There's a Whole Foods in Harlem now...
I was raised in the suburbs. Back in the Boomer days, suburbs were spozed to be wonderful
places where residents could relax, enjoy nature and be happy. Funny
how it didn't work out that way. My father commuted to his job Monday
through Friday, was gone from 6:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night and
also worked a second job on weekends to pay off our suburban mortgage. So
much for smelling the flowers. And my college-educated mother was bored
out of her freaking mind with her life there as chief maid, cook,
bottle-washer and nanny to her mostly-absent husband and two ungrateful
brats. Ah, white flight.
There are clearly a whole lot of advantages to living in a city.
However, for Black people who were forced to live in cramped city
slums, who had no access to decent employment or education and who were
the targeted customers of their drug-dealing CIA sales reps, urban life
was a nightmare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4U1ozz7nM8
"Wanna change places?" bored suburban commuters and housewives suddenly
started asking Black people. "We'll take back Harlem and you can go
enjoy the wonders of nature by living in a tent under a bridge."
Can you believe it? First Black people were forced into Harlem because
nobody else wanted it. Red-lining, slumlords and all that. Crappy
schools. Unemployment. Bigotry. 80% of the housing stock in Harlem
was under-code and sucked eggs. "But those are genuine brownstones!"
the Yuppies and Techies suddenly cried -- and suddenly their race for
real estate in Harlem was on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOoutJtMCi8
Black people originally came to Harlem in desperate flight from the
extreme brutality of Southern Jim Crow. Seeking their freedom in New
York City, they soon discovered that they were living in a concentration
camp instead.
Back in those days Harlem may not have been surrounded by barbed wire
like Manzanar or Auschwitz or Gaza, but the iron fist of American social
norms (not to mention the New York PD's iron fist) kept Black people
trapped there just the same. And so they did the best that they could
and made this new Harlem concentration camp their home -- "made something
out of nothing". But now they don't even have that.
I just got back from a walking tour of Harlem. In Harlem today, signs reading "Condo
for Sale" are now a common sight. There is even a freaking Whole Foods
located right there on the corner of Malcolm X Boulevard and 125th
Street. So much for white flight. Goodbye Harlem. It's now called
Central Park North.
And when brownstones in Harlem are sold for several million dollars
each (one seller was asking over six million bucks), who gets all that money? Does it go to the Black grandmother who
had religiously paid her rent every month for the last 50 years? Even
though her landlord never made any repairs and yet charged her double
the amount that White people were paying for the same sized unit
elsewhere in Manhattan?
_____________________________
