A Bittersweet Remembrance
Today’s edition of the Washington Post featured a front-page article about the neighborhood Emily and I live in – the Shaw neighborhood. After reading the article, I began to rethink our decision to live here. The article is entitled “A Bittersweet Remembrance” and highlights the gentrification of the neighborhood, from the perspective of black residents who have lived here for generations.
Here are a few excerpts from the article:
“They [featured black residents] are among the many homeowners who have lived in Shaw for decades – through the 1968 riots, the crack epidemic, black flight. They are there now for the rebound. Their homes have mushroomed in value, and they are adapting to new neighbors, many of them white and more affluent.”
One of those interviewed, Moses Lofton, “recalls an encounter he had one afternoon when it was still warm, an encounter not unfamiliar: An African American woman stopped for a red light and called to him as he swept the sidewalk in front of his steps. Was he the owner? He nodded. Don’t sell, she said. No matter what they offer you. Pass it on, keep it in the family. She drove away, Lofton said, but the message stayed: Keep the neighborhood as it was. Keep it black.”
“[Lofton] has no problem with whites…and he appreciates Shaw’s new-found diversity. He’s just sorry blacks are leaving.”
“[Norman Wood] had hoped for a diverse community, but the free market has overwhelmed his vision: Developers have converted rentals into condominiums, forcing African Americans to move; and black homeowners, enticed by rising property values, have sold and left for the suburbs.”
“Until a few years ago, said [Harry “Sonny”] Brodgins, 54, the area was entirely black, and a perpetual street carnival. ‘Like Mardi Gras,’ he said. In the bad years, yes, there was drug dealing and violence, like the night his brother was shot twice in the leg. But it still was community. ‘I knew everyone,’ said Brodgins. These days, he said, an old friend greets him as the ‘last of the Mohicans.’ Whites live up the street, down the street, in the next block. They are mostly young professionals.”
“When Brodgins steps outside these days, the stoops are empty, the sidewalk is barren and there is no one to talk to. He finds company around the corner where people still congregate outside the shuttered Howard Theater, under the rusting blue ‘Jimmy’s Golden Q’ sign, a vestige of a long-closed pool hall.”
“Brodgins’s new neighbors seem to be in a hurry, he said, often checking him out warily, if acknowledging his presence at all. ‘They’re the strangers,’ he said. ‘I’m here. I got here before you got here. Why can’t you at least be cordial?’”
---
When Emily and I moved to DC, we looked for a place with diversity, a place that might feel like a community. In less than two years, four of the six remaining black families on our block have moved away. Some moved because they couldn’t afford the taxes on their property. Some moved because they couldn’t pass up the money. Honestly, the people who left are just about the only people on our street who would take the time to talk and be neighborly. The neighborhood is leaving and being replaced by affluent individuals who like to be left alone and seem to post an unwritten sign: “By invitation only.” Whereas sitting on one’s stoop is like posting a welcome sign, the doors on our street open and close quickly, and social gatherings take place behind those locked doors, keeping the “unwanted” away.
Perhaps Emily and I moved to the area for different reasons than the people moving in now. We wanted to get to know the people who lived there, not push them away.
Months ago, I helped rescue an elderly woman from a burning house. She happened to be black in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood on Capitol Hill. As I waited with the woman for the paramedics, a man commented that he was glad the house burned because now the drug dealers would leave. The fire was helping clean up the block. I was incredulous and irate. And even though I am a pacifist, I wanted to do him bodily injury.
True, the man’s words were harsh. But how many people moving into traditionally black neighborhoods are just waiting until the blacks leave, or at least until the “undesirable” blacks leave? I don’t want to be part of that movement. I don’t want to be the guy who buys a house in a run-down neighborhood and waits for all of the “trash” to leave so home values will increase. People are not trash, regardless of income, race, culture, etc. People are not problems.
I know neighborhoods change and go through cycles, but I resent those who profit at the expense of others. I resent those who disregard others. How do I channel this passion in a productive way? How do I criticize by creating? Maybe I should sit on our stoop.
Here are a few excerpts from the article:
“They [featured black residents] are among the many homeowners who have lived in Shaw for decades – through the 1968 riots, the crack epidemic, black flight. They are there now for the rebound. Their homes have mushroomed in value, and they are adapting to new neighbors, many of them white and more affluent.”
One of those interviewed, Moses Lofton, “recalls an encounter he had one afternoon when it was still warm, an encounter not unfamiliar: An African American woman stopped for a red light and called to him as he swept the sidewalk in front of his steps. Was he the owner? He nodded. Don’t sell, she said. No matter what they offer you. Pass it on, keep it in the family. She drove away, Lofton said, but the message stayed: Keep the neighborhood as it was. Keep it black.”
“[Lofton] has no problem with whites…and he appreciates Shaw’s new-found diversity. He’s just sorry blacks are leaving.”
“[Norman Wood] had hoped for a diverse community, but the free market has overwhelmed his vision: Developers have converted rentals into condominiums, forcing African Americans to move; and black homeowners, enticed by rising property values, have sold and left for the suburbs.”
“Until a few years ago, said [Harry “Sonny”] Brodgins, 54, the area was entirely black, and a perpetual street carnival. ‘Like Mardi Gras,’ he said. In the bad years, yes, there was drug dealing and violence, like the night his brother was shot twice in the leg. But it still was community. ‘I knew everyone,’ said Brodgins. These days, he said, an old friend greets him as the ‘last of the Mohicans.’ Whites live up the street, down the street, in the next block. They are mostly young professionals.”
“When Brodgins steps outside these days, the stoops are empty, the sidewalk is barren and there is no one to talk to. He finds company around the corner where people still congregate outside the shuttered Howard Theater, under the rusting blue ‘Jimmy’s Golden Q’ sign, a vestige of a long-closed pool hall.”
“Brodgins’s new neighbors seem to be in a hurry, he said, often checking him out warily, if acknowledging his presence at all. ‘They’re the strangers,’ he said. ‘I’m here. I got here before you got here. Why can’t you at least be cordial?’”
---
When Emily and I moved to DC, we looked for a place with diversity, a place that might feel like a community. In less than two years, four of the six remaining black families on our block have moved away. Some moved because they couldn’t afford the taxes on their property. Some moved because they couldn’t pass up the money. Honestly, the people who left are just about the only people on our street who would take the time to talk and be neighborly. The neighborhood is leaving and being replaced by affluent individuals who like to be left alone and seem to post an unwritten sign: “By invitation only.” Whereas sitting on one’s stoop is like posting a welcome sign, the doors on our street open and close quickly, and social gatherings take place behind those locked doors, keeping the “unwanted” away.
Perhaps Emily and I moved to the area for different reasons than the people moving in now. We wanted to get to know the people who lived there, not push them away.
Months ago, I helped rescue an elderly woman from a burning house. She happened to be black in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood on Capitol Hill. As I waited with the woman for the paramedics, a man commented that he was glad the house burned because now the drug dealers would leave. The fire was helping clean up the block. I was incredulous and irate. And even though I am a pacifist, I wanted to do him bodily injury.
True, the man’s words were harsh. But how many people moving into traditionally black neighborhoods are just waiting until the blacks leave, or at least until the “undesirable” blacks leave? I don’t want to be part of that movement. I don’t want to be the guy who buys a house in a run-down neighborhood and waits for all of the “trash” to leave so home values will increase. People are not trash, regardless of income, race, culture, etc. People are not problems.
I know neighborhoods change and go through cycles, but I resent those who profit at the expense of others. I resent those who disregard others. How do I channel this passion in a productive way? How do I criticize by creating? Maybe I should sit on our stoop.
posted by Dave Jones at 1:44 PM
2 Comments:
Hey. I just linked to your blog from a comment on another. I like what you're getting at here. I have a real tension in my heart about this same issue and battle with questions of how to actually be proactive about it. I never want to be the "evil white", but changing perspectives is tough. I don't know, but it gives me something to chew on.
Hyla,
Thanks for the comment. I'm finding that this is a topic of discussion that a lot of DCers have to face. Most of the time, we deal with it subconsciously, but I think that we have to bring it out into the open if we are going to "change perspectives" as you suggested.
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