Rocks + Hardplaces.

(Ummm... actually you all suck. Thanks.)

I can't seem to avoid this gentrification subject.

Okay, so Tim Wise just wrote a decent piece on "The Black Commentator" about how the interstate highway system destroyed many vibrant black communities nationwide and how it wasn't an accident... and he also gets in to discussing public housing and how the current HOPE VI program and the mixed-income theory behind it is a good idea but flawed and is also (he tries to make the connection) displacing black (and poor) folks just like the interstate highway system did before.

Basically the broad point of the article is that "progess" is often in the eye of the beholder.. for example, the freeway system is middle class "progress" but for the communities and families involved, it obviously was not. And similarly, he says that just as current mixed-income housing constructions are praised as "progress" by politicians and middle class folks, for the families being displaced... they are not anywhere near "progess" and in fact are heading in the other direction (he said the national average is that 1 out of 5 people do not get ANY type of replacement housing after these settlements are built).

I was feeling and following him up until the end when he says this:

"That federal and local officials have opted to create mixed income communities by running off poor folks and importing the middle class, as opposed to spending the same monies to provide better job opportunities for the folks in those communities to begin with - thereby mixing up the local income picture from within - says a lot. It suggests that at some level, we have given up on the ability of poor people to take advantage of opportunity, once afforded to them. It suggests that we think the only hope is for poor people to be around middle class folks, as if middle class values (which aren't, frankly, all they're cracked up to be) will rub off. It suggests that we've accepted the conservative line that the problem with poor people is internal, rather than systemic: that somehow role models are more important than living-wage jobs and decent schools.

And so long as we accept that kind of thinking, the kinds of problems faced by the poor and working class in this country - especially but not only people of color - will remain, whether or not they receive the kinds of media attention reserved for signs of so-called progress.

Dangit! Almost had me. (I bolded the part that made my brain jerk...)

See this suggests a sort of liberal white protectionism to me.

According to him the Conservatives are bad cause they say poor people are so because of their internal lack of motivation or whatever... (i.e. they don't have roll models and their culture is crap so they are stuck in the ghetto)

Then according to the Conservatives the Librals are bad cause they say that poor people are so just because of the system and how it holds them down, and they blame everything on "THE SYSTEM" (play my evil theme music sun!!! lol) and "THEY"... (ohh... the dreaded "they"... ruuuuunnnn!!!!)

I say ya'll both got it wrong, yet partially right.

Cause it's a little bit of both. And I retreat to what I wrote the other day about my gentrification buddies (see my sunday blog post)...

The structural deficiencies of this system need to be addressed no doubt. But if a select group of folks are exposed to the door of middle/upper-class-dom and take it and run, then addressing those structural dificiencies ain't gon do too much a nothin' fa nobody. Believe that.

These kids do need roll models, both elders and peers... just like that Washington Post article.

And they also need fundamental changes to "the system."

So Conservatives, admit the flaws in the foundation that has been built, although I know at the root of the word conservative is someone who fears change.

And Liberals, stop trying to remove the blame that we need to place on ourselves from our shoulders. We don't need any parents.

iight!

Good lawd!

*stomping away*

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