#gentrifier

Facebook helps me keep track of my Digital Village

I have a lot of friends on Facebook from different walks of life. Mainly composed of--

Family, friends-of-family, and former classmates who have been working for the community for years to decades (keep pressing forward, fam!)

Friends I made while studying at North Carolina A&T State University (AGGIE PRIDE!!)

Friends I've made while abroad at Korea University (SHOUTS OUT TO Y'ALL!)

Community members I've found while working in every borough in NYC (MARLS, BlaQue, and various kinhood spirits!)

All of my people are really active in the community in some way, shape, or form. My Digital Village has various insights that make my Facebook timeline an engaging and enlightening place. I am very thankful for this and appreciative of the people who make up my village.

However, many in my village have been banned or barred because Facebook is not a free place to communicate. As many Facebook users will confirm, this platform bans any mention of White people, especially White men.

Go ahead! Try it for yourself. Facebook will take down your post because it violates Facebook's Community Terms of Service (ToS). It doesn't matter who you are. --To quote one of my favorite people, "I am White people!"

Facebook is a Private Company: They can do whatever they Want.

Investigating the legalese Facebook uses to protect White People's right to never be mentioned on Facebook would be fascinating. However, it's irrelevant. Facebook is a private company, and they can do whatever they want. More importantly, trying to challenge Facebook could potentially give them more power than we intend. We don't need Facebook to establish itself any more than it is now.

Therefore, our collective solution to this problem is to use coded language to foul up Facebook's "Community ToS" AI. My village has taken to using terms like "🌾," "⚪," or "the Gentry." It's a colorful and fun way to express ourselves on a very wide platform. This works for now.

Once you get tired of using coded language, moving to other platforms deflates Facebook's power.

Even more importantly, Facebook's ToS caused me to use other platforms that support my community. Pointedly, I use platforms like Tumblr and Discord, which are committed to supporting people in my Digital Village. This is how you game a "free capitalistic market" for now. Remember: MySpace only became irrelevant because we all moved onto other platforms.

Who exactly is the Gentry?

"The Gentry" is a cute term I personally use on Facebook to refer to White people. However, it's a term I use facetiously. For a modern, American, definition: the Gentry can refer to anyone who moves into a gentrified neighborhood, thus causing Gentrification.

"Gentrifiers" can be affluent, thrifty, White people taking advantage of the cheaper property values in a marginalized neighborhood. However, anyone can be affluent and thrifty in this economy: Asian Americans, Black people, anyone. I have even qualified as a Gentrifier in a lot of cases! I'm a country girl transplant to NYC. I lived in Seoul, South Korea, for a year. What matters is that the person moving is from outside the community.

When these new people move in, the gentrifying process looks like this:

The gentrifiers bring with them a demand for expensive products and services that the locals can't afford.

This demand irreparably changes the neighborhood to meet those needs.

The increased value of the neighborhood prices out the Locals-- e.g., through increased rent, taxes, etc

Local families and businesses are forced to move out because of the increased rent AND cultural displacement. i.e., The gentrifiers complain about the locals' habits because they perceive them as incompatible with their lifestyle.

What causes Gentrification?

I have lived and worked in nearly every borough of New York City. I also grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina-- where one side of the city has always owned the other side of the city. Subsequently, I have also lived on either side of Winston-Salem as well-- the more affluent West-side and the "Ghetto" East-side.

Can you guess which side of Winston-Salem owns the other?

The primary aspect of Gentrification is that the locals do not own the land that they live on. The East-side of Winston-Salem was primarily Downtown and apartment complexes where poor families rent their homes. That meant a lot of things, particularly that it was difficult for the poor families to have control over where they lived.

Property improvement was up to whoever owned their home on the West-side. Since the owners did not live in the neighborhood, they actually didn't care about upkeep. They only care about extracting money from their renters.

If you can recall your Social Studies class: this is a similar configuration for imperialistic powers and their colonies. Imperial governments didn't care about the people in the colonies and their quality of life. They only cared about extracting the wealth out of the colonies. The sole purpose of the colony is to enrich its imperial counterpart, facetiously called the "Mother country." In addition to being patronizing, this configuration left the colonists had no control over their own country. The lack of self-governance systems is why we see formally colonized countries still struggling to compete. In some cases, the country is in tatters hundreds of years after their imperial overseers have left.

Gentrification and Colonization has a lot of the same Economic Patterns

Again, similar to colonization, gentrification ensures that there is very little opportunity for self-governance. Locals do not have the economic resources to improve where they live or dictate the sort of business services are available for the locals. For example, we always had to go to the West-side of Winston-Salem for banking services. The only thing available on the East-side were predatory pay-day loan parlors and expensive Western Union transfer points.

Gentrification reduces economic opportunity for locals, but what about political representation? In Colonization, local representation was virtually non-existent: the Imperialitisc power would install governors to keep the colony in check. Does Gentrification share this pattern too?

Gerrymandering: Gentrified Neighborhoods Literally Dwell on the Margins

Back to Winston-Salem: for families on the Eastside, the only control they had was electing people to represent them Locally, at the State level, or at the Federal level. However, Gerrymandering made this impossible in a lot of cases at the Federal level. Gerrymandering ensures that marginalized neighborhoods have a splintered vote. Having a district border run through your neighborhood means no one from that neighborhood will ever represent you. It's impossible to petition the person who does represent you because they will always see you as a minority, at best. This is literally where the term "marginalization" comes from.

The result is that the locals are barred from resources to improve and profit from the land that they live on. Once developers and actual landowners want to take advantage of the devalued land, the locals are priced out. Their target market is the Gentry: this is why their preferences and services are prioritized.

As predicted, 20 years later, since I've lived in Winston-Salem, most of these families have been priced out of East Winston by Gentrification. I see many realtor websites that describe my old neighborhood as "up and coming," with glitzy pictures of cafés and bars. None of these businesses were there when I was growing up. You see this same process in NYC.

New York City has a very similar problem as Winston-Salem, NC, exasperated by the fact that there is a larger culture of renting. One of my Digital Village members' attempts to purchase a house was curtailed by companies who could quickly snatch up the property. -Even when she was trying to purchase in the outer boroughs of NYC (Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx)!

Most small-scale LandLords are old New Yorkers who owned the property before the 2000s. Either the owners had property before the Real Estate boom or inherited their property and decided to keep it for rental income. Even my little Landlady. She is an old New Yorker who moved out to Throggs Neck but kept her old house in Jamaica to rent out to families and reliable, young professionals.

How much property the Locals own where they live and work determines how the neighborhood will change.

What can I do about Gentrification?

Remember: Gentrification is determined by what realtors think that the Gentry wants. There is a lot for both (1) locals and (2) their new neighbors to lessen the effects of Gentrification.

If you are moving into an "up and coming neighborhood":

Learn about who has been there and what their culture is. As someone who would classify as a Gentrifier in many cases, I had a much more colorful experience by learning about the culture I'm entering. My Digital Village is so expansive because I took the time to learn about others. Not only will you reduce the chances for Cultural Displacement, but you'll also live a more enriching life! There are many things the neighborhood has to offer, many that may be outside your comfort zone. I promise, taking a chance on what your local neighbors have to offer will change your life for the better.

Support Local Businesses that are run by the Locals. As a gentrifier, my first step in moving to Jamaica, Queens, was finding a solid burrito spot! Shout out to Bella's!

Think of other creative ways you can support the community. Join a local Community Association. Ask about what their needs are. After doing your research, you always need to ask your neighbors what they need. They will tell you.

If you are a Local in an "up and coming neighborhood," look into obtaining a piece of the neighborhood through collective investing! Beyond purchasing land yourself, collective investing the fastest way to set down your stob. Getting your piece can be done in a few ways, including:

Asking your Landlord if they are interested in converting your housing into a Housing Cooperative. Essentially, you get shares of the house you live in. This is beneficial to your Landlord because they can get many tax benefits, depending on where you are. It benefits you, especially if you are a good tenant. You can get dividends from the profit every year, making your place of living more stable.

Look into investing in another Local Landlord. If your Landlord isn't willing, find another whose opened to receiving investments. Some of them need to make ends meet. You can invest as little as $1,000 a year and get dividends from your investment.

Look into investing in a Local Small Business. You can even diversify your investments by looking at local businesses to invest in! Your investments will help your favorite business get more resources to serve your new neighbors coming in. The money you get back will also help make you and your favorite business more solvent. At the very least, increasing the business you do with them will significantly help.

How do I start Investing in Small Businesses?

Let's say you are a local looking to invest in your local business. You could also be the Gentry, who has some disposable income to invest in your Community Association's local investment campaign. In either case, you must start with an Investment Agreement! Investment Agreements are written up by Business Lawyers. They state how much you invest in the business and how much dividends of profit you get back. Either the investor (a community member) or the investee (the small business owner) can draw up an agreement.

To learn more, feel free to book an appointment with me! We'll help match you to the resources you need to get started for free: