Gentrification

"What Happens When Your Hood is the Last Stop on the White Flight Express" by Taigi Smith was a really thought provoking essay.  I’m currently in an anthropology class and we discussed topics like gentrification as well as class, race and other terms used in this reading, so I was relieved to have this for our in class essay.

The definition Smith used in her essay was filled with a lot more emotion. It was interesting to see the differences in what she used and what I used in my anthro class. The part about having “imaginary bleach” being poured on communities really got to me. It reminded me of a lot of videos and readings I saw in my other class.  And that term yuppies, I learned it my class a couple of days before I got this reading.

I thought it was really eye opening that she felt like she related more to her Hispanic neighbors rather than her black neighbors that she mentioned in the end of the essay. She says she was in the same class as the Latinos and she wasn’t with her black neighbors. It’s just crazy how much class has to do with our interactions and relationships with each other, even when we have the same race.

I also liked how she brought up the term womanism, and talked about how much gentrification has affected woman. I actually didn’t have anything about that in my other class, so it was interesting to see. Her struggle with finding the right type of feminism reminded me of Durraj’s writing about how she struggled with the same issue.  Its kind of interesting that woman of all race deal with this issue of what really is feminism to them. The fact that she went back to her gentrified neighborhood to see if she could actually buy a place there was my favorite part. There are so many issues with class and race today that we are afraid to talk about.  Some people are in denial that these types of issues still exist. It was sad how she compared her feelings about this change with how the drunk man reacted to seeing her.