I was parking my car to attend an event at the Convention Center a while back. When I parked my car beside a swelling group of wino/crackheads they turned around to gawk at me and I swear, for a sec, I felt like I was in a "Night of the Living Dead" movie. I almost expected to see one of them with a human foot hanging out of his mouth. They looked just that ghoulish.
I felt really bad for them because the renovation of that part of downtown has really left them displaced. There they were, standing across the street from our gloriously expensive, new convention center without a home to go to, a pot to piss in or a liquor store to hang out at.
They were just grouped together like they were having a meeting. I can almost imagine the dialogue: "Can you believe how far I have to go just to get my 40 now! This shit has gone too far! First they band the sale of singles and now this?! Aw hellll naw! I'ma speak to my councilmember about this!"
Seriously though, I did feel bad for them. When I got out of my car, I made sure to walk right in the midst of them and speak to them before crossing the street to my destination. I may sometimes poke a little fun at the winos and crackheads in my community because...well, they're just funny. But I still respect them as people.
I try and do a lot of volunteer work in my community because I know we all need to be a part of the solution. Still, there will always be those who will make bad choices in their lives because of whatever demons they have living in their heads. I've adopted the credo that we are all the master of our fate and the captains of our soul and so, with much empathy, I've decided to respect the way the wounded choose to steer their ship.
I had a really inspiring talk with a crackhead woman a few weeks back. Honestly. You could tell she was once a beautiful woman, she just forgot who she was. When I passed her she complimented me. I turned around and told her how beautiful I thought she was. I could tell she didn't hear that too often and I wish I had the money to put her in whatever workshop she needed to reclaim herself. What a beautiful thing that would be. Oh well, maybe in the next life.
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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