Reply to There you go again, Courtland Milloy

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am White and have lived in Columbia Heights for 15+ years and I understand EXACTLY what he is trying to say. When I moved in Columbia Heights, it was generally an undesirable place for Whites to move.  Thus, those of us Whites who lived there were "forced" to be more in tune with the culture and fabric of the neighborhood.  It was not always a picnic but it was a net positive to me.  Now, these areas that were undesirable for Whites a few years aog are now becoming havens for young White professionals.  Good in that they are infusing money into these neighborhoods, bad because most of these folks are not really interested in putting roots down in these neighborhoods, will be moving out of DC in a few years and thus, care bery little about the history and fabric of these neighborhoods.  Milloy makes it about race - I think it is a matter of other things too.  [/quote]

What does "'forced' to be more in tune with the culture and fabric of the neighborhood mean"?[/quote]

The PP here.  It means any number of things.  It means that we had to recognize that we were moving into an established neighborhood where there were neighborhood traditions and with residents who were already active on certain issues.  We had to understand some of the issues our neighbors were facing and we could not be tone deaf to those issues. Our block had an annual barbecue/block party that everyone attended and contributed to. In order to be good neighbors, we learned the history of it (to honor a former resident's return from Vietnam) and we participated.  I will give you another example that resonates today.  When we moved in, people in our neighborhood were fighting for increased police resources, renovation of a rec center and what would later become the Bell/Lincoln campus.  So...coming into that neighborhood and fighting tooth and nail for a dog park or a coffee shop would have been tone deaf at that time.

Although I do not think it solely is a racial issue, I will give another example in a racial context.  If a minority family moves into a majority suburban neighborhood, that family generally has to assimilate the norms of the neighborhood to be "accepted."  The family has to do the work to adapt to the established social and living coventions of the neighborhood.  So I always think it is strange when Whites move into an emerging neighborhood and expect to be exempt from the concept. To me, it is like some of the young professionals today have the attitude that they are "above" the folks already in those neighborhoods. [/quote]

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