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Progressives Just Don’t Wanna Have Fun
Today’s sage advice from the progressive left: it’s a given that you should eat organic and locally grown food, but if you’re out at a trendy restaurant serving this kind of food, you should also consider the morality of the business’s practices. Namely, are they paying their servers a fair wage? Are they paying a rent that is respectful of the community (i.e. did they force out another tenant that could not pay such a high rent)? Are they contributing to gentrification?
Per this essay posted a few days ago at everydayfeminism.com:
We know gentrification is racist and classist, that it hurts marginalized people and destroys communities. We know that it fits into a larger cultural reality in which people with more social, political, and economic power have more control over space. We know it fosters discrimination and cultural appropriation. We see the connections…
Gentrification is not merely a natural shift in the demographics and business landscape of an area, but a collection of systematic changes to maximize profit, serving a higher class of people while alienating the middle class and pushing out lower income individuals and families.
Never mind that gentrification makes cities cleaner, safer, and provides inhabitants with better access to higher paying jobs. But at least the writer is aware that gentrification is the result of the free-market and no one is intentionally marginalizing the poorer citizen of the community.
I just got here! I didn’t make this building or set this rent! I work hard at my job! I took the apartment I could afford! I’ve been dreaming of opening this restaurant my whole life! I charge six dollars for gluten-free donuts because people pay it!
Yes, you’re right. You’re not single-handedly responsible for all the problems in your city, and if you’re not a speculator or a landlord or a millionaire, you’re probably also limited by gentrification in some way. But your actions have consequences, and they don’t exist outside of the larger social context.
So, when you’re sitting on the balcony of your new high-rise flat eating your six-dollar vegan donut, watching the community below you crumble, you must ask yourself: Do I have a part in this? How do my actions affect this community? Is there something I can do with my power, privilege, and —ahem— money?
Without further ado, the nine ways privileged people can prevent this awful, racist thing called gentrification:
- Acknowledge your privilege
- Respect the history of your neighborhood
- Listen to the voices of your neighbors
- Understand That Residents Have Feelings About Their Changing Neighborhood
- Make Socially Conscious Purchase Decisions
- Invest in Community-Focused, Community-Run Organizations
- Question Exclusionary Tactics Claiming to Be About ‘Safety’ (Because this isn’t about the safety of everyone)
- Advocate for Yourself and Others
- Vote
And lastly, my own addition:
10. Get a grip! Progress is about CHANGE! Could you imagine if Johannes Gutenberg had not invented the printing press because he didn’t want to marginalize the poor monks who made a living handwriting bibles? Or if President Lincoln had not abolished slavery because he wanted to respect the history of the slave community?
Now go enjoy* that six-dollar vegan donut!
*If you can, personally I think they taste like cardboard
Published in General
Decisions have consequences. To think people are rich because they are robbing the poor is Marxist. No one thinks a good baseball player is robbing a poor baseball player. It seems when it comes to sports recently that there is a lot of “Black” privilege. I think there should be affirmative action in the NFL for Chinese and Indian players. Maybe if we could give them a few seconds on the 100 yard dash. It is just an idea. How about women linebackers? Feminists should love taking some hits when they are facing there equals across the line.
Feeling a little snarky.
It’s my theory that leftist food stuffs are the new self-flagellation.
If you want to honor your “urban neighborhood” then put in a BBQ joint. Kind of hard to make vegan pulled pork though…
Those darn rich people. Imagine the nerve of moving into a shabby neighborhood and making it less slum-like. I love the part about paying a rent that is “respectful”. What does the essayist think happens?
Landlord: I can let you rent this storefront for $3000 a month.
Prospective renter: Make it $5000 and we’ve got a deal.
Landlord: What? You want to pay more? What for?
Prospective renter: When I pay well above market price it just makes me happy. I feel like I’m slapping poor people in the face when I do it.
Landlord: Well, it’s pretty disrespectful but I guess I’ll take it.
Off topic.
I need some writers for the November writing series. The theme is “Surprises”. There are 10 dates left open so please help out.
So, turning crappy dangerous neighborhoods into nice safe neighborhoods is bad? Cause Bed-Stuy was nicer in the70’s?
I can’t find the post now, but awhile back there was some to do about a Trader Joe’s moving into an abandon building in a strip mall. Again, despite the fact that this would provide jobs to the local community and attract more and wealthier customers to the shopping area, the city (I want to say it was Portland) tried to refuse Trader Joe’s because of .. you know .. gentrification
It’s almost like they want to keep black people in poverty.
It wasn’t nicer, but it was authentic. I was also really amused by the essayist’s insistence that while security guards at stores might protect the customers, it might actually increase crime in the neighborhood.
You blame the slums on the rich people and blame the upgrade on the rich people. The poor get to play the victim card. The rich only care about money where as the poor never think about money or class. Wait. Oh, never mind. Can we talk about something important now like NFL mascots?
I look straight into the heart of the Mission District in SF (which is currently ground zero for both the hipster movement and gentrification) from my apartment, so this issue is near to my heart.
When it comes to the gentrification issue, young trendy urbanites have built a zero-sum game that has no solution:
– they want to move somewhere with the atmosphere of an exciting, new, yet also “genuine” culture. But for the average recent college grad from suburbia, that type of culture is to be found in neighborhoods traditionally populated by much different (and also less wealthy) people (as in the Mission District’s working-class Hispanic roots).
– they also want their neighborhood to look “authentic,” and not be overbuilt with modern apartment complexes to handle the influx of new popularity. In other words, no new housing units.
– yet, they themselves want to live there. It doesn’t take a Google engineer to know that if the young transplant wants to move in, someone else will have to move out. And that someone will most likely be of fewer means than them (or, more accurately, their parents).
There is one aspect I think we on our side shy away from: the fact that displacing people from their homes can be generally beneficial, yet is still often devastating for the people actually displaced.
I know the notion that resources should go to the highest payer is not controversial anywhere on the right. But we often portray the situation as a win-win for both sides. However, in the case of gentrification, the people actually displaced often don’t gain much (at least not in the near future) from the transaction: since they don’t own the property, they are just evicted and forced to reestablish themselves in a distant suburb.
I don’t advocate strong tenants’ rights laws; I just think it’s worth occasionally reminding ourselves that the “destruction” side of creative destruction often does have uncomfortable and uncontrollable effects on those least able to cope.
And authentic never means the beautiful neighborhood it was 100 years ago, it only means the slum it was 25 years ago. Do I have that right?
Actually, I think that sentiment is understandable.
22-year-olds want excitement. And that has always been the case.
There is most certainly more excitement living in a neighborhood that was until recently very “gritty” compared to a stable bourgeoisie district. There’s a reason hip hop appeals to so many more white kids than classical or country. Young people want a feeling of “real life” that can often only be found where there is a real chunk of danger and/or suffering.
The problem is that most of these young transplants only want a Goldilocks-sized dose of their grittiness. Hearing distant sirens every night gives the suburban bumpkin “street cred,” but having someone break into your apartment while you’re asleep goes too far. So these yuppies move into the former slums, but only into recently-renovated house with thick doors, steel bars and all-white tenants.
On the topic of SF, property and the crazy: congratulations to the Pacific Legal Foundation for their win in making SF slightly less insane.
Every now and again the good guys win one.
A good point, but there’s a world of difference between reminding ourselves of the effects on those least able to cope and screaming “racism” and “(white) privilege” as this writer has done.
But I wonder, what actually could be done to lessen the blow of gentrification other than stall the progress and redevelopment of urban areas?
Kind of like if Disney opened up Slum World. A place where you can walk down to the windowless drinking hole at the end of the day, pull up a stool next to one of your blue-collar neighbors and say to the bartender, “I’ll have Blue Whale with a lime twist, please.”
Your absurd scenario is a reality every day here in San Francisco. There are hordes of young, fairly affluent people who flock to “dive” bars instead of the newer, more modern and slick nightlife spots.
Of course, most of these young hipsters seem to miss the irony that the whole reason their dive bars have such a “genuine” atmosphere is because up until now they weren’t populated by people like themselves.
It was indeed my home town of Portland. Oh, also, they are still trying to figure out what to put in that lot because Trader Joe’s decided to give up and go where they were wanted.
Thanks for writing about this, Kay.
I mean, who doesn’t love a snarky sock?
They want to live in DisneyWorld. Everything looks authentic and genuine, but none of it is. (Sorry, Vance, I shoulda finished reading all the comments instead of jumping the gun.)
Well if it helps the Lefties and their consciences, they can think of ‘Re gentrification’ as analogous to ‘Right of Return’ of white people that were driven out of the cities.
We can watch them torture themselves with the need to be “urban, tolerant and cool” while at the same time “safe/gunfire free, gluten-free with locally sourced organic fare” – the allusion to the Palestinians/Right of Return is gravy.
OK, it’s a six dollar organic vegan donut, but is it a conflict-free, fair trade, six dollar organic vegan donut produced with 100% renewable energy?
(There might be something here. There is a chance that we can talk these pea-wits into starving themselves to death.)
They really mean it when they say their donuts are guilt-free.
Urban renewal, of course. A couple of big blockhouse apartment complexes will fix that area right up.
The real objection to gentrification is that it isn’t the government doing it.
Cultural appropriation is a serious business.
Imagine a world in which some people liked how other people did stuff, and then… just started doing it too.
Who could sleep at night living amongst such monsters?
At the very least we should demand that the cultural appropriators file a formal request for a license with the relevant authority.
As far as hanging out in “authentic” bars goes, they should be cautious that they don’t absorb so much “authenticity” that medical care is subsequently required.
Note to self. Cancel plans to buy property in People’s Republic of San Francisco.
It must be so difficult to navigate the complicated world of the hipster progressive.
Dilemma: Don’t move into a bad neighborhood because that gentrifies it. Don’t move into a nice neighborhood because that would be inauthentic.
Solution: Live with your parents.
It’s time we started using Alinskyite tactics against the left by shaming every leftist aligned institution into doubling down on this stuff.
E.g. Give out Diversity Stars, like Energy Stars, for enterprises, including public utilities whose management and shareholders reflect the correct diversity mix du jour. Liberals who patronize businesses with less than 4/5 stars to be publicly named and shamed. Make their lives more miserable, force them to practise what they preach.
If you’re young and seeking excitement, gritty neighborhoods, and a real chunk of danger and/or suffering, I have the perfect prescription: join the army.