I, colonist
I think, now that some dust is settling, one thing is clear: we all have a lot of slack to pick up. And I'm the slowest blogger alive, so I need to step up and get a little braver, a little more incisive, a little readier to ask hard questions, in order to help close the gap.
So here goes:
I am part of the problem of gentrification.
I live in an amazing neighborhood that I love. I moved here a few months ago to move in with my fiancée, and this was a place we could afford--we're neither of us rolling in excess money, as young dykes of color, me in blue-collar work, her in childcare--and it's beautiful, and the house was empty. But this is a historically black neighborhood, and there are no two ways about that. It is slowly being artsified, rents are going up, storefronts are fancier: it's now an "Arts District." Old barbershops and auto-repair places and corner mom-and-pop bodegas are getting pushed out by fashion boutiques, art galleries, and expensive restaurants every day. Houses are renovated as soon as they're vacated, and soon get filled with white folks and yuppies. Students and artists are moving in, and working-class black families are moving out, further toward the city's margins, further out from this influx of money and prestige. This neighborhood is known, too, for being home to a huge percentage of the city's queer women, but that demographic is shifting as well, toward more queer men, more young upper-class women moving in and replacing the blue-collar lesbians who used to rule the roost. More young couples like me and my best girl and our upstairs neighbors, fewer established families with kids who go to the public elementary school down the block.
I love it here, partially because of what it was and still mostly is--a decent family neighborhood with backyard gardens, cracked sidewalks, brick elementary schools and hole-in-the-wall taquerias, where I can walk down to the butcher's and they know me, where my partner and I can afford a home with a living room and flower beds. But I have to recognize that that's why a lot of other people moved here, too--and that by moving here, they--and I--are changing the place, house by house, block by block, into something else.
I had the privilege not to think about all that when I moved in. I just saw an affordable home near things I like, with a park close by and a grocery co-op and a backyard I get to play in--it's a little tiny house split in two, one couple upstairs, one couple downstairs. I saw a decent kitchen, and room for a couch for the first time in four years, and stability and security for me and my partner. I didn't have to think about what I represent to my holdout neighbors, what I represent to the black church across the street, what I'm a part of. I had the luxury of not thinking about myself in the context of greater currents of change--I just saw something that would be good for me.
And that matters. I get to have good things, of course. I'm under no obligation to flagellate for having taken the best chance I saw for a decent place to live that I love, and it could be argued that, being brown and queer and trans and likely to be restricted by my own oppressions in where I can live, I'm not so much part of the problem as part of the leading edge of the problem, and it's just that people like me are a foot in the door for others who come after. In the end, I'm not going to move out, after all, and even if I did, that wouldn't fix it or reverse what's happening to this neighborhood. And whatever protestations one might make toward my own marginalization, the fact remains: I'm brown, but I'm not the kind of brown this neighborhood has historically been home to. I do blue-collar work now, but I probably won't for life, and I have the privilege to expect that. I'm not supporting kids. I have an expensive education and I'm probably not settling here for good, which makes me part of that transient just-passing-through class of young people who are less likely to get to know their neighbors, to invest in the neighborhood's long-term future, to raise their kids here, to build lasting community.
My privilege here matters, and ignoring it is foolish and wrong. Whatever my intentions, and however powerless I may be to stop it, I am part of a wave of change that negatively affects working-class people of color.
So what can I do about it, now that I'm here? How can I divert the changing of the tide at least enough to offset my being here?
Well, for starters, it's not enough any more to "think globally, act locally." It's well and good to go there, and it's a start, but it matters that I support not just local business, but neighborhood business. That means buying my groceries at the mercado down the block and the co-op down the street, run by people who live and work here, with goods from close by, whenever possible, even if it means less variety or luxury, even if it means prioritizing supporting a working-class neighbor over getting organic produce that honors my other principles. It means getting to know my neighbors, and making an effort to build lasting community even if I'm not here to enjoy it ten years from now, helping reinforce this as a place where people know each other and help each other, not a place where some girl like me can just pass through without thinking of her impact on everyone else. It means lending a hand. It means indulging the old lady next door in conversation even when I'm on my way somewhere else, and recognizing that whatever she thinks of me, she is worth listening to. It means connecting to the outreach group for young women of color a few streets over, and asking them what I can do to help. It means sharing from my garden when it's harvest time.
It means making sure that I am not just using this place's resources and what so many people have worked so hard to carve out and build. It means giving back, and it means solidarity even when inconvenient, and it means being a part of a community, even when it's uncomfortable or it's extra work.
This neighborhood deserves at least that much, and much more. I'm not doing all of it, yet: there's my privilege again. The fact that I'm even discussing this reveals choices I have that not all my neighbors do. I could live elsewhere, probably. A lot of them can't, and most of their children won't be able to live here.
I wish there were a way to just stop it, but I imagine it's not for me to think up. It's for me to look up the people right here who're already working on the problem, and to come in humbly without expecting to ride to the rescue and ask, "What can I do to help your work?"
Here I am.
So here goes:
I am part of the problem of gentrification.
I live in an amazing neighborhood that I love. I moved here a few months ago to move in with my fiancée, and this was a place we could afford--we're neither of us rolling in excess money, as young dykes of color, me in blue-collar work, her in childcare--and it's beautiful, and the house was empty. But this is a historically black neighborhood, and there are no two ways about that. It is slowly being artsified, rents are going up, storefronts are fancier: it's now an "Arts District." Old barbershops and auto-repair places and corner mom-and-pop bodegas are getting pushed out by fashion boutiques, art galleries, and expensive restaurants every day. Houses are renovated as soon as they're vacated, and soon get filled with white folks and yuppies. Students and artists are moving in, and working-class black families are moving out, further toward the city's margins, further out from this influx of money and prestige. This neighborhood is known, too, for being home to a huge percentage of the city's queer women, but that demographic is shifting as well, toward more queer men, more young upper-class women moving in and replacing the blue-collar lesbians who used to rule the roost. More young couples like me and my best girl and our upstairs neighbors, fewer established families with kids who go to the public elementary school down the block.
I love it here, partially because of what it was and still mostly is--a decent family neighborhood with backyard gardens, cracked sidewalks, brick elementary schools and hole-in-the-wall taquerias, where I can walk down to the butcher's and they know me, where my partner and I can afford a home with a living room and flower beds. But I have to recognize that that's why a lot of other people moved here, too--and that by moving here, they--and I--are changing the place, house by house, block by block, into something else.
I had the privilege not to think about all that when I moved in. I just saw an affordable home near things I like, with a park close by and a grocery co-op and a backyard I get to play in--it's a little tiny house split in two, one couple upstairs, one couple downstairs. I saw a decent kitchen, and room for a couch for the first time in four years, and stability and security for me and my partner. I didn't have to think about what I represent to my holdout neighbors, what I represent to the black church across the street, what I'm a part of. I had the luxury of not thinking about myself in the context of greater currents of change--I just saw something that would be good for me.
And that matters. I get to have good things, of course. I'm under no obligation to flagellate for having taken the best chance I saw for a decent place to live that I love, and it could be argued that, being brown and queer and trans and likely to be restricted by my own oppressions in where I can live, I'm not so much part of the problem as part of the leading edge of the problem, and it's just that people like me are a foot in the door for others who come after. In the end, I'm not going to move out, after all, and even if I did, that wouldn't fix it or reverse what's happening to this neighborhood. And whatever protestations one might make toward my own marginalization, the fact remains: I'm brown, but I'm not the kind of brown this neighborhood has historically been home to. I do blue-collar work now, but I probably won't for life, and I have the privilege to expect that. I'm not supporting kids. I have an expensive education and I'm probably not settling here for good, which makes me part of that transient just-passing-through class of young people who are less likely to get to know their neighbors, to invest in the neighborhood's long-term future, to raise their kids here, to build lasting community.
My privilege here matters, and ignoring it is foolish and wrong. Whatever my intentions, and however powerless I may be to stop it, I am part of a wave of change that negatively affects working-class people of color.
So what can I do about it, now that I'm here? How can I divert the changing of the tide at least enough to offset my being here?
Well, for starters, it's not enough any more to "think globally, act locally." It's well and good to go there, and it's a start, but it matters that I support not just local business, but neighborhood business. That means buying my groceries at the mercado down the block and the co-op down the street, run by people who live and work here, with goods from close by, whenever possible, even if it means less variety or luxury, even if it means prioritizing supporting a working-class neighbor over getting organic produce that honors my other principles. It means getting to know my neighbors, and making an effort to build lasting community even if I'm not here to enjoy it ten years from now, helping reinforce this as a place where people know each other and help each other, not a place where some girl like me can just pass through without thinking of her impact on everyone else. It means lending a hand. It means indulging the old lady next door in conversation even when I'm on my way somewhere else, and recognizing that whatever she thinks of me, she is worth listening to. It means connecting to the outreach group for young women of color a few streets over, and asking them what I can do to help. It means sharing from my garden when it's harvest time.
It means making sure that I am not just using this place's resources and what so many people have worked so hard to carve out and build. It means giving back, and it means solidarity even when inconvenient, and it means being a part of a community, even when it's uncomfortable or it's extra work.
This neighborhood deserves at least that much, and much more. I'm not doing all of it, yet: there's my privilege again. The fact that I'm even discussing this reveals choices I have that not all my neighbors do. I could live elsewhere, probably. A lot of them can't, and most of their children won't be able to live here.
I wish there were a way to just stop it, but I imagine it's not for me to think up. It's for me to look up the people right here who're already working on the problem, and to come in humbly without expecting to ride to the rescue and ask, "What can I do to help your work?"
Here I am.
posted by little light | 6:34 PM
9 Comments:
Last summer, my husband and I were looking for an apartment and found a beautiful place in a Black neighborhood. We suspected that the property manager was trying to gentrify it, but I was still naive enough to think that when he said he wanted to rent to "the right kind of people," he meant, you know, polite and hardworking people. (Luckily, on that same search we found another great apartment somewhere else.)
Great post, with some elegant solutions. Good luck with your garden!
I would love to have a longer conversation with you about this, as I think I'll soon be buying property in a neighborhood close to yours, and I'm not even brown or working a blue collar job right now. I'll be part of a young, white couple, working an office job, and riding my bike. Granted, we are planning on staying in this community. This is where most of my friends live, and it's where they've put their 30-year-mortgages and where they plan to raise children. We're planning a cohousing community in this part of town. But I am concerned about gentrification, and I'm not certain what I can do to make things better at all. We've talked about, 3-5 years down the road, when the cohousing community is up and running, making some resources available to the community-at-large. (Tool library? Bike repair?)
Anyway, musing. I think about this. I don't want to be part of the problem, but my friends already live in this part of town, and this is where we can afford to buy a house and still live in the city. So what can I do?
We should chat.
the world needs more neighbors and community members like you. can you imagine what it'd be like if schools taught about taking care of community, friends talked discussed personal and systemic privilege, and people focused on giving v. taking? it'd be revolutionary.
same here. although gentrification in my neighborhood happens to be displacing as many poor white people [through, among other things, the rampant foreclosures] as poor people of color.
one interesting way it's playing out is that one of my white middle class neighbors has set up an espresso stand in a liquor store parking lot, somewhat in competition with a long-standing, community-beloved cafe run by people of color from the neighborhood [which was officially recognized by the mayor for its positive effect on the area].
so there's the POC-run, "third place" community-strengthening business, vs. the coffee-as-drug pandering business brought in by, um, "outsiders".
it's kind of interesting when you take notice of the sort of folks that hang out at one place vs. the sort that hang out at the other. i'll leave that to your imagination. [if you've bothered to guess which place has better coffee, i have a feeling you made the right guess.]
Awesome post.
You've won an Excellent Blog Award
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean...I blogged about the waterfall in my town and how the money-men came in for the massive land-grab. They were ruthless. It was one of the worst things I've witnessed.
One way to deal is to focus on one person who is losing his property, as some of us did. It's one way to personalize the situation and to help out... because you know, we are talking about real people being moved out of their lifelong homes, and in this case, the home he grew up in...
Great post!
-nods- thanks for this, I'll have to ruminate on it some more.
This is EXACTLY one of the steps I try to take. I try to buy bobby pins at the black hair braiding & wig store, get certain groceries at the corner grocery instead of the big grocery store or a cooperative grocery store, etc. I'm so not good enough at it, yet, but I'm trying, and knowing that other people are taking the same steps makes me feel like the actions I came up with (what I just said) might be good, helpful ones after all!
Now, I don't live in a "gentrifying" neighborhood--mine's been ritzy for decades--but I do try to pitch in to the activism of those "gentrifying" low-wealth neighborhoods near me that I try to shop at.
Ken and I have lived in East (a/k/a Spanish) Harlem for the past couple of years, and in that time we've watched the numbers of young white folks with iPods on the subway platform and of yellow cabs (most nonwhite neighborhoods in NYC are served primarily by local car services and gypsy cabs) swell. Products that have popped up on the shelves of our supermarket during this time include: Pom Wonderful juice, Ben & Jerry's, Häagen-Dasz sorbet, soy milk, cage-free eggs, Naked organic granolas, Pirate's Booty, pita chips, Kashi cereals, wasabi peas, candied ginger, Greek yogurt, taramasalata, and low-fat string cheese (I mean, there are still plantains and pig's feet and organ meats, don't get me wrong, but still).
In about a week, we're moving to Prospect Heights, where we'll be much less on the cusp of the gentrifying wave, which, frankly, is a bit of a relief for my conscience. On the flip side, though, our landlord (a developer) is jacking the rent up substantially when we move out—a friend saw an apartment in my building going for about 10% more than we're paying now—so it's not like our departure reduces the pressure of gentrification on the neighborhood.
Plus: hey, look! We used to live together! Now there are internets! Of course I don't mind being blogrolled, and I'm going to go and read lots of stuff here. And congratulations on the engagement!
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