive vaginal ultrasound before a woman is allowed an abortion, Virginia is again making national headlines–hell, we’re even a punchline on Saturday Night Live. Meanwhile, our economy is struggling, unemployment is high, and Richmond ranks at the bottom of the list of cities that are bouncing back from the recession. We desperately need businesses to move in, for arts and culture to make a mark, to bring in tourists.

The General Assembly must understand that we are a city in trouble. They just don’t seem to care that the people they’re so intent upon marginalizing also do things like own businesses, have graduate degrees, possess disposable income, and have families. Businesses, families, and artists who could be helping our beautiful city dig itself out of this pit have no incentive to do so.

But, hey. Maybe I’m wrong about this whole thing. If they achieve what they seem to be after–a state composed entirely of straight Republican couples, who have sex with the lights off and only for the purpose of baby-making, where women are cheerfully pregnant from their wedding night onwards, staring adoringly at their husbands while they do the dishes–I’m sure tourism would instantly increase.

They better not be surprised, though, if all those tourists are showing up just to point and laugh.