Friday Blogwrap

re: "gentrification," etc... some of ya'll might remember, or be interested in this--

www.villagevoice.com/news/9921,lobbia,6033,5.html

it wasn't an entirely new story then & it's certainly not now.

Maria, while I agree with your implication, those biases are hardly restricted to the issue of gentrification. To give a small example outside Mr B's main turf, how much have we read elsewhere about "luxury" Greenpoint, "hipster" Greenpoint, "dogshit" Greenpoint etc ad nauseum & how little is written about Latino Greenpoint... which might still be more numerous than all of those others combined? Some of those Mexican groceries do AMAZING cooking, for example, yet they get hardly any attention. To a certain extent that's good, because they aren't under any pressure to cater to an outside audience but it does present a distorted picture of what is really there.

Or, how about this: when was the last time you read about a "Spanish" bar or club in, say, Williamsburg, although some have existed for decades & new ones continue to open? We can extend this across the borough, across all sorts of ethnicities. (& heck, even Italian WB & Greenpoint aren't exactly overexposed.)

What's the answer? Raising your unique, voice, as you've done & hope others listen, & perhaps learn to see through their inherited cultural biases. See the constant complaining on Kensington blog for an example; they live in one of the best, most diverse food areas of BK & it's still not... Park Slope enough for some.) If worse comes to worse, you & others need to start your own papers, newsletters or websites that WILL be attentive to reality as we know it to be.

wwib

Posted by: who walk in brooklyn at August 3, 2007 5:07 PM