Reply to Educate me - why is gentrification bad?

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Educate me - why is gentrification bad?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Anyone that has lived in DC for more than a decade can tell you the sad fact that the moment a neighborhood stopped having drive by shootings, in came the white people.

The only way for poor black people to live here is in unsafe, grocery food-deserts. It sucks for them.[/quote]

Well there’s a stereotype if I ever read one. Wow! Just wow![/quote]

I get tired of the low expectations of soft bigotry and misinformation. Grocers try to come in and provide healthy food in poor areas, but no one buys it, either because they view it as exotic or different, and even when it’s sold cheaper than organic food in wealthy areas. Look to Yes organic market in Anacostia or the store that took its place. The other issue is the overwhelming amount of shoplifting that comes with being the altruistic grocer to take a chance in underserved areas. At some point, there has to be a focus on self empowerment rather than complaining and demanding “the dc government needs to do something!!!l”. There are tons of Latino grocery stores, why is it those communities are able to put together a grocery store, but there is no sense of empowerment to take intiative and do the same in so called food desert Anacostia? Why is there always such a reliance and no sense of self directed effort to try and rectify the issue. I get that Anacostia ward 7 and 8 will probably gentrify themselves out of the issue in the next two decades, and new grocery stores will come in, but Jesus man.[/quote]

Ward 7 resident here. Have you ever been to the Safeway on Minnesota Ave/Benning Rd?  They stock rotting vegetables and expired meat, likely sent from stores in richer areas after they cannot be sold there. They only schedule one or two cashiers even at the busiest times and refuse to add self checkouts, so you wait in line for 45 minutes to check out. Then of course they trot out the same old tired excuse "but they don't want to buy fresh food" that you're using.  Well no duh, why would I wait in line for 45 minutes to buy rotten vegetables and green meat? I'll drive to the Giant on H St where there are enough white people that they can't get away with that or if I don't have a car I'll go to the 7-11 where I can get a $1 pizza slice or chicken wings without waiting forever in line and the cycle perpetuates itself.

And seriously, Yes Organic Market?  You're gonna cite the store where everything costs 5x as much as Safeway as the reason why fresh food isn't viable? "Well they didn't want to spend $18 on a jackfruit so clearly they don't deserve vegetables?"  And don't even get me started on your "well those poors would just steal everything anyway" and "anything that's not a potato or carrot is too exotic for those simpletons" nonsense.

You're an ignorant bigot and you have no place in civil society. [/quote]

My understanding about supermarket deserts is it has to do with security--physical and loss prevention. I have seen the supermarkets and drug stores in his SES areas in DC get 'rushed', and there is zero the hourly guard can do about it legally. They are simply decoration. However, this happens less in high SES neighborhoods thankfully. Supermarkets are not charities; the city should work on bringing high quality supermarkets into deserts--but they will have to address the security concerns, period. Perhaps put community police 'kiosks' inside them. There is a reason all the mom and pops have grills up; no one wants to live like that including the decent citizens who just want to shop for nice produce an live healthfully in these desert neighborhoods, so they should be advocating for the city to partner with supermarkets as well. Have you talked to your ANC or CouncilMember? Called the Mayor?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics