fats:
speak on it
perfect.
And knit scarves for trees
went on this tour of my city today, this white lady was spilling bulllshit about how amazing gentrification was and how they (the people doing the gentrification) were doing amazing things for the people, so of course I had to be the one to say “what about the people getting pushed out of their homes that are too poor to just ‘move somewhere else’”
fucking white people man
Gentrification is pretty much when people with opportunity take the opportunity from others. I hear people saying ‘don’t you want your part of the city to be nice?’ OF COURSE we do… heck, we’d love a fancy cupcake shop at the end of our street, who doesn’t like cupcakes? let alone fancy ones! but putting these in parts of cities that need TLC isn’t going to help. Putting a starbucks in the centre of these streets takes away from the working class cafes for instance, the way putting a leading supermarket takes away from the corner shops that cater to the community.
Invading towns with expensive restaurants, coffee shops, vitamin vegan fancy tea cake shops or any kind of expensive snooty business isn’t going to help unless you make it accessible to the community around you. Don’t push them out. Hire the community. Give the community opportunities to create their community… give them jobs, give them the chance to build a better community themselves. Bring people together. The working class rely on togetherness, the neighbourhood togetherness deserves to be saved, not pushed apart by co-operations dodging taxes, making millions and destroying community.
there’s been whole avenues of latino owned garment and crafts shops in Downtown Brooklyn that got closed down for Spencers and H&M. Theres been black businesses in Bed-stuy that were closed down that used to service the community (there’s some businesses there now that I do’t even know how they managed to survive gentrification) .
i’ve never seen white gentrifiers try to build up anything here so save it.
