Crown Heights: Real Estate, Not Riots

I try to stay off other people’s blogs. Not good for my hyper-tension. But this conversation reminds me of something that I’ve come to understand from my catbird seat down on Clarkson, sitting on the community board, attending tons of meetings, listening to my neighbors, restarting the block association. Stuff I never thought in a million years I’d ever do. But I’ve come to love Lefferts, all of District 9, hell the whole borough. How can you not? It’s brilliant, even when its breathtakingly cruel.

Roll with me for just one minute. I used to argue with people about abortion rights. Got me nowhere. Until I made up my mind that there were perfectly logical arguments on both sides. But it’s not a logical subject. It’s deeply philosophical, political, human, feminist, religious, maybe even spiritual if you’re prone to that sort of thing.

Same with gentrification, in my view. It hits hard because it evokes images that we try desperately hard to wish away. The whole last few years have been an awakening for me on race. Yeah, I’m white, but I’m human too. This moment in time is hard because we are witnessing a great story in American blackness disappear before our eyes. You can make logical arguments about why it’s happening, but you can’t WIN your argument, because the whole situation is part of a legacy of racism which is much bigger than the back and forth about land prices. The whole gig has been rigged for so long that OF COURSE the whites are going to get the last dance on the card. Individual homes can change hands; land ownership is sacrosanct in our culture. Everybody gets to make a buck with what they own. That’s the system. But when black families have roughly 1/10 of the net worth of white families, who’s going to win?

It’s kind of like the Harlem Globetrotters vs. Washington Generals. Every once in awhile, against all odds, the Generals win. But the underlying assets of the Globetrotters assure that they will always come out on top. And they do everything they can to STAY on top. Who wants to give up their “edge?”

Until we have economic parity in this country, situations like Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy will continue to feel like colonialism. If you don’t FEEL it that way, then you have never been connected to the neighborhood the way some have. And no logical argument is going to change the deep sadness felt by MM and thousands of others, as one of the few truly free, economically diverse black neighborhoods in the Western World becomes wealthier and whiter. Just admit you don’t get it, and stop trying to win. In a certain sense, you already have.