The Atlanta Objective: The Mesha Mainor Interview

State Rep. Mesha Mainor was the only Democrat to vote for a bill to ban "defunding" police departments in Georgia. Observe a lesson in gentrification, gerrymandering and how the personal is political.

As I began taping an interview with State Rep. Mesha Mainor on a bench outside of Mozley Park in south Atlanta, we worried about traffic noise. An ambulance whipped by us on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and we laughed as the gods mocked us. “Crime,” she said. “They might be going to help a victim.”

We were there to talk about crime, and about her v…