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Activists Discuss Responses to Gentrification
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 9, 2007
More than 75 students convened Thursday night in Hamilton Hall to hear activists from across the city condemn the effects of gentrification on communities of color.
At a panel organized by the United Students of Color Council, representatives from the neighborhoods affected by Columbia’s planned expansion and four grassroots organizations described the their struggles to combat gentrification-related changes they have seen in their communities. Rather than focusing on Columbia’s actions, each participant spoke of the challenges faced by his or her own group.
“My neighborhood used to be a beautiful neighborhood,” said Eric Pugh, an intern organizer for the Brooklyn-based Families United for Racial and Economic Equality. “And the things I would see just going outside—it went from being beautiful to being crippled, and by that I mean that everything has been taken.”
Chinatown’s Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence member Esther Wang and East Harlem’s El Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio member Oscar Dominguez described helping tenants organize against unfair living conditions. “It’s landlords taking advantage of the fact that their tenants don’t speak English or don’t have the kind of advice and support they’d need to fight their evictions,” Wang said.
The Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment, an advocacy group for LGBT youth, worried that development plans and police harassment could damage their community’s ability to socialize on the West Village’s Piers 40 and 45 without fear of bias. “They’ll put a little monument: ‘Christopher Street, where gay people used to be,’” Javier Hernandez said. “We don’t want that.”
Dr. Vicky Gholson, a Harlem resident and member of Community Board 9, spoke for those who oppose the Manhattanville expansion. She advocated student awareness and involvement in the community. “If you zone out for the last four years before you have to go to the plantation—oh, excuse me,” she said, “you might find yourself zoning out for life.”
Gholson and others also praised the five students who began a hunger strike on Wednesday, listing the withdrawal of Columbia’s current expansion plan as one of their goals. “It’s honorable,” Gholson said. “It takes courage. It’s not only a demonstration of their politics, but it’s a demonstration that they stand for what they talk about.” Several of the strikers attended the panel.
“This doesn’t mean you have to be anti-higher ed,” Gholson said at the close of her remarks. “This doesn’t mean you have to be antiwhite. But you do have to be very focused as a student on your responsibility to your family and the community in which you live.”
Mary Kohlmann can be reached at news@columbiaspectator.com.
Using the word "gentrification" in a negative way to describe the positive reinvestment occurring in neighborhoods when it is not a negative is what is abysmal. Swaths of poverty are not a normal desirable scenario in a healthy city but the unfortunate cancer caused by the social unrest and racism of the 1960s and the ensuing flight of capital that occurred. I am quite tired of lazy editors allowing journalists to use that word with all of it's negative baggage in every story highlighting genuine normalization in communities. Mixed income communities are desirable and normal. While those who were left behind, simply because they could not get out, must be protected with adequate affordable housing and social services it is not in the best interest of anyone to live in a poverty stricken crime ridden community. All in all what is abysmal and abnormal is Socio-Economic stratification based on class and race. I want a country where we all encounter each other, no matter our race or socio-economic status, on a daily basis and not just in the Center City or at work but together in our neighborhoods. I desire streets where everyone is free to walk. I desire a color blind society. I desire, like everyone else, cities where Muslims worship next to Christians and Catholics embrace Protestants and the beggars give up begging for meaningful work. Without mixed income neighborhoods spreading along with a normalization of diverse Americans living side by side that will never occur. Gentrification is not a negative word.
"While those who were left behind, simply because they could not get out, must be protected with adequate affordable housing and social services"
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YOU pay for it. I'm tired of seeing my paycheck raped for the sake of do-nothings. Set up your own goddamn charity and quit pointing a gun to my head forcing me to hand over money that I've earned. If you want a socialist utopia go ahead and knock yourself out, just quit trying to force others to buy into it.
PS- beggars will never stop begging because people like you coddle and enable them to live that lifestyle.
This gentrification convention that was held is apparenly racist against Whites. So we aren't invited to the party? Do you think gentrification doesn't affect White folks?
This meaningful event seems to be an anti-white invititation to exclude white people.
To respond to the person right below me, see...what you have to understand is that anytime whites have a grievance, even if its backed up with facts and logic, we are always shouted down as racists without having our points considered. This is especially true in the current ILLEGAL immigration debate.
So what we're going to do from now on is just not listen to anything you liberals and minorities have to say and instead just shout you down as being racist against whites. That way you can full well know what it's like to bang your head against a brick wall. Deal? Good.
The people commenting above (and commenting below in the near future, I'm sure) are glibly ignoring the systemic power dynamics that are in play here. People aren't complaining about whites moving into people of color neighborhoods because they just don't like white people. People are complaining because gentrification means that people - often poor folks, often people of color - are forced out of their homes and neighborhoods. Rents skyrocket, landlords harass and abuse tenants to get them to leave so that they can raise rents or sell condos, services and stores that provide essentials for the community either go away, boost their prices, or begin targeting an entirely different (richer, whiter) clientele. We're not talking about people just coming in and changing a neighborhood in a benign, non-destructive way; we're talking about people who are the victims of racism and classism being pushed out of their homes. Why are folks so insistent on ignoring the role that systemic power plays here?
Why are you so insistent on ignoring the laws of free market capitalism? These people arent victims at all. They are free to move from the area where they can afford rent. I had to do the very same thing last year. Rent in Atlanta had gotten beyond my means, so I instead purchased a home in an outlying suburb. It turned out to be a better move for me anyways.
Oh and it isnt "their homes" they are RENTING. If they cant afford it anymore, they are free to RENT ELSEWHERE. Stop sniveling for chrissake, its embarrassing.
Yeah, I hate those asshole landlords who will FORCE ME OUT of my apartment if I don't pay the rent.
I'm also pissed at Donald Trump, who FORCED me to live in a different neighborhood just because I didn't have $30k/month to get the penthouse in one of his new rental buildings on Riverside.
And, most of all, I'm pissed at YOU, above commenting person - because you have FORCED me to eat on campus by refusing to pay the extra cost that would be incurred by my going to Nobu for every meal.
We live in a market economy where prices (and rent, unless rent-controlled) are the result of supply and demand. What do the anti-gentrification protestors propose as an alternative? Not allowing building owners to charge market rate? Propose a concrete solution so it can be discussed rationally, rather than just saying that Columbia should not be allowed to develop in Manhattanville because it will raise rents in surrounding areas.
"This doesn’t mean you have to be antiwhite"
Gosh, thanks - good to know that one doesn't HAVE to be anti-white.
I'd like to see someone go on hunger strike against the *real* racism on campus, which is the anti-gentrification (i.e. the 'Keep Whitey in his place') movement.
Yep...dont HAVE to be..but it helps!
Always remember:
Minorities moving into an area and changing it=diversity and multiculturalism, it is to be praised and worshipped and if you speak out against it you are evil and racist.
Whites moving into an area and changing it=Gentrification. It is evil and wrong and it is to be protested against and if you speak out against it you are a hero and community activist.
Just want everyone to be on the same page here.
When minorities move into an area and "diversify" the Whites move out because they don't want to live in a diversified neighborhood. Or they set up Howard Beach.
Whites move into Harlem etc and an old man that has owned his home for over 40 years has to sell because 8 Columbia students will rent the whole house and never even ask who lived there before.
Paranoid delusions of 80% of the residents being displaced? or just the good old American way being played out?
Business as usual.
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