Calm Down. Get Back. Ghetto People. Got This.

I was born on the Lower East Side in nineteen-seventy-blah blah blah. Coffee and cupcake shops would not have lasted a day in that version of the Lower East Side, not that anyone would have wanted to open a shop there in the 1970s or 80s.

By the mid 1980s my mother moved us to Brooklyn; the building we lived in on the Lower East Side was sold and our rent tripled. I’ve also lived in Sunset Park, Flatbush, Bed Stuy, and, as “luck” would have it, I’m back on the Lower East Side. Whether it was before, after, or during my stay in any one place, my relationship with gentrification is an intimate one.

There’s not much I can say about gentrification that hasn’t been said before by smarter, more qualified people than me, but, as it is a subject about which I am extremely passionate, I am happy to have this space.

These my thoughts, man. Just my thoughts.

A pretty constant defense of gentrification is the “renewal” of the neighborhood. It’s a livable community now whereas before it was a wasteland of drugs, gang activity and violence. Gentrification defenders think every hood before the arrival of out-of-town white folks looked like Hamsterdam.

Neighborhoods that get gentrified are primarily populated by people of color. As a New Yorker I can only speak on what happens in my city; Black and Latino neighborhoods are the first to go. First comes the out-of-towners, then comes the rent increases, then comes the organic grocery store, then comes the renaming (SoBro anyone?). It would be intellectually dishonest to say that our neighborhoods haven’t been plagued with poverty, violence and drugs. It would also be a straight up lie to act as though those things are not direct results of white supremacy, racist political and police policies, and the American as apple pie history of colonialism and genocide.

That’s not what this is about though. Like I said, those better than me have discussed it better than I ever could.

I’m interested in celebrating us. The members of these communities (often non-white, but not always) who are pushed to the fringes when out-of-towners (often white, but not always) “discover” our “hidden urban gems.” Our neighborhoods, in response to racial and political violence and deprivation have responded by snatchin’ dishes out your kitchen because when the stomach start growlin’ and the sneaks start leanin’…sometimes it simply doesn’t seem like there’s another way.

That’s an undeniable reality, but so is the community that we built. There’s a reason that people of color, particularly Black and Latino people, have “play cousins.” It’s because we build our families and we build our communities. Sometimes through DNA and sometimes through daps.

It didn’t take gentrifiers (which is just an updated word for colonizers) to settle in and create our communities. Our communities were already built through dancing in open fire hydrants, the piragua man, the 24 hour bodega, and Puerto Rican flags flown off the sides of buildings and fire escapes.

Fighting gentrification feels like a losing battle, and, from my view, it might be.

But I want to acknowledge and honor us by reminding them that their coffee and cupcake shops are nice frills, but we built this. In spite of all the shit our communities have endured at our hands and the hands of outsiders, it’s our flavors in the food. Our art on the walls. Our voices on the songs. And that deserves not just acknowledgement, but respect.

So when you see us playing dominos on the corners or having “who’s the greatest rapper alive” debates on our stoops, move around. You may live here, and you may even push us out, but don’t ever think that you’re saving us from ourselves.

Calm down.

Get back.

Ghetto people.

Got this.