Sheltering In Place & Gentrification: diminishing space for Black people before and during Covid-19

*first published here

During crises like this pandemic we are re-exposed to the deep inequities and exclusions faced by disenfranchised communities at all levels. On a normal day, those of us who are privileged can afford to disregard or overlook such trauma. But then there are moments where we are forced to reckon with the society we’ve created and all the lives that are continually eviscerated by lack of access. Two incidents occured that spurred this blog post, though they are not the first of their kind. One such incident was a man being dragged off of a public bus by the police in Philadelphia for not wearing a mask. The second was reading about a house party that recently took place on Chicago’s West Side violating the Sheltering In Place order. The house party was dispersed by police, apparently without any arrests or assualts. In addition to the statistics showing the disproportionate effects of Covid-19 on Black communities, both of these incidents expose the rupture between Blackness, space and political enforcement.

I agree there is a need for more targeted and culturally relevant education on Covid-19 that reaches Black communities. Though this is also about how Black people’s bodies / movements have been controlled and confined in public and private spaces by surveillance, mass incarceration, under developed dwellings, gentrification, lack of access to green spaces, etc. As cities gentrify and revitalize, it is often the Black residents who have been there who are displaced, not able to afford the newly developed areas. This is coupled with Black residents also made to feel unwelcome in public space. As a result of the history of residential segregation in the U.S., which has meant that regardless of socioeconomic status — most Black people live near other Black people, primarily Black neighborhoods and Black cities lack access to safe green spaces, high quality amenities, and efficient basic services. I’m not saying anything new here.

What this means for Black people, those of us who are not rich or celebrities, staying home is not always an option. And when we have to do it, it is not always a comfortable, safe space that has everything we need. From the cramped kitchenettes we read about in James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, to grandma’s house where every room is filled with a family member, to cultural and economic realities that necessitate living with family or in community. Working class and poor Black people have never really had public or private space that is comfortable. At home there is no clean water, in the neighborhood there is not enough fresh produce, on the streets they could be assaulted for not having the resources they are not given. As new grocery stores and fancy gyms move in, they can no longer afford to live where they have been so they are pushed out. And now, with the mandate to Shelter In Place, we act as if ‘staying home’ is created equal. Staying home was not created equal for Black communities before the pandemic, and it certainly is not now.

Diminishing space for Black people has been part of this country’s history since the first enslaved Africans were dragged onto boats and taken to these settler colonies. This extended into burning down Black towns and poisoning crops on Black farms during the period of Reconstruction. It morphed into separate and unequal in the Jim Crow South. It transitioned into re-zoning and putting freeways through neighborhoods in the 1960s as millions of Blacks migrated to the west, northeast, and midwest changing the demographics of urban areas. Even as all of these political and economic barriers were put in place to limit the spaces and places Black people could be, there was still more disenfranchisement to be designed by the state. In the 1970s the War on Drugs justified mass incarceration and made way for neoliberal policies that weakened labor unions. As a result, Black people had less opportunities for secure work and more opportunities to be confined in a cage. Not to mention throughout history Black bodies were brutalized and terrorized on the streets and in their homes. Black communities were tested on and left to die, denied adequate healthcare or well-funded public education. There is no space in this country to safely be Black if you do not have a safe comfortable home. There is no space for healthy catharsis or healing. There is no ‘home’ in a country where you are constantly disavowed because of how society treats Blackness.

So while people tell us “staying home saves lives,” we can understand that this has never been the case for Black people. When politicians talk about public health and public safety, we can assume they are not talking about Black people because this has never been guaranteed for us. When some Black people go to parties or walk the streets mask-less and unafraid, we know it’s because death is a daily threat in our lives. This virus does not pose an existential threat we are not already intimately familiar with. We talk about resources and access, but we need to also talk about healing and redistributing space. This crisis for some Black communities is just a continuation of the crises that is living Black in a colonial, racist world.

We have always had to make space for ourselves, even when given the most undesirable places to live. We have always had to take space, even when pushed out of the places our ancestors made. We have always had to be resilient during crises, and be creative when we don’t have what we need. The Corona virus is just another mirror being held up to this country and the world. Arundhati Roy recently wrote about the pandemic being a portal into the lives made even more miserable by class divisions. She talked about how in India the migrant workers who were forced to walk back to their villages as major cities were shut down knew about the virus, but were more worried about unemployment, police brutality, and not having enough food.

The photos of a crowded house party filled with young Black people and a mask-less man being dragged off of a bus by multiple police re-illuminates the brokenness of this society. If right-wing nationalism, climate change and capitalism — alone — have not convinced you then maybe this pandemic crisis will. This country (and all colonial countries) have interconnected space, identity and power so thoroughly that a simple mandate to Shelter In Place has shaken humanity. This has made us all judge and jury of other people’s movements and bodies. It has made some of us ugly… hegemony does that. This is also an opportunity to completely transform our society. To take back space. To redistribute privilege. To allow Black people to live. To give the house-less homes and the poor economic dignity.

I’m so tired of this shit, and writing about it. As we continue to talk about Sheltering In Place and the “new normal” this pandemic has caused, please have some perspective and nuance. For some this is not new, it’s part of the same lineage of spatial confinement and exclusion. We must do better or none of us will survive.