Recently I listened to a podcast hosted by three young black women. On this particular episode, the women discussed gentrification and the idea of being black gentrifiers as they move into neighborhoods and are willing to pay higher rents and potentially contribute to the process that eventually leads to driving original residents out of the area.
Within the context of that conversation one of the young ladies began to discuss her experience living in and visiting different predominantly black neighborhoods around the nation.
She unapologetically said she did not feel safe when she visited 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem -- a historic intersection in upper Manhattan -- and that she "was ready to run into Whole Foods if something popped off."
This young black woman was completely unaware of the way in which that simple and frankly disturbing statement showed how she was internalizing the very elements that leads to gentrification in the first place.
And there began the frustration that led to this rant.