I highly recommend this short video interview with Layla Saad on performative allyship.
https://jezebel.com/even-good-allies-are-probably-complicit-layla-saad-on-1841812239
She brings to light something I’ve been guilty of in the past: people of privilege posting on social media in support of social/racial justice causes; less out of sincere support for the real work and change these causes need, and more out of a need to be recognized, rewarded, and validated as an ally. Saad calls this “performative wokeness” or “optical allyship.”
REAL allyship, real antiracism work as Saad points out, “requires taking a deep dive first and uncovering how you perpetuate white supremacy and creating change from within.”
I like the contrast Saad draws between the uncomfortable internal work of dismantling our defense mechanisms, our ego, and our biases with the less useful, superficial, “look-at-me-ism” that categorizes so many public displays of solidarity.
And this brings me to the uncomfortable issue of gentrification and my own reaction to a recent article (also from The Root) by Stephen Crockett. Link here: Gentrification Remains Undefeated: DC Cultural Landmark Horace & Dickies Closing After 30 Years
Full disclosure, I like Stephen Crockett. He is one of my favorite writers at The Root. (And here is me taking a deep dive on my own reaction): I know I struggle with how gentrification is discussed and addressed in the media (social and otherwise). I know some of this is due to my own blind spots. This post is mostly about me trying to own and struggle with them.
Here is my dilemma (and this may invite the ire of many, but please read this post to the end before you send me angry emails): I believe gentrification is a serious issue. I believe it represents a terrible overlap of racial and economic injustice. It has roots in policies intentionally created to deny affordable housing and wealth creation for people of color (such as red-lining). But there are times I feel like gentrification is used, even more than some other issues, for the very performative wokeness/solidarity that Saad is criticizing. My initial response is that Crockett’s piece is that that is what he is doing, over simplifying the issue in an effort to score readers, shares, and likes—at the expense of a more constructive discussion.
Here is a passage from Crockett’s piece that triggers my own resistance:
"For 30 years, Horace & Dickie’s served up loaded fish sandwiches for pennies. Seriously, when I was in high school, after my friends and I spent all our money on important stuff like weed and weed, we’d scrape up enough coins to get one sandwich with two extra slices of bread because they put so much fish on the sandwich that two to three people could eat comfortably. This was back when H Street was a shithole ...This is the unsettling part of gentrification: It’s not the bombardment of white settling; it’s the lifting of memories and the restructuring of those who came before them."
I know, my privilege is showing in this following statement, yet I know I represent a lot of white people when I say this: I'm struggling to see how celebrating the "shithole" status of this street and lamenting that changing helps clarify the issues here. Is Crockett celebrating "black" culture or the culture of poverty that has become synonymous with it I some places? The upwardly mobile, suburban raised, white male in me is waaaay uncomfortable in Crockett’s choice of a "shithole" neighborhood and smoking "weed" as outward signs for black culture. I know there is a bit of "counter-culture" rebelliousness going on there . . . that’s fine. But opponents also use this (ad-absurdism) fallacy as a tactic to discredit legitimate arguments all the time. Why give the talking heads on Fox ammunition to turn this back on the writer and say “taken to (an extreme) conclusion you would seem to imply that shithole neighborhoods are where black people belong.”
I am certain that is NOT what Crockett means to say . . . but I feel this is representative for a lot of the hasty posts and articles put up decrying gentrification I come across. My reaction is that the analysis is superficial. This piece (unhelpfully) blurs the line between racial and economic justice. Crockett is not actually proposing solutions as much as promoting himself. I see friends and colleagues do this all the time. They post pictures of abandoned and crumbling homes slated for demolition beside new buildings on Instagram. They add captions lambasting gentrification. As a result, they get lots of likes and thumbs up. A part of me says “I’m not sure every transitioning neighborhood is actually a case of gentrification.” Yet, any new building next to an old one, out of context, seems to serve the purpose for the posters as they seek likes and shares and to stoke some sanctimonious outrage—not to mention look-at-me-I am-woke-ism.
My other source of resistance/discomfort here is that sometimes these discussions for old neighborhoods get locked into nostalgia that looks back on a past not worth recreating. I'm not one for nostalgia. I'm no more moved by Garrison Keillor waxing on about an all-white and subtly sexist Lake Woebegone with all its shadings of a pre-civil rights 1950s America, than I am for my white neighbors lamenting all the "foreigners" moving into my childhood neighborhood (a sign of growing diversity that I think is progress but they see as a threat). It seems to me the whole MAGA/KAG movement is built on just such backwards looking nostalgia.
So when I hear Crockett pining for the days when he and his friends spent their money on important things like "weed and weed" and went to this shop on a “shithole” street . . . I cringe . . . because this seems like a real diversion from what the core issues are here (affordable housing, after school activities, nutritious food options, small business support) and not exactly nostalgia for an environment any one would wish for their kids.
And yet . . . [for those of you composing hate-mail to me, here is the turn where I try to turn the analysis on myself] If I really try to practice what Layla Saad suggests, to keep turning inward, to do my own work, what is this really all about? What is here that I need to own? What internally do I need to examine here?
Can a “well read,” “educated,” “woke” guy like me still be wrong on this.
Sadly, the answer is an emphatic probably and YEP! Ignorance isn’t the only barrier to understanding. Sometimes our own intellectual arrogance and face saving rationalization is. And you can see what I’ve done with my entire argument . . . even though I think of myself as an ally and I’ve made some reasonable points . . . I’m sort of discrediting the messenger (and perhaps the message) so I can feel better about myself.[1]
So, let’s reexamine my privilege (socio-economic, educational, white, etc.). It’s my privilege making it hard, even impossible for me, to really understand the refuge this neighborhood represented to a bunch of kids of color who grew up feeling like they didn’t belong in other “white dominant” spaces. If anything, the “rundown” nature of the neighborhood likely had a protective effect for these kids because it might have kept white people at bay and kept the space “theirs.”
And who doesn’t need a place that feels like it’s their own?
My privilege shows up in my education (a Master’s in Public Health and a Master’s in Business Administration), that views the neighborhood in abstract, in terms of health metrics, property valuations, and markers of upward mobility—that Crockett and his peers likely felt were shut off to them. I don’t see the neighborhood or appreciate the deep emotional resonance this block had for those who called it home. Sure, there are parallels between Crockett’s nostalgia and Keillor’s, but only to a point. One need only reflect on the scarcity of places for black bodies to feel safe and at home, versus the rest of the frickin’ country where white people do, to realize the fundamental differences between Keillor yammering on about Lake Woebegone and Crockett lamenting the loss of another space where black kids could feel at home.
Finally, in regards to “giving ammunition” to critics . . . Ibram X. Kendi writes in How to be an Antiracist that he took inspiration from Toni Morrison who did her best to free herself from her own internalized critic and recognized that if she let concern about how her words might be used against her or the cause, then she’d never write anything . . . our only obligation is to the truth. Folks invested in the status quo will defend it no matter what.
In other words, haters gonna hate; Fox News is gonna fabricate.
So, if as writers and activists we shouldn’t give in to our internal critics or let the potential distortions of opponents censor us . . . we sure as hell shouldn’t do it to each other.
I don’t want Crockett’s words used against him, or used against a righteous cause. The lesson from Morrison, handed down to Kendi, handed down to me is not to police[2] Crockett or his words. It is to support him in love and solidarity. Do I find his argument less than perfect? Yes. Do I think I have a few valid points? Maybe. But here is the thing: even if I find Crockett making a less than perfect argument, if I do what Layla Saad suggests and examine myself, I become keenly aware that I am a VERY MUCH less-than-perfect-ally.
I am participating in this dialogue due to the grace of others. I am in this space due to being invited by gatekeepers whose lives have been more impacted by race and racism than my own. Those gatekeepers, friends, mentors, teachers, have shown grace to me, my blind spots, my foibles, my microaggressions. And I recognize, I need to show the same grace to Crockett. I think his article might be inelegant in its execution. I think a lot of social media posts on gentrification are superficial virtue signaling/performative wokeness as Saad points out. I might not agree with Crockett 100 percent, but who agrees with anyone one 100 percent? Some of my closest friends and I still can’t agree on what makes a good movie.
What I do need to do is keep examining myself and my reactions. To counter centuries of injustice, racism, and prejudice, my default needs to be one of checking myself, deferring to writers like Crockett, Saad, Kendi, and Morrison. No matter how smart I think I am. That is what I hope to have demonstrated in this post: a heterosexual white dude from a privileged background wrestling with his own biases, ego, defensiveness, in a transparent, vulnerable way.
One thing I am 110 percent certain of, is that I still need to stand behind Stephen Crockett, his platform, and his voice. Period.
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[1] What until next week when I unpack in a post just what an a**hole gentrifier I REALLY am. Stay tuned for hypocrisy!
[2] The choice of this word is intentional.