It’s been a little while since we got to talk about “Bed-Stuy is the new Williamsburg,” so it’s a good thing that real estate agent Robert Earl decided to bring it up again. It’s also a good thing that in his brochure trying to attract fancy restaurants to properties running from 1347 to 1361 Fulton Street that he acted like black people don’t live here anymore. If gentrification had a playbook, this thing would be it.
The brochure was brought to everyone’s attention by the Daily News, who talked to the retail tenants along the strip in question, who had no idea they were going to get pushed out. Pushed out for what exactly? Some kind of six-storefront monstrosity that becomes “THE destination place in BedStuy [sic] for foodies and unique shops.”
Which is all well and good (it’s not well and good at all), but the brochure, which seeks to “bring the neighborhood together on an artisanal plane” has three pictures of humans. Not one of these humans being used to hype up investment in this historically black neighborhood that has “tough streets immortalized in the hip-hop genre” is a black person. This is not Robert Earl’s first time at the awful rodeo; a different News story pegs him as the broker advertising East New York as “the next frontier.“
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Wow. Talk about misrepresentation.He would get better responses if it showed black, white, hispanic, and asian people in the Bedstuy bars and cafes enjoying themselves together.
This real estate guy has old world notions.
Not for nothing but check out the staff of Brokelyn ...
https://brokelyn.com/about/
Pretty much the same ethnic breakdown as what's in the real estate ad!!!
Busted!!!
do they all live in historically black neighborhoods?
Thank you Greg!!! So glad you pointed that out. You go to most of these local sites and blogs popping up in Brooklyn over the last 5 years who claim to be authorities on the neighborhood, and not only are they written by 99.9 folks void of color who just got here 5 years ago, but the editorial reflects a complete lack of inclusiveness of the REAL demographic makeup. You get to hear about all the cafes and bars and stoop sales and art shows of interest to that minority that -- like Robert Earl-- have reimagined themselves as the majority!
I am just glad that we all can't get along. That Rodney King, what an idiot. First he gets his ass kicked by a gang of cops by being so darkly complected, then he goes and asks for people to try and accept others when the white cops are let go by a jury in Simi Valley. Who saw that verdict coming in white flight Simi?
Why don't we just all invest in Super Glue and start tacking people down in their current locations with that? Will that satisfy all of you? How far back are we going to go to find the era when everything was as it should be? Time passes, people come and go - get over yourselves.
This is an amusing story about an exploitative land developer, who looks interested in screwing a neighborhood in the here and now so that he can make a pile of money. You all better hope he doesn't have City Hall in his pocket or he may come in a just take what he wants, with the city backing him up.
If you don't want to see that happen, well get down to the voter registration office and get registered, because if you don't vote, you don't count. Stop being stupid. You can't stop the jerks who want to throw you in the trash heap of history from here.
That is all.
White people are the devil
yes you are and ignorant as well.
from hell
Well, he can imagine Bed-Stuy with white people all he wants. I'm never moving out and that's a fact. So if white people likes this idea of moving blacks out, Keep dreaming. I'm not moving anywhere. I refuse to move down-south to encounter more racism down there.
This is an awful reminder that while gentrification is about wealth, it is also very much about race. Maybe this guy's omission of black people was intentional, and maybe it was just honest idiocy leaking out. Either way it's terrifying, even more so because he supposedly (as they mention at the end of the article) has his eyes on East New York too.
In the last year, I've interviewed a dozen people who watched white flight happen right before their eyes in East NY between the 1940s and 1960s, when the Federal Housing Administration actively supported the creation of separate but not equal communities all over the US. Under these policies, non-whites were restricted to living in a few communities while new housing and new communities were built for exclusively white residents all over the country. Banks blatantly stopped investing in non-white communities and property values plummeted, while property values in white communities soared. The FHA set the foundation for an ever-growing wealth gap between whites and non-whites, so that now, people of color can rarely afford to live in the same neighborhoods as whites.
Ironically, gentrification seems to start with a lack of racism. Young, open-minded white people may not have any of the reservations their parents might have had about living in a black neighborhood. And the rent is cheaper. So they move there, maybe even laughing to themselves at all of those fools who are paying crazy rents because they're scared of living in a black neighborhood.
But lives in the US are still so segregated. Chances are that any given white person probably has mostly white friends. So when they tell their friends that [Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Crown Heights] is a great place to live, and their friends decide to check it out, those friends are probably white. And once there are enough young white people, they start making it look and feel safe to the white people who might not want to move into a neighborhood if it was too black. But now its a little whiter. So they move in too. And gradually, all of these white people with their statistically higher incomes and greater wealth drive up prices, push people of color out, and even if they maybe feel slightly bad about it, they are probably, honestly, not gonna lose sleep over it.
So yes gentrification is about race, and its about income. And it is so deeply unfair. From 1934 to 1968, the federal government actively intervened in housing policy in to support segregated communities, mainly to ensure 'stability' and prosperity for white communities. Clearly, when they want to, governments CAN act to affect who lives where. Now its their turn to act on behalf of people of color.
I hope the government will act. There are very few WHITE neighborhoods left in the Bronx,they are being pushed out by minority interlopers who are changing the culture and crime rates of the neighborhoods they invade.
which ones?
Hey Sarita, I'm curious about your interviews - are you working on a project that documents the history of the neighborhood? Is there anything you can share about your work?
As it's still a project in progress there isn't really anything easily shareable yet. But when the interviews are completed, later this year, the plan is for them to become part of the archive at the Brooklyn Historical Society, and to set up a website as well. Do you know someone who might want to be interviewed?
are you just interviewing folks who stayed? my mom's eye doctor is white and grew up in east New York and so far as I know was part of white flight but I've never talked to him about it. I only even know that cause when my parents (also white) moved here in 1964 they lived there and my mom likes to talk about random ways people are connected. my parents only lived there a few years though.
@Al, the interviews aren't restricted to people who stayed - just anyone who lived in East NY during the 60s and remembers it well enough to talk about what they experienced and saw happening during that time. If you email me at daftarysarita [at] gmail.com I can send you some more info to share with your mom's eye doctor...or I could just contact him directly if you feel comfortable sharing his info. Thanks!
Sounds very interesting and valuable - I'm working on some other documentary projects in the neighborhood - would be good to talk off-line - can you e-mail me at murray[at]murraycox.com?
This is the best , factual response, that Ive read! This is truly the fact of the Matter.
@Sarita is who I was directing the "fact of the matter" statement too.
Way to live in the past!
Not for nothing but to constantly bring up things that happened 50 years ago gets old.
That whole guilt trip doesn't play outside the hardcore progressive liberal community.
Btw Asians "with their statistically higher income and greater wealth drive up prices, push people of" ... well ... color ... out ! So are they "the enemy" too? Last I checked they were portrayed as victims of the evil white man but they do seem to take over neighborhoods and drive the blacks out too! And then their are the Indians!
How about this, you want to live in a desirable area, make more money. As long as you can pay the rent nobody cares what color you are!
@ Greg, what's past is prologue. (Shakespeare - The Tempest)
You're a fool if you think what happened in the past isn't reasserting itself today, and simplistic to believe money is the answer to everything. Oops! Sorry. Meant to say "Republican" instead of simplistic.
@ Tiggy I'd hazard to guess that the majority of people moving into Bushwick and "ethnically cleansing" it are SOLID Obama voters! Guilty, wealthy, white people. Hey, maybe they'll let you live in the servant quarters!
what does supporting Obama even have to do with gentrification? are you trying to say something about hypocracy or something? cause I think you might be doing it wrong.
It's always amusing when liberals attack their own. This past week two Obama supporters robbed and took over an apartment from 3 liberals in Bushwick. The two Obama supporters were upset because Bushwick is getting to white.
are you using "Obama supporters" as code for black people and "liberals" for white people or did I miss that part of the news report where the victims and perpetrators were all talking about their electoral political leanings?
Can't wait for Jesus to return.....
He's back every thursday night on Adult Swim lol
I know SOME white people are ashamed of how they treat black and brown people; that is why they separate themselves so they don't have to deal with be accountability.. But God is going to hold them accountable......There is no escaping God wrath....
Or... There is factually no such thing as god, and it's a work of fiction for you to get worked up about. Not to mention how you're implying that whites are the only guilty parties when it comes to how other races are treated.. As if black people are incapable of racism or hate based on false stereotypes etc. Try getting over yourself, your pity party and deal with the issues in your community. Deal with getting a decent paying job, as I am. Deal with being a human being and co-existing with other humans regardless of their color. Stop blaming others for what you are able to control, in one way or another. Then, we can talk.
Oh God, shut the hell up with this crap. You have ZERO proof that God is not real. None. You just want to pretend to be a persecuted little "atheist" while spewing your nonsense and insults to feel "special".
You don't want to talk. Be real. If you really had to talk, you'd have to admit some things about yourselves that you don't want to admit, like your own fucking privilege and how because of it you are not self-made like you claim and don't know what it's like to be on your own in any real way. I'm white, and I can't stand people like you who make us look bad. Other races may be racist towards white people but it's because the worst of white people, the privileged ass suburban types, make everything about race and can't stand on their own. It's not a white thing, but non-white people end up seeing it that way because that's the kind of white people who are moving into their neighborhoods and who they're dealing with.
Have you always been a brain-dead self-hating liberal? You represent the worst of white people,the kind that grovels and pleads for acceptance.
So true. This is the gentrification playbook signature play. East New York the next frontier? It's interesting how neighborhoods where families live and have been for generations become "frontiers" and "artisanal planes" SMH
Because East New York is suuuch a wonderful place, and a Mecca for thriving families and business.. Come on man, get off of it already! Gentrification doesn't need to imply race.. at. all. It implies tearing something down in order to improve it, make it better. I mean yeah, it's a real pity when folk come to your neighborhood and create clean, safe environments and places to work! Things that for some reason, folks of color tend to take issue with for some reason? What, too much pride to work in the "white mans world"? Too Uncle Tom-ish? That shit only goes so damned far before you start to get called out by your own community, when all you can sling is bullshit and violence. Those neighborhoods being spoken of, are ones that are infamous for being filled with violence, hate towards outsiders *and insiders*, but it's whitey who is the real problem, right?
Where are your hero's Jesse and Al when these real issues are tearing apart the black communities? Oh, right.. race baiting for more fighting and 1950's type segregation. Two sides on every coin.