*This Blog is inspired by the protest against gentrification in Brooklyn, New York. The chant they sang has not left my head since I saw the video of the protest*
“BLACK PEOPLE USED TO LIVE HERE. BLACK PEOPLE USED TO LIVE HERE. FIRE FIRE GENTRIFIER. FIRE FIRE GENTRIFIER.”
I lived in a very special place. Prior to the 60s, my side of town was once inhabited by the white elite. But, as Black families started moving in, unsurprisingly white people moved out with the quickness. Left faster than a turbojet...they were gone. Two adjacent neighborhoods ended up having two very different stories.
One neighborhood known as “the Jungles” (because of the beautiful foliage surrounding the large apartment complexes) became a neighborhood of working-class Black families. Unfortunately, with the rise of gangs in Los Angeles, it eventually became one of the most famous gang-ridden areas of the city. The juxtaposition however was very real. Because the other adjacent neighborhood, my neighborhood, only separated by a park and a small hill, was known as “the Black Beverly Hills”. It was called this because it held the homes of some of the most powerful Black Americans in the country. A cute nickname, but not one I like to use. I don’t enjoy comparing my neighborhood to those of the white elite. That feels like assimilation, and my neighborhood wasn’t that.
Growing up in my neighborhood we only had 2 white people. There was a lovely mixed family across the street with a white mother. She is aging gloriously which everyone knows is a sign of not being problematic. The family had two little boys we watched grow up, and my family grew very close to them. We still keep in touch with them to this day. Down the street, near the neighborhood landmark Simply Wholesome, there was what we call a fossil. At the end of the cul de sac lived an older white woman who had been in View Park-Windsor Hills since before it was known as a Black prosperous community. She walked past my house almost every morning and always waved with a crooked smile. The last time I visited home a few months ago, I almost thought I saw a ghost when her now frail figure walked past as usual. She wasn’t just old anymore, she was elderly. A younger white woman, who I assumed was her daughter, helped her tiptoe down the hill. She smiled her crooked smile at me and as she turned, I noticed a sign around her neck. It read “fight the power”. She fist pumped me as she walked past. I hollered. I don’t know who she thinks she is but I stan this woman. She was an Ally before the term was even popular. Back then the white people of my neighborhood knew they lived in a Black space and respected it; they learned the culture and the ways of the area; they seasoned their food thoroughly, and for once they had to assimilate. Sometimes I felt like I lived in a fantasy world.
As a child, Saturdays in my neighborhood used to be my FAVORITE y'all. I would wake up READY for my lil day. Me and my sister would wake up at 7:30 am sharp. We would lazily brush our teeth and throw on a sweatsuit, usually one that wasn’t matching. Looking raggedy as they come, we would walk to the top of the hill. This is where the neighbor who always had that thang on him...his stopwatch (which he kept around his neck while watering his lawn), would time us as we raced down the hill. We then likely ran into *Kerry who would be riding her bike with her friends from the Jungles surely going off to meet boys. I used to hate on her, but I was just salty that my crushes never wanted to play with me. By the time 8:30 am hit we would see our favorite neighborhood old lady who would wave us over as she pruned her plants to give us some cookies. Then we would begin our 15-minute walking adventure to our besties house for a day of “innocent fun” and maybe a lil trouble. We would pass the church with the abandoned basketball hoop, the elementary school we could never figure out how to sneak into, and of course, the community “walking park” where the elderly did Tae Bo and fellow neighbors would walk and run around in circles on the track. Every now and then we would run into the Sheriff who would honk and smile as he drove past. We never feared him, in fact, he lived around the corner. And when we were paying attention out of the side of our eye we would catch the sight of a Blue Suburban--our Dad’s--driving past us to ensure we made it to our destination safely. We eventually learned how to hide from him.
This was my Saturday, every Saturday for over ten years of my life. Yet of course, with age came slight changes. Soon conversing with the elderly was less interesting to us and we would instead take the alternate route past the “triangle park” where we could spy on teens smoking that good weed, (because, Los Angeles). As we became young teenagers we would meet neighborhood boys there and my fRiEnDs (I plead the fifth on if I participated cuz my parents read these blogs) would make out with boys behind the big oak tree. The “triangle park” became the “weed park” or “makeout park” REAL fast. Sometimes, my sister and I wouldn’t sleepover at one of our friends' homes and instead, go home early. While walking past the “walking park” at night we would slow down to hear the giggles of college students home for the weekend meeting up with their friends to drink and turn up outside their parent’s homes. Sometimes the police would drive by. We always figured they knew what was up, but they never stopped. The few times kids got caught, it was by parents in the neighborhood and those kids had their dispersing routine down. On special weekends some families would throw a loud party in their backyard. Often, these parties got a bit rowdy (don’t let anybody tell you that the 50-year-old crowd doesn’t party because they WILD) and the police would come. The police would end up staying for a bit and grabbing a plate, laughing at the fact the noise complaint the received was for middle-aged people who forgot how to ack. Of all the years late teenagehood was the best because we could finally go to the classic parties in the big mansions on Kenway street. These parties were LIT (too LIT sometimes which often caused them to end in shooting) but somehow, we always left--right before things got too crazy. No matter what though, we would never leave before we could dance to the slow songs at the end of the pordy. We were never too fazed because being from LA, an “end of party shooting” was just an alarm that signaled it was time to go home. We would walk back to somebody's crib smiling and laughing all the way, comparing who we got to dance with. My favorite part of the memories and nostalgia I have from that time, is that people always smiled. Every neighbor who caught us on our weekend escapades would see a group of young Black kids roaming, playing, and at times misbehaving, but would just grin and wave. They never shut down our parties. They encouraged our joy and our ratchetry. And when things went too far, somebody's daddy would always roll up to snatch their child and take them back home. These adults knew what we didn’t. They knew that we were living an existence that usually isn’t afforded to Black people. Particularly not in Los Angeles. No matter what people thought of us outside of our special place, we mattered there. We could just be kids. We had everything we needed and wanted in the middle of L.A. A secret in plain sight. It was a Utopia in the middle of the chaos that can be Los Angeles. And it was Black AF.
Eventually, I went to college, and then post-school I moved out of state. And things transformed slowly. These days I have to mentally prepare myself to go back home. Many things are still the same. The elderly white woman is still taking her morning walks, now with signs to show she sees what is going on in our special place, and she cares. I still catch Kerry walking by the top of the hill by her parent’s home, except now she has a baby...a little girl. My best friend’s family still lives a 15 min walk away from my family home. And every time I am in town I still do my Saturday morning walk. Some things, however, have changed. The mixed family across the street has moved to the other side of the city and we have to keep in touch with them via Facebook. I don’t see the older woman and man anymore that would watch me and my sister race; they have likely passed away. People still throw family parties, but the police aren’t as friendly. This is largely due to who is doing the snitching. We have new neighbors now, in every corner of the neighborhood. They don’t smile. They don’t wave when they walk past you with their dogs in the walking park. They don’t assimilate, and they have created a lot of rules. The makeout/weed park now hosts Shakespeare plays on the weekends. Community meetings that once were a place to catch up with friends now waste valuable time explaining the Black culture of the neighborhood to the new non-Black residents. And now, my once cheerful walks are plagued with anxiety as my nostalgia meets the unfortunate reality. My neighborhood is being COLONIZED before my eyes. My Utopia has begun to lose its sparkle. The neighborhoods adjacent to mine that have working-class residents are dwindling by the day. It hurts. Often, I just want to scream into the abyss. BLACK PEOPLE USED TO LIVE HERE. They still do. But who knows for how much longer.
Where I grew up was so much more than a neighborhood with nice homes and well-to-do families. It was a special place... my special place. I loved my neighborhood and it loved me back. The nuances each sector of the neighborhood held. The unspoken rules. The delight and humor Black lives contain when they feel safe, and protected, and can feed their children and love and party in peace. The landmarks that only those of us from those areas can understand. The LAness of it all. When you are from there, you just know. Ask Issa Rae. The socio-economic class of the neighborhood didn’t and doesn’t matter to me. Just living there amongst my people in harmony made me feel seen and important. Nothing is comparable. My neighborhood is a vital character of my story and so are the inhabitants. It and they are imprinted in my heart.
The standard argument in favor of gentrification is that despite the negative connotations, these “war zones” of neighborhoods are FINALLY being improved. A solid argument to some. But my answer is always “for who?”.
Surely not for the people who had occupied that space, not for the people who actually need the improvements.
Society can not imagine communities of color thriving. Certainly not with a Starbucks on every corner, proper grocery stores, low violence rates, unspoken rules that keep the area safe so less police presence is needed, neighbors who TRULY look out for each other (No Karens allowed) and clean streets.
It seems like a dream sometimes, except I had that growing up. And it was beautiful. It was lively. It was peace. It couldn’t be gentrified because there was nothing to gentrify. So instead it is being colonized.
The process is moving slowly as the neighborhood tries to stall and hold tightly to its roots with sweaty bleeding hands. Slow, but it’s inevitable that we will lose the battle and the war because we were never meant to have nice things (or maybe, they never wanted us to have nice things) in the first place. Every time a home is put up for sale we lose another battle.
I wish I did not have to see the outcome.
One day, that chant that repeats in cycles in my head over and over again since I saw that video will ring true… “BLACK PEOPLE USED TO LIVE HERE. BLACK PEOPLE USED TO LIVE HERE. FIRE FIRE GENTRIFIER. FIRE FIRE GENTRIFIER.”
But by then it will be too late.
Displacement has become the focal point of our history.
A sad truth.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.