I’ve been watching and listening as local politicians, my
hometown newspaper and concerned citizens discuss gentrification. Something is
missing. The truth is hard to face.
Communities from coast to coast are talking about
gentrification. It’s impact in widening the economic gap makes it virtually impossible
for many people to obtain housing. There’s a lot of chatter about equaling the
playing field. The exchange involving making things better is just talk devoid
of conversations related to how gentrification happened and what it takes to
fix this horrific mess.
You can’t talk about gentrification without dialogue
involving reparations.
People avoid lifting reparations as a credible solution.
When asked about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ A Case
for Reparation (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/),
Bernie Sanders replied it’s too hard to
pass the approval of lawmakers (https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bernie+sanders+reparations+for+slavery&view=detail&mid=A34F00E1FC90C5323C3FA34F00E1FC90C5323C3F&FORM=VIRE
Sanders’s response
reflects the general mood of many progressive thinkers. Gentrification is a
problem that requires attention, but legislation aimed at addressing the conditions
that create gentrification are too hard to consider.
Anything less than solutions reflective of public policies
that shape and maintain “ghettos” dismiss the role race plays in fostering
housing disparities. They fail to ponder how systemic racism set the stage for
public policies that managed the movement of black people. Gentrification, more
than being about economic disparity, is about the hostile takeover of areas
once designed to house black people.
Gentrification demands real talk regarding how spaces created
for black housing is deemed less valuable than where whites live. The terminology
of ghetto suggests an intentional decision to cage black people into limited
space. Gentrification is about altering the value of black space due to the ejection
of black residents.
Gentrification is about the history of redlining, urban renewal
and the documented discrimination in granting black soldiers VA loans for
housing. It’s about how black people are denied the accumulation of family wealth
by virtue of what has, and continues to be, deprived by the application of
policies rooted in systemic racism.
Th argument involving reparations is transcendent of talk
about paying black folks for their ancestor’s enslavement. Reparations is also about
ondoing the wealth gap created by public policies intended to limit the progress
of black people while stimulating wealth for white homeowners. Naming the
history sways our understanding involving what is required to repair this
vicious cycle of oppression.
Reparations is the word many progressives avoid. It’s too
hard. It shifts the narrative of a class war. It implants the damage of systemic
racism in the middle of a platform that seeks universal health care, free and
affordable public education, increasing the minimum wage, raising taxes on the
1% and expanding social security. It forces deep consideration on how
gentrification is made possible due to policies that limit the accumulation of
black wealth.
Anything short of this discussion places band-aids on a
complex issue. We fail in promoting polices executed to create alternative
housing for those who need it the most. Gentrification is about an expanding
homeless population. Gentrification is about mounting housing cost. All of that
is true, but all that fits within the context of a long history of policies
that intentionally kept black people poorer than whites.
The solution is reparations, but few people want to talk
about that.
I’ve been watching and listening as local politicians, my
hometown newspaper and concerned citizens discuss gentrification. Something is
missing. The truth is hard to face.
Communities from coast to coast are talking about
gentrification. It’s impact in widening the economic gap makes it virtually impossible
for many people to obtain housing. There’s a lot of chatter about equaling the
playing field. The exchange involving making things better is just talk devoid
of conversations related to how gentrification happened and what it takes to
fix this horrific mess.
You can’t talk about gentrification without dialogue
involving reparations.
People avoid lifting reparations as a credible solution.
When asked about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ A Case
for Reparation (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/),
Bernie Sanders replied it’s too hard to
pass the approval of lawmakers (https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bernie+sanders+reparations+for+slavery&view=detail&mid=A34F00E1FC90C5323C3FA34F00E1FC90C5323C3F&FORM=VIRE
Sanders’s response
reflects the general mood of many progressive thinkers. Gentrification is a
problem that requires attention, but legislation aimed at addressing the conditions
that create gentrification are too hard to consider.
Anything less than solutions reflective of public policies
that shape and maintain “ghettos” dismiss the role race plays in fostering
housing disparities. They fail to ponder how systemic racism set the stage for
public policies that managed the movement of black people. Gentrification, more
than being about economic disparity, is about the hostile takeover of areas
once designed to house black people.
Gentrification demands real talk regarding how spaces created
for black housing is deemed less valuable than where whites live. The terminology
of ghetto suggests an intentional decision to cage black people into limited
space. Gentrification is about altering the value of black space due to the ejection
of black residents.
Gentrification is about the history of redlining, urban renewal
and the documented discrimination in granting black soldiers VA loans for
housing. It’s about how black people are denied the accumulation of family wealth
by virtue of what has, and continues to be, deprived by the application of
policies rooted in systemic racism.
Th argument involving reparations is transcendent of talk
about paying black folks for their ancestor’s enslavement. Reparations is also about
ondoing the wealth gap created by public policies intended to limit the progress
of black people while stimulating wealth for white homeowners. Naming the
history sways our understanding involving what is required to repair this
vicious cycle of oppression.
Reparations is the word many progressives avoid. It’s too
hard. It shifts the narrative of a class war. It implants the damage of systemic
racism in the middle of a platform that seeks universal health care, free and
affordable public education, increasing the minimum wage, raising taxes on the
1% and expanding social security. It forces deep consideration on how
gentrification is made possible due to policies that limit the accumulation of
black wealth.
Anything short of this discussion places band-aids on a
complex issue. We fail in promoting polices executed to create alternative
housing for those who need it the most. Gentrification is about an expanding
homeless population. Gentrification is about mounting housing cost. All of that
is true, but all that fits within the context of a long history of policies
that intentionally kept black people poorer than whites.
The solution is reparations, but few people want to talk
about that.
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