Parc de Bercy – Butte aux Cailles 11 Sept 2012

Demolition of the Joiners’ Arms

It has been very sad to see the Joiners’ Arms, an iconic LGBT bar/venue on Hackney road, being picked apart to make way for its demolition. Property developers purchased the building to make way for a new block of flats, and the pub, which has been there since 1997, could not afford to stay.This This seems to be an increasingly common occurrence in the area, and is also part of a pattern of independent LGBT venues across London being forced out by the whim of property developers. David Pollard, the owner of the pub, was quoted in a an article in Vice:

“I think London will end up destroying itself…London depends on people moving here that can afford to live here. It’s a big city, but London has always been more than a playground for the super-rich. We mustn’t forget that.”

“What it’s like to get kicked out of your neighborhood”

It really seems like talk of gentrification is everywhere lately. It may be that I’ve just been paying more attention to it, but I think if you live somewhere like London or San Francisco, it’s pretty hard not to notice the changes taking place. It was cool to see a video like this on a mainstream site like BuzzFeed, of a former Mission resident, Kai, who has been evicted from two different homes in San Francisco. While it doesn’t go too deep into the structural causes of gentrification, it does highlight the massive displacement of black and Latino communities in San Francisco, as well as the California policies that have facilitated this. Kai comments on the way the city is segregated by race and class and notes, “the wealth is directly related to people’s displacement from their homes”.

The topic of gentrification was even addressed in a recent Saturday Night Live sketch, which I think brilliantly comments on the intersection of gentrification and race. Why is it so funny to see black men on the corner discussing spin class and the new artisanal mayonnaise shop around the corner? Maybe because we know deep down that the supposed positive effects of gentrification (if 8 dollar mayonnaise can be considered a positive effect) rarely benefit anyone other than white, middle- to upper-class residents.

As (hopefully) more and more debate about gentrification unfolds, I really hope we see fewer people claiming that this is an inevitable process or that, you know, “it’s really all the hipsters’ fault”. We need to dig further into how our current economic system encourages eviction and displacement along race and class lines.

Cairo, New Year

Photos taken at the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Al Azhar park, downtown Cairo, Coptic Cairo, and at the contemporary art center Darb 1718, December 30th to January 2nd, 2014-2015.

“It’s called gentrification”

Jason “Furious” Styles explains the logic behind a real estate billboard in South Central Los Angeles. From the film Boyz n the Hood (1991).

Architecture of Violence – Eyal Weizman

I saw this documentary as part of the 2014 London Palestine Film Festival, followed by a talk with Eyal Weizman, the plucky architect who narrates the film. I learned a lot from his book Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation, for its critical overview of the slow, mundane, pre-meditated way that the occupation of Palestine has been orchestrated over time. The brief documentary, directed by Ana Naomi de Sousa, addresses and visualizes the more striking elements of the book. For example, Israel’s use of “Jerusalem stone” in building housing units in the settlements surrounding Jerusalem, to evoke the old city center of the iconic city. The architect knows these buildings are mostly made of concrete, the outside layer merely a facade. (An added tidbit from the book is that this stone is actually mined and manufactured in the West Bank.) The film explores how “Architecture is used by architects…as a weapon.”

Ferguson Action National Demands

Try to look at this vision and list of demands and tell me they aren’t clear, concise, and that they don’t represent concrete steps that could be taken to actually begin to address the grip of structural racism across the United States.

(Re-posted from http://fergusonaction.com/demands/.)

OUR VISION FOR A NEW AMERICA

WE WANT JUSTICE FOR MICHAEL BROWN. WE WANT FREEDOM FOR OUR COMMUNITIES

We Want an End to all Forms of Discrimination and the Full Recognition of our Human Rights

The United States Government must acknowledge and address the structural violence and institutional discrimination that continues to imprison our communities either in a life of poverty and/or one behind bars. We want the United States Government to recognize the full spectrum of our human rights and its obligations under international law.

We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality And the Murder Of Black, Brown & All Oppressed People

Every 28 hours a black person in the United States is killed by someone employed or protected by the government of the United States. Other communities are also criminalized, targeted, attacked and brutalized. We want an immediate end to state sanctioned violence against our communities.

We Want Full Employment For Our People

Every individual has the human right to employment and a living wage. Inability to access employment and fair pay continues to marginalize our communities, ready us for imprisonment, and deny us of our right to a life with dignity.