U Street Packaged

I hate going to U Street these days.

As I walked through the U Street district toward my favorite local haunt (Busboys and Poets) yesterday, I felt a tremendous sadness--followed by a deep frustration. In the past three years, I have watched the U Street District become a curious microcosm of race and class relations. I felt sad because of the loss of history and the loss of "our space" as African Americans living in Washington, DC. I felt frustrated by the narrative I see being written into more and more urban spaces in the United States. This narrative is subtle, but it is important evidence that we are not, in fact, in a "post racial" era. Racism and classism, deeply intertwined, are still an integral (if subtle) part of our social fabric. They still inform our society at foundational levels.

After the Civil War, the U Street Corridor had the highest number of African Americans dwelling in an urban location (http://www.ustreetcorridor.com/u-street-history/). It was here that great thinkers like W.E.B. DuBois would come for an evening out, and where many Black artists and performers made names for themselves. Dubbed "Black Broadway," the U Street corridor was where black people could entertain and be entertained in the height of Jim Crow segregation.

Within the past 15 years, the U Street Corridor has become a location of high-rise condominiums, popular ethnic food restaurants, and lots and lots of young white professionals. The story the developers will tell you (and part of it may be true) is that the U Street Corridor before their massive development effort was a neighborhood in disrepair, and a neighborhood of crime and drugs. What they won't openly tell you (and is certainly true) is that it was a predominantly black neighborhood with a rich history--one that probably looked more frightening from the outside than from within.

As I type this blog, I am sitting in a mid-rise apartment in the Kenilworth neighborhood. Outside of my window I can see the same things that happened to U Street in the 90's. First, lots of construction to address the dilapidated infrastructure that was not important enough to fix earlier despite the thousands of residents (primarily black and poor) that have lived there for many years. Next, the large buildings begin to pop up, looking very strange in the landscape of condemned and dilapidated buildings around them. Finally, business that would have never considered this neighborhood as palatable begin to purchase the spaces in between large buildings (Starbucks, Cosi, Pottery Barn). Locals will begin to see ads and hear about the Kenilworth neighborhood as the newest, hottest place to live. Those who have lived there for years will be forced out--either through the purchase of their homes at prices higher than they paid (but lower than market value), or through the proclamation of an historic district, which forces home owners to pay for costly preservation or face losing their homes. The remnant of native residents will be squeezed out through rising rent costs, making way for even more condominiums and businesses.

They will call it, as they did with U Street, revitalization. But the story that will not be told is how low income black folks in urban spaces are increasingly being moved in order to accommodate a richer, lighter demographic. We won't hear the story of how disposable these native populations have become, and what it means to literally move into a community's space with little or no intention of allowing the humans who lived there previously to remain. There will be little discussion of the systemic racism and classism that is inherent in only paying attention to a community when developers show an interest in it.

What we will hear, however, is that the new hip area is an historic district. Somebody will find a brilliant way to package the diversity that once lived there into a nice ad, a nice new coffee shop, a fabulous new scarf. But the stoop stories of the native population will be displaced with those who still have the memories to tell them.

How does racism manifest itself in these spatial landscapes? Why are black bodies and black homes still considered so disposable? And why do developers (and later the yuppies who move into their buildings) find it so important to "honor" the spirit of a place by emphasizing its historic nature and "ethnic flavor," all while dishonoring the actual native inhabitants? Is it possible that our society has created a "black," an "ethnic," and an "historic" that has a separate life from the actual human beings that inhabit those identities?

As I wander through U Street I still see some of the native population frequenting their old corners and spots. And I hear the complaining of the new residents, who wish that someone would "do something" about "all of this." I assume "this" is the presence of those who lived there before, the humans who do not fit the "ethnic" and "historic" flavor of the U Street Corridor. It's ironic that the very people who gave U Street its urban feel are disdained for showing their actual faces in a place. It's painful to see their existence despised, while what they are supposed to represent is celebrated. And it's frightening (and a little surreal) to walk down the streets of a black historic district and see only white faces.

And this is why I hate going to U Street these days.