I used to be a magnet for the crazy street people. No matter, where I was--pumping gas, getting out of my car, sitting on a bus, there was bound to be at least one crazy person nearby harassing me.
The most whack experience happened about a decade or so ago while I was riding on a bus sitting next to a wino. I was kicking back, minding my own business but he wanted to talk to me. You know how drunks are; they can never shut up.
Anyway, he has one of those bus passes on him--you know, the kind where you pay in advance for a discount. I think he had a two week pass, which he keeps flashing in my face. "Here baby, Ima give dis to you," he slurs.
I told him no thank you. It was late and I just wanted to be left alone. But the man wouldn't quit, he kept telling me to take it...so finally I did, just to shut him up.
When we get near his stop would you believe this man turns to me and yells at me to give him back his pass. Well I'm embarrassed now 'cause he made it look like I took it from him. "Give me back my pass!" he's yelling. I just ignored him. That's when he grabbed me by my collar.
The bus driver jumps up at this point to throw the man off. "She got ma pass," he yells to the bus driver. The driver turns to me and asked if I had anything that belonged to the man. Of course I said no.
The bus driver throws the wino off and we roll. I felt kinda bad but I rode free for the rest of the week.
The other homeless incident happened recently in Barcelona. I was walking down the street and this American guy is standing with a huge sign that read: Americans, Learn About Your Ignorance.
I was immediately intrigued. In America someone like this would have at least been trying to get paid. This guy wasn't even holding out a cup.
He looked kind of crazy but I needed a story to tell to the folks back home so I went up to him...like an idiot...and told him I wanted to learn about my ignorance. He turned to me and said, "Okay." So I said, "Lay it on me. I'm ready." He said, "Well be on your way then."
I didn't understand. I thought he was going to tell me about how we Americans were a bunch of imperialist, self-centered pigs, yadda...yadda. I told him I was expecting him to tell me how I was ignorant.
He told me that he couldn't tell me about my ignorance--that I had to go and learn it on my own. "That's what I had to do," he said. "What did you learn?" I asked. He gave somewhat of a wry chuckle and said, "That there's always more."
I couldn't help but wonder, as I continued on my way, what would possess a man to use his spare time to do some crap like that? Was this some sort of bizarre punishment that some judge had doled out to him? He wasn't asking for money, he just wanted me to know that I was ignorant.
Like I really needed him to tell me that.
My Journey Through Gentrification
I sometimes wonder what it is about gentrification that is often so incendiary. I think part of the problem is that it begins with the facade that gentrification is really about diversity. We all want diversity because there seems to be this notion that a neighborhood can be too black or too Latino. People don't typically talk about a neighborhood being too white but believe me, there is such a thing.
People of color appreciate true diversity. In fact, most in predominantly minority neighborhoods will proudly point to the new white couple down the street as a sign of progress.
But gentrification is a whole 'nother issue. It is really diversity in reverse and while one white couple moving to an ethnic community may be cute, six or seven will usually begin to make the longtime neighbors groan, “There goes the neighborhood.”
The gentrification of DC is no different from what is happening in urban neighborhoods across the country. It’s happening to New Orleans in the post Hurricane Katrina era and it’s even happening to Harlem one of the country’s most well known African American communities. That it’s happening to the nation’s capitol and what has been long referred to in black circles as “chocolate city” is not surprising and probably long overdue. After all, it is the nation’s capitol—only those of us who've lived here long enough know that just a few years ago it was nothing but a sleepy little government town that shut down at five o’clock.
Let’s face it, most people don’t mind the upside of gentrification. The quality supermarkets that spring up in your neighborhood, the cute little sidewalk cafes, the Home Depots, the streets that are suddenly paved and, the most coveted prize of all, the increased emergency response.
But there’s obviously a downside to gentrification as well. The unique little mom and pop shops that sell the things you need get replaced by businesses that are nice but sell things you don’t really need. Old Ms. Johnson who was always sweeping sidewalks, knew all the neighborhood gossip, and letting you know when someone she didn’t recognize came knocking on your door while you were away is suddenly and mysteriously replaced by some middle age white guy who only talks to you to ask you not to throw anything in his trash can. The parks, which used to belong to romping children, now belong to romping dogs.
But some of the things that get lost in gentrification aren’t really quantifiable or visible. Like a neighborhood’s personality and its soul.
Before my neighborhood became gentri-fried, dyed and so many of its working class black folks became laid to the side (tucked away neatly in Maryland's Prince George’s county), I lived in what I would often call the “’hood”. Not on the level of HBO’s show “The Wire” or anything like that, but it definitely had its ghetto-like elements.
Have you ever seen something so crazy that all you can think is, “Man, if only someone else were with me to witness this”? I’ve had lots of those moments. I’ve found that living in the ‘hood is often underrated. OK, so maybe my suburban friends have never had the experience of spending a day planting beautiful new flowers in their garden only to have someone dig them up and steal them the very next day. But I’ve seen some of the best entertainment from my window. And the best performance for a middle of the street, raunchy cuss out by rival crack head prostitutes while pushing their baby strollers down the street at 3am in the morning goes to…
These postings started out as stories about my crazy crack head encounters, but then one day I looked up and all of the crack heads and winos were gone. While it should have been a time of celebration, believe it or not I was a little bummed. While my neighborhood wasn’t perfect, I felt pretty safe and it was rather colorful.
While the yuppies that have replaced my old neighbors aren’t nearly as colorful as the bums and winos, I have found them equally bizarre. Gentrification has brought a whole new culture of traits to my neighborhood—neighborhood meet ups, community clean ups, list serv mania, dog obsession, garbage can coveting, etc. So I decided to use it as an opportunity to catalogue my neighborhood’s full journey through gentrification as I have seen it. Bear in mind these essays have been written over a span of several years, beginning shortly after I left my job at a PR firm to travel Spain and consult for a short time, and are not in any particular order.
I would like to think these blog entries will serve some higher purpose. Decades from now, when the plans for this city has run its course, some little fair-haired, blue-eyed child may very well stumble across this blog and with a strange expression on his face look up at his nanny and ask, “What is diversity?”
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