Gentrification and Black Flight

My good friend Megan just posted the great blog comment ever as a response to the Post article on the stadium and gay-entertainment and I wanted to respond, but since both her comment and my response are on the longer sides and spawned a whole new topic (gentrification and Black Flight); I thought I'd create a new post...check it...

Mamagotjuice said...
I've known about that strip ever since I once followed up on an ad in the citypaper looking for a host for karaoke night at one of those spots (no, i didn't end up working there). But I'm torn about the whole city full of gays thing. Yes, they are upwardly mobile, but at what cost? I always say you know when a neighborhood is about to be gentrified when on any given day, you see a pair of "gay pioneers" (because they're always the first of the fearless) out walking their mini-poodle...Anthony Williams isn't cleaning this city up for families, he's making space for two-person households that can afford to plunk down a million dollars to live in a house in which you can hear your next-door neighbors having because you share a wall with them! and the ones that can shimmy up that ladder the fastest are white, male gay couples -- two incomes at the highest bracket, no kids, lifestyle that supports local business, etc. a friend of mine recently told me about how frustrated she was when her hairdresser (gay male) who lives in a luxury apartment in the ellington kept going on and on about how loud the black people are who stand outside on friday and saturday nights, and how he's going to have to do something about it. i mean really, you're going to move into a building named after duke ellington on historic (black broadway) u street and then wonder where all the black people come from? the psychology of ownership is a bitch. the city has already started forcibly moving people out -- just so far it's been poor black people in the projects, who, save the occasional progressive reporter who documents their story, don't have anyone protesting for them, and are too old, too young, cracked out, or busy working three jobs just to stay in the projects (nevermind the kids they aren't around to take care of) to do anything about it. nowhere in the city is that going to become more common than the southern sectors of the city, including this gay entertainment enclave, because of how attractive that waterfront property, be it the potomac or the anacostia, is. sorry for the rant...i'm sympathetic to their plight, but i wouldn't be surprised if their community action committe, funded by all those years of gay porn, somehow comes out on top, and leaves the area's (black) residents, once again, getting fucked in the ass..

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My response:

Megs,
I feel you on the gentrification. It's always a shame and you should've slapped your hairdresser for coming out his mouth sounding stupid...who moves to U Street for quietude? That was just his prejudice rearing its grotesque head.

But another thing...whereas gentrification is unfortunate, I can't bring myself to find 100% fault with it. I would be maniacally mad if I was displaced from my hme because of real eastate hikes, or -- even worse -- I was G'd out of my home by the city...but one thing is clear: the city's tax revenue increases and traveling down 14th street and U street is a great thing now, its revitalized. Its our job to get in on that action na mean? Yes that's simplifying things, but dig...Largo is predominantly young black professionals. Why do those coons have to live way out there? It's definitely not inexpensive.

Can I coin a term here? Let's call it "Black Flight" -- when black people get money and flee the city. it's conditioning and another sorry attempt at taking on white/American behavior. "White Flight", as we all know, was when middle class blacks moved into predominantly white neighborhoods and the whites said, "Uh-oh, there goes the neighborhood...can't be living here with these educated, law abiding citizens...i mean look at them, their skin in dark...gotta go." Hence, the suburbs were created. So now we do the same thing: get some money and get the heck outta dodge. But that's the problemo. We should get some money, stay put, and put it back in the community. Why should we sit by idly as DC experiences this new revitalization and let a new and improved Chocolate City become just like every other city. We have the richest black population in the country here in the DC metro area, but our money is tied up in lame, square bourgoisie black suburbs like Bowie, Mitchellville and, now, Largo.

My plea to DC's black professionals: Come back to the city people.