I was riding around with someone a while ago who pointed out some of the changes in DC and said, "They're fixing this shit up for white people." I was with a different person the other day who said, "Yeah, that's a good school now. Ever since those white people moved over there, they been fixing that school up."
Why is it that in DC, white=money? I understand how gentrification works, and, having studied poverty for several years at the undergraduate and graduate level, I know enough about income disparity between races to understand this point of view. Still, I lived in NC, and down in Durham my neighbors were black, white and latino in both good and bad areas. It seems to be only up here where I can't seem to find a predominantly white neighborhood that's below the poverty line.
It's not racially motivated that someone put in a street light or built a playground. I think it comes down to just getting enough signatures (that matter) to get the stuff done. Still, I feel the effects of gentrification like everyone else. I was over my grandmother's house a lot this week and Lord knows I got some mean stares from the new neighbors. My grandmother seems hell bent on being the last person standing from the old neighborhood. Most of the families I grew up around are long gone. These new people don't know me. They see me walking around and immediately assume I'm out of place.
While I don't care what they think per se, it is a little bit of a downer to have to go through that. I feel like I paid my dues and deserve to be treated with respect when I sit out on my grandmother's porch, not stared at through curtains. This isn't my usual "Black man's saga" post. When I say "respect" I don't mean as a human being. I mean I deserve to be respected (revered, even) like some kind of folk hero. Do you know the shit I had to put up with?
I remember them sending me to the liquor store with a note and a ten dollar bill and the Korean lady at the liquor store handing me a brown paper bag and peering over the counter and into my soul as she said, "You take this and you run straight home. Don't open it and whatever you do, don't drop it." I ran home like I was carrying launch codes for a missile or something while the winos in front of the store stared at me like I was carrying the last bottle of hope.
I remember when Maury Elementary wasn't the nice pristine little school that it is now. I see children's bikes parked in front now and they have a website and PTA support. I remember they used to pimp us to sell gift wrap like the lights and water were gonna get cut off if we didn't raise enough money. Grown men used to hang out on the basketball court in the evenings so you couldn't go over there to play, because they'd be over there drinking and smoking.
Hell, half of my childhood is filled with memories of learning which streets I could walk down and which ones required me to take the long way around the block. Now I see the liquor stores have been demolished and apartments and townhomes put up in their place. There's a Capital Bikeshare up near Lincoln Park. Constitution Avenue is now punctuated with Stop signs whereas back when I was growing up it was a freeway that turned into a one-way rush hour road during the morning. Even when a little girl got hit so hard by a car that her shoes were thrown down the block, they didn't bother repainting the crosswalk.
I'm not saying that I grew up in some ravaged African nation where I had to become a child soldier, but I deserve a little more respect than just a perturbed glance as you pass by the house that I grew up in. To be honest, the only reason you got to live in the house you're going into is because I was up late one night and happened to notice smoke coming out of the house that you now call home. The previous owner was out of town, so I called 911 and saved the little place from burning to the ground.
Show a little respect.
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