'Blindspotting': What gentrification can teach us

Photo: Google.com 

“Gentrification is no big deal.”  More often than not, when the topic arises, this is the response I hear from people (white and non-white) who move into urban neighborhoods and gentrify them.  This past summer, when I’d heard that there was a movie about the gentrification of Oakland (Blindspotting), I just about jumped out of my skin.  Since this controversial topic had made it into mainstream theaters, it meant this view that gentrification was somehow insignificant, wasn’t quite true.  While I’m from East Palo Alto (EPA), California, I identified with the gentrification of Oakland, a city much larger in mass than my own, but similar in its demographic make-up, its history of marginalization and its fight to not be overshadowed by big tech companies such as Uber (in Oakland) or Amazon (in EPA).  

At one point in its history, EPA was a predominantly black town, whose movement to incorporate, gained momentum in the 1960’s and culminated in 1983.  This summer, while doing my family tree, I learned that my maternal grandparents met at Ravenswood High School and my grandfather, Andrew Lane, was the first of three black families to move into EPA.  This means that my family’s roots to this city predate the incorporation movement.  While I kept this information to myself during conversations, many people (both white and non-white, recent gentrifiers and long-time residents alike) assured me: that (1) “gentrification was inevitable”; that (2) the process of gentrification “wasn't that bad”; and/or that (3) the gentrifying of my community was the fault of black “homeowners for selling their homes.”  While I wondered if there was some merit to the third statement, these answers seemed unsatisfactory. 

This is because they were each predicated on a social problem (gentrification) which had no point of origin, no ill-effects and/or a baseline assumption that all black people in EPA who sold their homes (in the early 2000s) and moved out of the city, did so voluntarily, (and certainly not due to other factors such as direct discrimination via predatory lending).  To put it another way, the answers seemed unsatisfactory because they failed to identify the causes of gentrification, in a city where its effects were noticeable.  For example, there were Tesla charging stations located across the parking lot from where Ravenswood High School once stood.  For me, people’s sentiments about the gentrification of East Palo Alto, only brought about more questions.  For example: What does it mean for entire ethnic groups to be displaced or pushed out of cities which they helped to build?  What does it mean when privileged groups within our rapidly gentrifying communities become dismissive of the difficulties of the most vulnerable groups within the equation—or are we only interested in embracing topics which bring us ease?  My hope is that we, as a changing community, are interested in addressing the harms that gentrification can cause and not just uplifting how some aspect of a new development project within our city might bring us some form of happiness. 

For this reason, I strayed away from the fallacies that tended to surface when discussing this topic. I moved from the fallacies to the evidence.  And based on the evidence, it seems that in the Bay Area, shrinking historically black communities (namely, EPA, Oakland and San Francisco) are the price we pay for expanding technological  advancement.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.  Not only this, it is also my position that if rapid gentrification is  impacting the black community in EPA, its only a matter of time before it starts displacing the Latinx and Pacific Islander communities as well.  Just recently, I'd read about the eviction of a long-time Pacific Islander family from EPA (http://extras.mercurynews.com/housingsaga/), who I protested on behalf of, just two years earlier!  Moreover, this pattern of displacement isn’t just happening in California, it’s happening all over the United States. 

Photo: Courtesy of Eileen Fuentes, NYC

Simply stated, I was looking for a conversation which did not make people gentrifying the city saints who were deserving and people being displaced from the city sinners who were undeserving.  The conversation is more nuanced than that.  I was looking for balance. And struggling to find it.  Since I’ve mentioned a church metaphor, let me just say that if you’re reading this post, and you’re a newer resident in an urban community who has called the police on a Sunday morning, because the worship music was too loud at the church down the block (https://mic.com/articles/126871/a-black-church-in-gentrifying-oakland-faces-a-3-529-fine-for-being-too-loud#.XBDAZxGJw), sorry to break it to you, but you might be a gentrifier.

With all of my questions, I was sure that there was another way to approach discussing gentrification.  And for me, Blindspotting offered some guidance.  What we, in my experience, are missing in the conversation around gentrification, is the unapologetic way in which we create a space for tension which allows people to wrestle with what is happening to their communities.  Only then can we find ways to engage in meaningful conversations which point us toward more equitable solutions.  But dismissing the experiences of those most negatively impacted by the expansion of big tech and their subsequent displacement, won't do it for us. 

In an era where there’s no shortage of political divisions which further separate the haves and the have nots, I submit that we can think of different ways to run our communities which don’t demonstrate a “Make the Neighborhood [insert name of gentrifying neighborhood] Great Again” mantra.  This mantra/mindset assumes that nothing which exists in the neighborhood pre-gentrification, make it great (this includes the people).  And that the only way to measure greatness or progress within a city is by how many white people OR upper class people have moved into the community.  Also, if you're a long-time resident and decide to set up shop on the sidewalk and sell water to a white jogger you see running through your neighborhood, and #PermitPatty reports you to the police for not having the proper paperwork, (https://abc7news.com/society/video-woman-calling-cops-on-8-year-old-for-selling-water-near-at-t-park-goes-viral/3648576/) you might want to switch to a lemonade stand.  Apparently, lemonade is less of a threatening drink than water, and selling it won’t result in your  eventual displacement from the neighborhood.  

Blindspotting is prophetic, in that it shows us what can boil over, if we keep sweeping the topic of gentrification under the rug.  If we aren’t able to discuss the tension in community, in real time, with real people (those threatened with displacement and those new to the neighborhood), where else can we do it? Where do we go to discuss these matters? Where do we sit with the tension? 

Oakland is the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and WIC programs.  EPA is the home of Nairobi Day School and College and a community having been redlined into existence, yet seeking to govern itself so much so that the case went to the Supreme Court (file:///Users/kyra/Downloads/Stanford_Daily_19830624_0001.pdf).  Yet many of the children of these generations are being pushed out of town. This is not to say that communities should only have low-income people who reside in them.  However, it is to say that both cities (Oakland and EPA) are home to marginalized groups within our society, and as these cities grow, we cannot forget this fact.  If we do, shame on us.  The movie Blindspotting, in addition to challenging us to sit with the tension of what gentrification means to us individually, I offer that it also urges us to pull up our chairs, close down our computers, and figure out what we are going to do about it, collectively.

#BlindspottingMovie #BayAreaBlindspotting #Amazon #Uber #Oakland #EastPaloAlto #Gentrification