Witnessing both protracted blight and the sudden rebirth has been an education in class tension. Although the wealthy have the power to uproot, the marginalized have the moral authority to shame. Words like “invade” and “displace” carry weight. They suggest injustice, unfairness, and illegitimacy, words that in a democracy (nominally) founded on principles of merit, liberty and equality are tantamount to evil, criminal, insincere, inauthentic, words no one wants to be associated with. It is much more psychically pleasant on the side of the righteous, easier on the conscience to find common cause with the underdog. When One Percenter wunderkind Warren Buffet urged legislators to stop coddling his ilk in a widely circulated op-ed last summer was he not offering an olive branch to the disgruntled poor and middle classes? When nouveau riche rap icon Jay-Z tells us yet another cooking-crack-in-the-kitchen story is he not reminding
us of his acquaintance with adversity? When Jennifer Lopez claims she’s still “Jenny from the block” is she not suggesting she’s still “real”? Because we live in a society where, as Jay puts it on the song “Otis”, “everything’s for sale,” our identities are always in flux. As a result, our need to connect and re-connect our narrative with our version of hardship becomes pathological. We have to constantly prove that we are who we say we are, not only to others, but to ourselves. One way of accomplishing this is by literally affiliating ourselves with the struggle. And in America, as I’m sure is the case anywhere, the struggle has a physical location. It’s the ‘hood, the heartland or a distant homeland that our ancestors left in search of a better life. Either way, our collective anxiety about who we are, particularly our desire to align our unique personal history with the perceptions others may have about us based on appearances, drives us to attach ourselves to these “authentic” spaces.
The evolution of the Occupy Movement is a prime example of how the phenomenon works. It started as a fringe group mash up that no one took seriously. By early October Zuccotti Park was a carnival of special interests. By mid-October old-guard unions were showing up at the park. By November Jay-Z was peddling “Occupy All Streets” t-shirts. Two weeks ago I was at a swanky gathering of the New York liberal establishment where every single speaker championed the movement to resounding applause. Authenticity is like Thanksgiving turkey. Everybody wants a piece.
Now take my version of the stereotypical gentrifier. I can picture him. I even believe I know him. He is white, college-educated and young. He is seeking an escape from the sterile homogeneity that characterized his suburban upbringings. He thinks and even says he is looking to free himself from the shackles of his white-bred socialization, but he’s also seeking refuge from the scrutiny of his social group. This stereotypical gentrifier says he wants to live within a diverse human tapestry that compliments his progressive values but he also wants to capture valuable capital (social and economic) and leverage it once the ‘hood whitens up. Then he can say he was here first.
It’s easy to sniff out the search for authenticity in others; it’s troubling when we smell it on ourselves. Two months ago I moved into a community that New York Magazine named one of twenty “under-the-radar micro-neighborhoods” in New York that “may just be the Next Big Thing” and promptly caught my first whiff. It was unsettling. I’ve never thought of myself as that guy–the new gentrifier in the neighborhood. Up to now my career path has been checkered. My first job out of law school paid me $15 a day and all the books I could stuff into my bag. I was laid off from my next job after eight months when the executive director called and said we were out of money. I then collected unemployment for nearly a year. I took part-time and piecemeal jobs just to get by. And let me tell you, making ends meet as a freelance writer whose books have yet to scratch the bottom of a best-seller’s list isn’t for the faint of heart. Even when I held a steady job as a teacher, the proportion of income to outflow on my bank statements was still, somehow, too close for comfort. Only now that I’ve reached my mid-30s has my situation begun to stabilize and improve. Even still, barring a windfall, I’ll be paying off my school debt well into the retirement that I’ve been warned will never arrive.
Moreover, the idea of gentrifying hadn’t even crossed my mind when I decided to move. I chose Hamilton Heights for four perfectly legitimate reasons. The space, the views of the Hudson and Riverside Drive, and the comparatively modest rent were reasons one through three. Reason number four: it hadn’t been gentrified. It wasn’t hip. It lacked the trendy trappings. It was, based on my observations, still a bit too gully for the average yuppie.
lesser-known community bounded by 135th and 155th Streets to the north and south and Edgecombe Avenue and Riverside Drive to the east and west, Hamilton Heights has gone through the typical urban phases of ethnic occupancy, flight and blight. Named after the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, the once-rural area was initially comprised of farms. After the Revolutionary War, the large country estates appeared, followed by the elegantly designed row houses in the 19th century. By the early 20th century, the sprawling apartments, most of which remain sturdy reminders of our nation’s craftsmanship and quality, had been erected. At that time the residents were middle-class, professionals of Irish, Italian and German stock. Middle-class black professionals began making their way into the section now widely known as “Sugar Hill” in the ’20s and ’30s. Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. DuBois, Thurgood Marshall, Paul Robeson, Count Basie, Langston Hughes would be among the “A-List” African-Americans who would call Hamilton Heights home. As was the case throughout the long, checkered history of integration, black entrance spurred white exit, and by the middle of the century the neighborhood was showing the signature symptoms of suburban flight. Beginning in the 1960s and ’70s, the turbulent political and economic climate in the Dominican Republic, combined with the archetypal search for a better tomorrow, drove millions of Dominicans off one island and onto another.
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Looking at this article again, only 8 months old, especially with the reopening of McCarren Park and the factthat the “old balkynazie” brooklyn will not accept the new gentrifiers, I have concluded that Dax, you, need to come to terms to accept yourself.
Even though you may share the pains of black struggle, their is nothing wrong in sharing the joys of the influx of new people, cafes, galleries, bars. and the various entertainment spaces. There is nothing wrong in celebrating your own individuality. in fact what’s different about this new gentrification, it is class based, and it is open to open to people of other cultures, backgrounds, or people of different shade but sharing common values- one is being education.
Regardless of society there will always be hierachy, and but as a non-white person, Asian, I am taken every advantage of prosperity that has come forth to Brooklyn. But as much as I am partaking in this it is open to all to share.
Thank you Mr. Ross. Wonderful, well-written article that proposes a thought-provoking question. My inclination would be to suggest that relatively well-to-do black people can indeed be gentrifiers although it may not operate with the speed and intensity as when gentrifiers are white. I live in Fort Greene, BK and see the significant impact that young black professionals had in the earlier stages of the neighborhood transformation. (Not dissimilar to the impact of artists, gays, students, etc. moving into the neighborhood).
Generally I have not been overly-troubled by gentrification because I see change as a constant. No neighborhood (particularly in a transient city like NYC) ever stays the same. People feeling like they “own” neighborhoods (from either side of the tracks) has seemed to me, a little short-sighted. However, the story about Mr. Ross’s father opens my eyes about the frustration and sense of unfairness likely felt by many “original” inhabitants of a neighborhood as they are able to juxtapose the worth/value of their needs vs the gentrifiers through the eyes of law enforcement, politicians, landlords, service providers, retailers etc. I wonder if the real issue is gentrification vs. the fact that those needs weren’t being met in the first place! Perhaps gentrification just puts the disparities in your face.
Thank you for making me think with this wonderful peice. Please keep writing!
Hi Dax,
Thanks for the really great article–I really enjoyed reading it. I’ve been living in the area for 2 years now and thought I would share some thoughts. In response to the central question, I think the answer is yes, you, as a Black man, can be a gentrifier but only relative to this particular situation. The neighborhood is predominantly non-english speaking and doesn’t approach the levels of higher education found in many other affluent parts of NYC. In addition, Harlem has always been a massive melting pot of non-white ethnicities: I think there is a sociological expectation that Harlem can ‘gentrify’ in a way that isn’t contingent on 100% whiteness.
From a simple perspective of services however, I think your presence as a middle-class, educated, English speaker trumps whatever skin color you have. By services I mean both commercial services, but also important institutional functions like 311. The more calls people make to 311, whether it’s noise, garbage, snow plowing, etc., the more attention the city pays to the area. I got a few street trees planted last year through 311 and I know that some of the noise complaints I’ve been making have had a lasting effect (keeping in mind that I call about once a week…). In any case, simply having people of any stripe who give mind to local ‘problems’, whether it be the blunt innards in your building or the litter on the sidewalk, makes a huge difference.
In a more specific sense about Hamilton Heights, I just wanted to bring up two personal aspects. When my grandparents (both Jewish immigrants, one from Europe and one from Buenos Aires) got married and found their first apartment together in 1944, it was on 141st St. between Bway and Riverside. My mother and uncle were raised there and they stayed until 1968, before moving to Queens. My grandparents oldest and lifelong friends were all from the same block, or very close by, and they all met at the Riverside Playground. I grew up in Canada, but in a sense, moving into the neighborhood in 2010 felt somewhat like a ‘return home’, and that I have just as much lived family history in these streets as many other Latino and African-American families do. Harlem is an interesting place in this regard, different in many ways from the case of a gentrifying Bed-Stuy because Harlem expressed so many different forms of social classes, with the important unifying distinction that they were all non-white (Jewish, Italian, Irish, Black, Hispanic, etc.). Harlem has always been diverse and similar to the Lower East Side. The flanking areas in particular–West and East–have historically served the same role: a landing pad for new immigrants before moving up and out. I wonder then if gentrification can follow the standard model here, re: Williamsburg/Bushwick.
Mr. Ross
You are out of touch and have no idea about the politics of NYC. It is apparent that you and Bloomberg live in the same NYC. Which is an illusion. You need toread more about NYC. Which is like no other city. Go to you tube. and listen.to Dr.Clarke, Amos Wilson. Get the facts
Celina, what makes you say the Mr. Ross is “out of touch” and has “no idea about the politics of NYC?” I’m the moderator and I approved your comment, but Mr. Ross can’t respond to it, because you stopped short of offering a critique. He is considered an expert, someone that the New York Times and the New Yorker cites. Why do you think he’s out of touch?
This publication has had a great start and has great prospects, really. But, like Mireille said, required discourse also requires face-to-face, in-person, brick and mortar dialogue. Would be great if Dominion could facilitate that.
Thanks for stopping by! We are planning events that will bring folks together to talk. Stay tuned!
Dax, bruh, I have a greater appreciation for your article after actually reading it. Though, I’ll admit to finding it a troubling symptom of the dearth of black analysis and black-affirmative worldview too prevalent amongst black folk today.
Ruth Glass, who you say coined the term “gentrification”, defines it as a phenomenon that, once sparked, must, by definition, “(go) on rapidly until all or most of the original working class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed.” It then follows that gentrifiers must either spark or be operative in encouraging the mass influx of other gentrifiers. This is not something you or other affluent black folks did or do, just as the presence of Count Basie, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson and the nameless black doctors, teachers, etc. who have always lived in Harlem did not. These folks definitely could and probably did pay more than the average economically alienated black Harlemite (who nevertheless often paid more than the NYC average due to segregation) – though the role of rent laws througout Harlem’s history and in the present shituation probably deserves greater scrutiny…
Harlem has always been mixed-income, just not enough. Harlem was/is majority poor, because black folk are, disproportionately. Harlem reflects the income/ wealth inequality that OWS is just getting hip too, but that black folk have been suffering from since the slave ship Jesus. It’s why the relatively low salaries and property values in Harlem are primarily about race; because ongoing black economic stress was born of systematic socioeconomic terror based on race, that was never systematically and effectively addressed. Counteracting it will require the concerted efforts of blacks, across “class”, and the methodical application of a black-affirmative (NOT black-supremacist) agenda, in spaces/ communities that we can control, like Harlem.
It’s why your presence, and the presence of other formally-educated, creative black folks like you, in traditional black communities (black-safe spaces, that are still required) can and should be a great thing, so long as your black-affirmative ethic – critically lacking post “integration” – is in effect.
Great piece, eloquently written, very interesting conversation. It would be great if there was a place where we could get together and discuss these issues. In the mean time. I’ll keep reading.
Great article, however there no such thing as “black gentrifiers” unless upper class people of color move into a white predominately poor neighborhoods. Blacks who made out of these lower income neighborhoods are just returning home. It unfortunate some blacks still believe in the 21st century that the only way to “make it” is to move into predominantly white suburban neighborhoods. Why is it that every time we move in their neighborhood they move out and it becomes a ghetto? For sales sign suddenly pop up everywhere why? When will the upper class blacks get it? If you do some demographical research, you will find that most white’s integration efforts are pseudo, because they only believe in integration in “theory” not in “practice”. New York City is the nation second most segregated city behind Milwaukee why? If integration does not happen in NYC first how can happen anywhere else? Look at my neighborhood in Bed-Stuy its becoming the new Forte Green. The second wave of whites gentrifirers (aka trendsetters) who moving in don’t really want to live in this predominantly black neighborhood they just there temporarily because they cannot afford the high price of Manhattan and prefer areas of Williamsburg (formerly a Hispanic), Park Slope (formerly black), Forte Green (formerly black) Cobble Hill or Brooklyn Heights. Ask yourself and put yourself in white people shoes who was raised in suburb mostly their whole life; and then ask yourself why you would you want to live in a neighborhood full of poor uneducated black people that does not cater to your lifestyles (no malls, no bookstores, no Starbuck’s, no Trader’s Joe, no dog parks).Why do you think upper class blacks moved out of Bed-Stuy in the first place? Like whites (and fully assimilated blacks), there nowhere to shop/socialize unless you into dollar stores, Popeye’s Chicken, Baptist churches on every corner and tons of ethnic stores. If I am white I can’t send my kids to the local district school (especially not a charter school) because there too many blacks and Latino children who will corrupt the learning of my child’s education. The bottom-line is this. Whites are in poor black neighborhood in hopes of changing the entire neighborhood, not integration purpose. Bed-Stuy will be called five years from now BeStu. The solutions for middle class blacks who want to escape from poor black blight and middle class whites who move out the neighborhood once they move in is to form their own neighborhood like in Atlanta’s Buck head and Maryland’s Upper Marlboro. Here also something to think about? How come when middle class blacks move into predominately white neighborhoods nothing changes (i.e. retail stores, schools, restaurants) but whites move into predominately black neighborhoods everything changes including the color of the people. Check out this video of whites making fun of the displacement of poor blacks in urban area. “How to Gentrify Your Neighborhood” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc2Uv0wEUWs
Nate,
I appreciate this thoughtful comment. And since you took the time to offer I’d like to take a moment to respond to some of your questions.
You talk about blacks who make it out and return “home” but my question — one I think I was wrestling with — is what about the black person who did not grow up in a “lower income” neighborhood? I think part of the challenge this conversation poses is the all-too narrow parameters of the black experience. Not everyone comes from the ‘hood. So not everyone thinks of the ‘hood as “home”. But then does that make them a gentrifier if they decide to move to the so-called ‘hood later in life? I would argue that there is a particular look we’re accustomed to seeing when conventional gentrification is occurring, but that its absence does not mean gentrification is not occurring. It just means it looks different. As long as residents are being displaced by people who can afford to pay significantly more, that’s, in my mind, evidence of gentrification.
You note that every time black people move into a neighborhood whites move out and it becomes a ghetto. While I agree that there is evidence of the first point — the moving out — I would challenge the second point. I grew up in a neighborhood that was predominately white and became predominately black but remains, to this day, firmly middle class. I don’t mean to suggest my experience is the norm only that it exists.
As for integration, you’re right New York is very segregated, but that segregation is complicated by ethnicity as well as race and class. “New York is the biggest collection of villages in the world,” said British journalist Alistair Cooke. People make choices regarding where they live based on a host of factors many of which have to do with cultural preference. New York is one of the few places in America where one can actually elect to live in an ethnic enclave that fits their upbringing or lifestyle while retaining the perks of a cosmopolitan experience. And because these easily attainable perks allow us to notice that we live in an integrated city we often don’t think about where we live as being segregated.
I also think that what I was trying to suggest with the article is that we hold all of these near and dear beliefs about who we are — our uniqueness, especially — that aren’t always true. For instance we all think we’re progressive in our minds, but our actions are often driven by factors that have everything to do with the privileges (or lack thereof) we’ve been afforded. Which is to say none of us is as “unique” and “different” as we like to believe. Which is to say, I don’t think “whites” as a group collaborate to take over a neighborhood or “blacks” collectively decide to leave a neighborhood. I think we each seize the opportunities that present themselves to us. I think we each perceive our intentions are pure and decent and individualized, and that only when we honestly reflect do we begin to see how our choices are generally driven by our socio-economic factors that are indeed intertwined with race. All of which is to say, we’re not innocent bystanders in the historical processes that have produced and reinforce inequality that int turns plays itself out in the fight for space in the city.