With a few daylight hours and just enough sunshine to pretend it was spring, I rode my bike through my neighborhood of BedStuy. I biked aimlessly all the way to Flatbush Avenue and back.

The streets go in alternate directions. Nostrand is a fucking wreck of construction but Bedford, one block up, has brand new smooth bike lanes to match the sparkly new shops. On the sidewalks there was either snow and trash melting together or those cute chalkboards in front of cafes with cute people looking very cosmopolitan in the windows. I came to the crossroads that gentrification in BedStuy is like a bike ride on a sunny day in February:

• white women walking on the same side of the street as project buildings
• project buildings right across from single family condos
• white fathers pushing their strollers past loitering black guys

These things draw me in because they signal that something is changing under the surface. What’s so different about fathers and strollers? Women strolling?

Gentrification is a slow drip.

What I saw was the front line of the new frontier. The ‘Scouts’ who come looking for that new experience. They often seem out of place but keep squeezing into the role for the sake of illusions. Innocent enough. We’re all human, looking for places to belong. Yup.

The difference is who can afford to belong. Inequality means we all can’t afford $4.00 +tax, for 16oz of cold brewed, fair trade coffee. Those with the luxury take advantage (including cheap students who've learned how to budget). Soon ‘demand’ by all us gentry drives up the prices of even everyday items.

The bottom lines is top of the line appliances. It’s boarded up buildings and it’s ignoring the possibilities of rebuilding value in the community. Many argue for the profit potential of something ‘better’ instead. We ignore that value and profit are subject to change based on assumptions of what’s ‘worth it’.

I took the above at Saraghina, a great spot in BedStuy and example of the service economy that springs up around the gentry. Who doesn't love these low-key places with cheap prices and yummy food? Why is the line drawn between me; a young, low-income, queer, woman of color and a white middle class family at breakfast across from me?

The difference is not just phenotypical or prix fixe, its in the physical protection.

White bodies move in: Black, women’s, trans, poor, youth, POC, immigrant, bodies are displaced. This happens succinctly. White people can gentrify with certain knowledge that a way has been paved for them to be there, and be completely comfortable. They begin to take up more space in coffee shops, on sidewalks, in community board meetings.

White bodies (rich or not) will be allowed to thrive and encouraged to succeed. Bodies of color are used as the scapegoat for structural deterioration. When some bodies insinuate value and others do not, it becomes racial. Gentrification is the violence in subtlety.

Each summer the neighborhood comes back alive with festivals, fairs, and block parties. People remark that the streets are a little cleaner, brighter, ‘safer’. They forget those sunny days in February. And the Gentry gets credit for what already existed.

*cross posted at writetheworldfree.wordpress.com