I have been thinking a lot recently about my relationship with the world. What is my ecological footprint? How does my life affect the poor? What does my spending have to do with those who have less? How am I making the world better? I started this questioning in a previous post, but was recently faced head-on with a conflict that brought my struggles into greater focus.
I was at an acquaintance's party just relaxing on her patio talking and meeting new people. I was having a good time enjoying the night. But a couple of the other guests, a brother and sister, were having a heated discussion about an issue that summarizes one my current dilemmas: gentrification. The brother and sister were African American and had lived on Capitol Hill in DC all their lives. They were complaining that they were sick of people being surprised when the siblings said they were from DC.
Many cities are very transient, but DC is especially so. Also, many cities were abandoned by the middle and upper classes who left to live in the suburbs but are buying homes in the city again. This is also true of DC, especially the Capitol Hill area.
I didn't understand the anger of the brother and sister at the party until I thought about it later. However, I think one of the reasons they were angry was that when lots of middle and upper class people started moving back into the city, buying homes and fixing them up, it displaced a lot of the people that had grown up in the city their whole lives. Many city natives simply can't afford to pay the property taxes on the homes that have been in their families for generations, so they have to leave.
While this problem is troubling in and of itself, I was especially bothered by it because I realized that I could very easily be part of the problem. I can see myself buying a home in a poorer part of the city and fixing it up some day. It seems like a fine thing to do, but this is the text book example of gentrification. And the result is that poor people are pushed out of their homes and neighborhoods. What seems like an improvement to most people driving by, actually is displacement.
This exemplifies what I call the "liberal dilemma" that I am faced with. It is also demonstrated by the natural, organic, fair trade foods and clothes that only upper middle and upper class people can afford. While these are great for the world, the high price causes a sense of elitism. The result of the "liberal dilemma" is fairly wealthy liberals feeling really good about the things they are doing, and being completely ignorant to the negative consequences to some of these actions.
I am not saying that people shouldn't buy organic or move to the city, I just think there needs to be greater awareness of the wide range of effects these decisions cause. Maybe with every decision we should ask how does this affect the poor and how does this affect the earth?
-Stephen Donahoe
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