gentrification
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Black People Are Fighting Against Gentrification and for the Heart and Soul of Their Cities
Last week at the corner of 14 and U, a throng of mostly black people swayed in unison to the beat of a live go-go band. The drums and horns blasted as people walked from near and far to not only hear their indigenous music but also to join the resistance. The band and its…
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The Rent Is Too Damn High and Now Los Angeles City Council Says It Wants to Help by Banning Section 8 Bans Targeting the Poor
Finding decent, affordable housing for yourself and your family can be tough, especially if you’re working-class or low-income and living in any one of the rapidly gentrifying big cities in the nation. In Los Angeles, where median rent for an apartment is $2,428, lawmakers have moved to make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against…
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What Gentrification and the New NFL Stadium Mean for Longterm Black Residents of Inglewood, Calif.
By now, we have all heard the stories of how hard Nipsey Hussle was working to keep his Hyde Park neighborhood from becoming gentrified. For years, the area has been inhabited almost exclusively by blacks, but as the city’s Metro has been constructing a new train that will take travelers down Crenshaw Boulevard and eventually…
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Playing the Gentrification Game: In Ike Holter's Lottery Day, the Audience Wins
Gentrification continues to redistrict the boundaries of traditionally black and brown neighborhoods in urban cities across America—inevitably, pushing longtime residents and their stories to the fringes in favor of glossier, more palatable facades and narratives. Those stories have been the focus of playwright Ike Holter’s stunning seven-play “Rightlynd Saga,” focusing on the inhabitants of Chicago’s…
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D.C. Fights Back Against Colonizers Who Want to Ban Go-Go Music From an Iconic City Corner
Back in 1498, a few years after Christopher Columbus pillaged the Caribbean and before he set sail to Trinidad, Columbus landed in the District of Columbia. He asked where he could get a good half-smoke, and the people told him to go to Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street. There Columbus and his crew dined…
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Watch: Sundance Darling The Last Black Man in San Francisco Trailer Is a Must-See
Perhaps no other city in America is as synonymous with gentrification as San Francisco. In 1970, around 96,000 black people lived in the city—about 13 percent of the San Francisco’s total population, according to the Census (h/t Huffington Post). In that past 40 years, that percentage has been halved. Now, as real estate prices and the…
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Dear Writers, What Do You Have Saved in Your Drafts?
If you’re somebody who writes for a living or as a hobby or because it’s not that you won’t stop, it’s that you can’t stop, then there’s a really good chance you use some sort of publishing platform to share your thoughts with the world. Many of us started out on Blogspot or whatever came…
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Finding Martin Luther King Jr. In America's Streets
Martin Luther King Jr. is perhaps one of the most famous civil rights leaders in the United States. His name is synonymous with words like “nonviolence,” and “racial justice.” It’s easy to see Dr. King as a symbol for peace. Somewhere along the way, King’s name became the punch line of the quintessential Chris Rock…
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Sounds About White: Colonizer 'Artist' Gentrifies African Desert With Whitest Song Ever
One day in the not-too-distant future, when the nearest star to our galaxy suddenly collapses, a group of astrophysicists from around the globe will convene to discuss the theoretical physics of the interplanetary incident. One of these researchers, we shall call him Chadwick, will bravely step forward and propose a manned space flight to examine…
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Black Artists Unite to Revive Black Wall Street’s Legacy
At the turn of the 20th century, the thriving neighborhood of Greenwood, known as Black Wall Street, in Tulsa, Okla., was an epicenter of black wealth in the United States. From 1905 to 1921, it was a flourishing community filled with black families who owned businesses, homes, newspapers and churches. It was also the site…