On The #TechTakeover in East Palo Alto, The Last Supper & Kendrick Lamar

Yesterday was Maundy Thursday.  It is a day that falls during Holy Week in the Christian tradition and according to scripture, is the day that commemorates The Last Supper of Christ.  In fact, as I thought about Maundy Thursday, Kendrick Lamar's "HUMBLE." video came to mind.  This is because there is a Last Supper scene.  And historically, this painting has been depicted as a table full of white men (eventhough Jesus Christ was of Jewish descent).  Lamar, however, reverses this traditional "all white" imagery and inserts black men at the table.  In fact, the rapper is sitting in the seat of Christ, clothed in a brightly colored hoodie.  In my opinion, Lamar is giving social commentary on the often overlooked divinity of black people, specifically black males, who are often targets of police harassment, brutality and murder.  As a table typically represents community and inclusion, I couldn't help but see that Lamar gives those that look like him and who are often left out (in depiction and representation), a seat at the table.  The song's refrain of:  "Be humble," made me wonder if heads of tech companies in the Bay Area will give the community of East Palo Alto (EPA) a seat at the table amidst the rapid gentrification spurred by the #TechTakeover, to share our stories, and to work to create a better community, region and world.

Photo: Google.com

On the other hand, I have sat in community meetings where people claim that gentrification itself is "too broad and complex" a topic to address in terms of actual grassroots community organizing.  While I agree that the topic is complex, I believe that it can still be dealt with.  This is because the current state of the world in which we live is calling upon us to think more broadly and creatively, especially during this Holy Week, about solving old and new social issues for the sake of our children and their  children.  We can either answer this call to re-structure OR resurrect society as we know it.  Or succumb to the tomb of a defeatist mentality.  Many of the questions I get in this line of work (and with utmost sincerity) are: "What should we do about gentrification? Should we just accept it or fight against it?"  I would add several other questions to the conversation, i.e. -- "Should there be ethics involved?  Where does gentrification end?  If people keep moving and moving, because of what is best for the gentry (root word of gentrification), then does it solve anything? Is there an alternative to gentrification?" 

After much meditation and continued discussions with community members over the years, I have come to the following conclusions:

1. Gentrification is not inevitable.  This is because the process of gentrification is not a force of nature; it is a human act, brought about by human agency.  Let's take East Palo Alto city council's recent decision (February 21, 2017) to have Amazon expand into it's city, for example.  Developer, John Sobrato and a lawyer from Amazon.com asked to sidestep the community's First-source Hiring Policy which demands that the company make a "good faith effort" to hire thirty percent of it's new employees from East Palo Alto.  Instead, Amazon proposed a $1M dollar offer, over ten years, and threatened to go to another town if the city council did not accept their offer, the same night it was proposed.  Keep in mind that Amazon as a corporation is worth nearly $70 billion dollars (https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2017/02/02/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-fortune-drops-2-8-billion-in-an-hour-after-mixed-amazon-earnings-report/#30aec2664545).   EPA's city council accepted the deal.  While the community was not given wind of this proposal nor the opportunity to possibly suggest a counter-offer, the critique is that these kinds of deals and/or decisions speed up the process of gentrification.  It is also important to note that some decisions more than others speed up the process of gentrification.  To that end, when gentrification begins gaining momentum, we can take a look back at (for instance) how city council voted AND the ultimatum that the developer (Sobrato) and the tenant (Amazon) recommended to city officials, in the first place.  This example proves that gentrification itself is not inevitable, and that it is in fact, (through key decisions and/or policies of power brokers) brought into play by human actions.

Photo: Meme created by EPA resident with the caption -- #SomeTechCompaniesBeLike

2. We have to address the negative impacts of gentrification in substantial ways and work to mitigate them or historic communities of color will cease to exist in the Bay Area.  Some of the negative impacts of gentrification include:

a. Jobs coming into the city, but current residents not having access to those jobs.  As a result, the economic divide has a high probability of staying the same.

[Please do not reproduce or distribute above image without author's permission]. © 2017 Kyra Brown 

b. There appears to be a wealth vacuum, where some have an open door to the wealth of Silicon Valley and others don't.  For example, Amazon will bring 1,300 jobs into the city of East Palo Alto (a city with a historically high rate of unemployment -- currently 9.9 percent, double that of the national average of 4.5 percent).  Yet there is no guarantee that the company will use current residents (especially of color) to fill those jobs.  Furthermore, Amazon being given a pass to not comply with the city's First-source Hiring Policy altogether, co-signs and further perpetuates income inequality. One would think that given the criticism the tech sector has faced for lack of diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area, Amazon would see this as a prime opportunity to act to lessen the digital divide by giving the people of East Palo Alto an opportunity to shift their income levels as to not stay low-income, forever.  Further still, there is an assumption from city council members and developers  alike that NO ONE in East Palo Alto is qualified to be an engineer OR that all 1,300 of the employees at Amazon's new site on University Avenue will be software engineers.  I'm calling bluff on both of those statements. While the company wants to hire a jobs liaison as part of the deal they made with city council, this liaison is not specifically committed to giving residents jobs at Amazon but offered to help them find jobs in other cities. This sends the message from tech companies that, "We want to be within your community, but not hire within your community" -- it's a digital double standard.

Photo: Cynthia Cruz protests with her daughter at a rally in EPA outside of Amazon's headquarters on March 30, 2017

While EPA community members did not have a say in the process due to a rushed decision, they were intentionally not allowed a seat at the table.  This creates a culture of mistrust between the local government officials and those who elected them.  Not to mention that there appears to be a culture of corporate bullying that the council and the corporation seem to be okay with.  This sends the message to our youth that bullying is not okay in schools, but it is acceptable in the professional and political spheres once you've become an adult. 

c. Another negative impact of gentrification as viewed through the lens of Silicon Valley's #TechTakeover is that members of gentrifying neighborhoods become victims of more intense policing.  This upswing in policing, due to the changing demographics of the neighborhood often results in racial profiling.  There are times when Menlo Park Police Department patrols in EPA and racially profiles residents OR they may do it when EPA folks are in the neighboring community of Belle Haven -- the location of Facebook's expanding  headquarters.  Two gentlemen I went to high school with can attest to being racially profiled.  One is mentioned in this newspaper article entitled, "Policing, Race and Community" (https://www.almanacnews.com/print/story/2017/02/22/policing-race-and-community) and the other filed a recent lawsuit against Menlo Park Police Department for the same reason (http://hiruyamanuel.net/lawsuit-alleges-harassment-menlo-park-police/).  Also, retired black California Superior court judge, LaDoris Cordell shares her perspective on the topic (https://www.almanacnews.com/print/story/2017/03/08/guest-opinion-black-mens-encounters-with-police-suggest-need-for-civilian-oversight-of-department).  While Facebook funded a police substation in Menlo Park a few years ago (2014), they are also considering offering additional funding ($9.1M), to hire more police officers.  But this decision rests with the city council.  My fear, is that the Menlo Park city council will not take the link between gentrification and criminalization, seriously.  Another fear is should they accept this offer, it sends the message that Facebook as a corporation is sponsoring racial profiling (by paying for additional cops in a department that has already been exposed for its unjust behavior).

Photo: Flyer created by EPA resident for March 30, 2017 vigil to protest the #TechTakeover, Gentrification and Criminalization 

3. We are not asking one entity to fix the problem but asking that entities involved think about the role they choose to play and whether or not it involves a collective strategy to preserve this community and a commitment to the redistribution of wealth. 

In my opinion, realizing that gentrification is complex but not inevitable, working to prevent gentrification via grassroots community organizing, AND realizing that we must address the negative impacts of gentrification in substantial ways so that communities of color do not disappear from the Bay Area are critical pieces of this discussion.  One idea of fixing the problem may come in the form of community benefits agreements, for example.  This is one solution and I am certain there are others.

We, the sons and daughters of EPA are not asking one entity to fix the problem OR as the media would like to allude -- the city of EPA is NOT looking for handouts (at least this is the case for the younger generation of emerging leaders).  Observers point to and recount the millions of dollars that have been poured into the local economy over the years to "solve" the problem.   But it seems that our critics fail to realize that there are multiple parties involved (i.e. community members, developers, corporations,  city government officials, non-profit leaders, and community coalitions), which adds to the complexity of the issue and the carrying out of a solution.  Each of these groups have interests and constituents.  Whatever the case, each player needs to examine what role they want to play in the city as it pertains to gentrification.  Either they will help it come faster, slow it down, end it altogether, or avoid addressing it all.   

Maybe displacement is a price that folks are willing to pay for the extinction of a historic community of color as we know it.  Especially if it means tech companies are located in our neighborhoods. Maybe community liaison after community liaison is a worthy trade during the process of gentrification while the unemployment rate in EPA has yet to shift.  Time will tell.  I agree that it seems that corporations/funders have been giving money to East Palo Alto for decades and yet, we still are facing some of the same problems.  But perhaps it is time to look at new and creative ways of solving issues where the primary action is not knee-jerk monetary donations.  It seems that sometimes, money gets lost in the shuffle.  While money is needed, I ask, "What other solutions can we can bring to the table in terms of strategies for the redistribution of wealth for a class of people in a city OR for the upward mobility of a historically oppressed community?"  How do we think more broadly and creatively -- meaning, not focus solely on minimal monetary donations, or the day-to-day function of the nonprofit to keep its doors open for mere survival, without regard to the survival of the city or the people in it?  But what does it look like for the people, organizations and government of EPA to thrive?

Tech companies must Be HUMBLE (have humility) in the way that they tell the story of gentrification and the #TechTakover in East Palo Alto and Belle Haven/Eastern Menlo Park. (For more information, see my previous blog post about how Facebook placed itself at the center of the narrative as opposed to the members of the community -- http://writetoliveblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/east-palo-alto-received-20m-for.html ).  Other incoming developers such as Sobrato and tech companies such as Amazon must admit that they have the money but not the answers to addressing some of this long-standing social injustice that shows up as income inequality in the Bay Area.  Be HUMBLE.  And the corporations must see that community members must be offered a seat at the table.  This is because they that are similar to those in scripture who are called "the least of these (Matthew 25:40)," not just the dignitaries, have something to say about the problem.  This is because they are the most affected by it.  In the words of Kendrick Lamar,  Be HUMBLE.  This is where real and transformative work can happen.  Selah.

#HousingCrisis #California #SiliconValley #EastPaloAlto #Gentrification #Amazon #Facebook #TheLastSupper #TechTakeover #KendrickLamar