When we talk about gentrification, what are the images that often come to mind? Is it a Starbucks? Is it white people in vegan footwear, beanies or the wildly popular ‘man bun’? Was it your rent going up?
According to Slate magazine, I too was a gentrifier. I’m not a New York native, and unlike many of the black, brown and latino/latinx people that live in my building, I haven’t lived there very long. I moved into a low-income neighborhood, I agreed to pay the higher rents and I made substantially more than the area’s median income of $23,519. Not to mention my slight obsession with Trader Joe's, vintage clothing, alternative R&B and craft beer.
I felt defensive whenever someone used the word 'hipster' as a compliment, but I admittedly looked the part. Is this how white people felt when people of color talked about racism? I just wanted to be black and excellent.
In 2015, I moved to Brooklyn, New York after interning two years ago in college. I graduated and knew that I wanted to take a job in New York, and after lots of jaded apartment hunting experiences, I found the right space. I moved to the area I live in now mainly because it was a community I could recognize being of Afro-Caribbean descent, it was a pretty solid train ride to the city for work and because it was one of those “up and coming neighborhoods.” I could afford to live in the neighborhood and there wasn’t a Starbucks on the corner yet. I’ve lived there over a year and the slow changes I saw made me frustrated and anxious. Every time I saw some white, smiling face walking their dog at 11 p.m., I thought “there goes the neighborhood.”
But what exactly could I be upset about?
I’ll stop to acknowledge a few things at this point. I am black and I am privileged. I have two parents that could afford to take care of school and living arrangements during my college years. I can still pick up the phone and call my parents if I couldn’t make ends meet. I also graduated college with more good debt than credit card debt. But what determined if I was part of the problem? My blackness or my upbringing?
Huffington Post editor Rahel Gebreyes, wrote about this same contradiction statistically between class and race. It is almost always assumed that gentrification happens because higher income whites are moving into the neighborhood. However, she cited a study done in Brickton, Philadelphia that found that black middle-class residents or ‘black gentrifiers’ were moving to lower income areas for some of the same reasons I moved to my neighborhood; racial exclusion or the need for racial solidarity was a definite motivating factor.
Gebreyes also brings up another point: Would the neighborhood change the way it did if all the people moving in were black? From my experience, no.
I was white enough on paper, but I also struggled with gaining the ‘perks’ of gentrification. The services provided and upkeep of my building for the rent I paid—which was less than satisfactory — had not changed until more Non-POCs began moving in.
Even my landlord looked shocked when I opened the door to meet him for the first time because both of his new tenants were black. He had done the routine credit, income and background checks and on paper, both of us didn’t seem very ‘black’? While these routine “check-ups” are arguably safety measures for landlords, many times it’s used to discriminate against people of color. The same way credit checks in employment left some black people unemployed, was the same way it can leave potential black home buyers/renters with fewer options. Again, I was lucky.
At best, the numbers tell a very murky story about upward mobility and black families which make it hard to determine if the idea of a black gentrifier is a valid one. Studies were done within the past four years often lump race and class together, and continue to ignore any progress black middle-class families may have made after the recession in 2008. For example, The Atlantic stated that black middle class and their children see many more challenges in escaping poverty, but in 2015 many low-income and middle-class families saw at least a 5.2 percent increase in income. Different factors that affect black families like single parent homes, usually headed by women, also saw the gender pay gap drop to a record low. Overall, the numbers paint progress as more subjective and even tiny in some cases.
White privilege also plays a part in why the young, black and educated are having a harder time moving back into black neighborhoods. It is almost always assumed that white people can afford things. Therefore, the presence of whiteness made a neighborhood ‘good,’ which also means that a black tenant presented ‘less value’ than moving in a white tenant. This kind of racism in the housing market meant black people moving into a black neighborhood didn’t have the same effect.
My privilege and factors that contributed to oppression in my community meant that others like me were lucky enough to afford to pay the rent, but I wasn’t the preferred tenant in these up and coming areas. I could struggle against the gentrification tide and be priced out too, but writer Marly Pierre-Louis was right when she said the discussion about gentrification has become “stale.”
Just like the study done in Brickton, Philadelphia, the conversation should be about how black hipsters can use their privilege to positively impact the neighborhoods they are part of. First, we can start by making the decision to live alongside members of our community, and actively contribute to a better one. Getting informed about local politics, attending town hall meetings and volunteering to name a few are what should be a collective effort to invest in that community and eventually, bring the black neighborhoods back to Brooklyn.
If you have any other thoughts about what other black youth can do to speak out, your comments are welcome.
