A Historically Black City Is Being Stripped of Healthcare, Housing, and Safety, Leaving Residents to Bear the Cost of Corporate Greed
Gentrification Is Violence Against Black People
When people in positions of power prioritize corporate interests over public spending and residential preferences, neighborhoods tend to decline economically. This is often the beginning of a phenomenon known as gentrification, wherein predominantly black community members are subtly displaced from their own neighborhoods to make room for wealthy white people.
Gentrificationis often marked by obstacles like:
- Rising housing costs
- Displacement
- Disinvestment
- Cultural oppression and more
Housing advocates often associate gentrification with large-scale investments that beautify a region, but that’s not always the case. Shelterforce author Miriam Axel-Lute aptly explains, “Gentrification is code for a community’s inability to participate & shape the manner THEIR community is undergoing economic, social, & cultural change. These are market forces that public officials heavily subsidize in the name of ‘economic development ‘, which incorrectly means business development. Ironically, ‘economic development’ is a public term, not a private one.”
The end goal of gentrification is the transfer of land and power from a historically marginalized group to a group of colonizers, plain and simple. This is no different from Christopher Columbus distributing blankets of smallpox to unsuspecting Indigenous tribes. The only thing that’s changed is the scenery…