run-down & round up: GENTRIFICATION

A New Day in Old DC, Studio Lafoncette Photography

noticed i had many articles on the same topic happening in different parts of america saved and decided to share in  one fluid motion. a good film about this situation of gentrification is Flag Wars. 

Is Jus' ah Photo: Studio Lafoncette Photography . 

in washington dc:

• A Population Changes, Uneasily 
• A surprising look at 'Faces of Petworth' 
• Is Jus ah Photo

in new york:

• For new life, blacks in city head south
• Memories of Sugar Hill

thoughts on black gentrification in DC

a friend recently sent me an article form the Washington City Paper about black gentrification and asked me what i thought. here i go: 

1. first off, the way i see it a black gentrifier is of similar value to a black racist. i do not believe that black people can be racist. racism is a system of material based oppression that situates itself on the notion of race. so in order to be a true racist you must have the power to subjugate. you must be able to marginalize an entire population of people (the way "whites" have done historically to "blacks" in the US and around the world"). because black people are not able to do this (subjugate/marginalize) other races then they cannot be racist. black people can hold prejudices against people of other races, they can harbor self-hate reflective of centuries of negative interactions with other races, but they cannot themselves be racists. calling a black person racist is blaming the victim- like saying a female victim of rape was asking for it because she wore skimpy clothes. so i think that premise of the article is faulty.  

Thinking Out Loud

Originally published on July 31, 2009

Just a thought:

After seeing the film, Flag Wars, a documentary about gentrification in Columbus Ohio, I wonder: are there any statistics on the number of deaths cause by institutional racism? There is one scene in which a home owner sits in court, shivering, barely able to speak, just after having a major operation and the judge is badgering her about why it is taking so long to get her house up to code. This woman dies not too long after this and the house not being up to code was not her only problem. Her house was put up on the yuppie auction block shortly after her death as well.

http://www.flagwarsthemovie.com/