Gentrification Is More Than Black & White

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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Last weekend, a friend of mine was accosted on 125th Street in Harlem. In broad daylight, about five black men wearing Black Panther-like uniforms surrounded him and demanded to know why he – a white man – was strolling through what can arguably be called America’s most famous black neighborhood.


“Get out of here,” they screamed at him. “You are taking over this entire neighborhood with your Starbucks,” one of the angry men later argued.


My friend, who has lived in Harlem for the past three years, was clearly shaken after the confrontation. “I felt a whole mixture of emotions,” he told me. “I felt like there is definitely gentrification going on, and I am not sure I am part of any solution, but not sure I am part of the problem, either. I felt hurt. I felt challenged, and I felt that there was nothing I could do to really change anything.”


In recent months, many whites have been targeted throughout Harlem simply because they are white, according to police officers who patrol the area. Amid soaring housing costs and widespread gentrification that has forced many African Americans to flee, there is a growing resentment among many blacks toward the entry of young, educated whites into a community that was virtually abandoned until a decade ago.


Columbia University, for example, remains an adversary in the eyes of many working-class African Americans, who see the Ivy League university as an imperialist entity that is slowly gobbling up land throughout Harlem. I understand those concerns.


But the problem with contemporary discussions of gentrification is that they tend to remain racialized. The reality is that middle-class blacks can gentrify poorer and working-class neighborhoods as well, but those of us who fall into this category probably won’t ever get a stern lecture about how we are pushing poorer blacks out of Harlem.


As much criticism as President Clinton receives for relocating his office to Harlem and supposedly contributing to the problems of gentrification, Magic Johnson, the former basketball player who opened up a Starbucks and a movie theater along 125th Street, seems to get a pass. Few point out that Mr. Johnson – not Mr. Clinton – was responsible for forcing a mom-and-pop coffee shop that was a familiar institution in Harlem to close down because it could no longer compete, even from a few blocks away, with Mr. Johnson’s Starbucks.


I have no problem with exclusively black neighborhoods. There are plenty of them across America, and they are special places. I grew up in one in Philadelphia, and it was there that I gained an appreciation for the culture of black folks. That said, I am also convinced that people have the right to live wherever they choose.


When African Americans, who have long suffered the pangs of housing discrimination – being told where they could and could not live – engage in similar tactics to keep whites out, resentment and hostility will likely envelop the situation.


It’s illuminating, though, to watch how neighborhoods have changed over the past few decades. After race riots erupted in America 40 years ago, whites, including large numbers of Jews, fled black neighborhoods in a sweeping phenomenon called “white flight.”


Take a walk around any black neighborhood in a major American city and you’ll see black churches that were once synagogues – note the Star of David on the tops of the buildings.


Many African Americans resent the fact that whites abandoned their communities during tough economic times, only to return to purchase homes in an economy that is booming.


This trend is not particular to Harlem. In the historic “black section” of South Philadelphia, where row homes once cost a mere $15,000, newcomers – both black and white – are paying up to $500,000 to relocate there, trading in their homes in the suburbs for a life in the city.


We need to deemphasize the racial makeup of neighborhoods and focus instead on the more pressing problem: the creation of communities that are economically diverse.


Developer Jim Rouse had the right idea when, in 1969, he built Columbia, Md., a village between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.


Columbia would become the model for racial and economic diversity.


“We should create ways for people to care more deeply about one another, to stimulate, encourage, release creativity, minimize intolerance and bigotry,” Mr. Rouse said as he outlined his vision for a beloved community.


I second that sentiment.



Mr. Watson is the executive editor of the New York Amsterdam News. He can be reached at jamalwats@aol.com.


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