At this week's Round Table, Erina, Jack, Kenisha, and Madeline spoke with Gene Allen, a lifelong resident of Brooklyn who has experienced and thought deeply about the drastic changes in our city over 50+ years due to gentrification. This was super interesting to me because I recently conducted a photojournalism project on gentrification in the Bronx and was eager to learn about similarities and differences beyond the borough. Gentrification has a tangible impact on all of our lives–Kenisha spoke about how dramatically prices have increased in her neighborhood in Queens since she moved to the US, and how the livability metrics she analyzed as part of the NYC Youth Agenda Steering Committee demonstrate this is playing out at the city level and the individual level. Madeline shared that her mother’s stories about growing up in an ungentrified Brooklyn sound like fairytales to her. Meanwhile, our guest Gene powerfully framed gentrification from a Black man’s perspective as another form of Jim Crow, and walked us through the cultural annihilation he feels has been perpetrated upon his community over the decades, starting with the crack epidemic in the 80s. He compared this to the Opium Wars in China, which the English refer to as the worst thing they ever did. Gene talked to us about the decimation of the Black community during the heyday of crack cocaine–and then another kind of diaspora induced more recently through gentrification, when white people crowded into communities where they’d never before even visited. Gene shared his feelings that gentrification can’t be stopped–how can you stop capitalism?--and that NYC is being overdeveloped while simultaneously being drained of its culture, vibrant nightlife, and edge. He also shared his concerns that we’re not having the right talks–we talk about slavery but NOT about repair, because to make reparations we would need to engage with capitalism. Despite all of this, Gene has hope because of OUR generation, which he perceives as the first that’s actually liberated and committed to not being bigots. He thinks we still have the potential to turn things around IF we know and learn from our history. Thank you for listening!
