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Past and Present Black Migrations for Liberation with Arionne Nettles
168 Plays6 months ago
I knew this week sitting down with Chicago-based journalist Arionne Nettles was going to be a great conversation, but I was very excited about what she had to share, about how Black migration and neighborhood choices past and present are in defiance of gentrification.
And our hot topic this week is the terrible parking meter deal that the mayor of Chicago made in 2008, that’s actually not how you want to pay for parking.
About Our Guest
Arionne Nettles is a university lecturer, culture reporter, and audio aficionado. Her stories often look into Chicago history, culture, gun violence, policing, and race & class disparities, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Opinion, Chicago Reader, The Trace, Chicago PBS station WTTW, and NPR affiliate WBEZ.
She is a lecturer and the director of audio journalism programming at Northwestern University’s Medill School as well as host of the HBCU history podcast Bragging Rights and Is That True? A Kids Podcast About Facts. Her book, We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything, will be published by Chicago Review Press in 2024.
Hot Topic Reference article
https://news.wttw.com/2023/07/27/wttw-news-explains-what-happened-chicago-s-parking-meter-deal
Purchase Arionne’s book from my Bookshop — https://bookshop.org/p/books/we-are-the-culture-black-chicago-s-influence-on-everything-arionne-nettles/20193723?ean=9781641608305
Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedIn
You can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.
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Transcript
Introduction and Upcoming Features
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to Defined Gentrification. I'm your host, Kristen Jeffers, and this is a great week to watch the show. So this is the all video version of the show. It's gonna sound a little different. It's gonna feel a little different, but it's still gonna, the interview is gonna be the same. The hot top is gonna be the same, but I wanted to honor the fact that we are here together on YouTube.
00:00:27
Speaker
Now, let's get started with the main show.
Influence of Black Culture on Chicago
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome to Defining Gentrification. I'm your host, Kristen Jeffers. And this week I have Ariane Nettles with me. They put out a wonderful book called We Are the Culture. And I came to the interview expecting to talk about that book and how so much of black culture has not shaped not only Chicago, but of course our whole black migration project in the United States and really the globe.
00:00:57
Speaker
And of course, we had a very special bonus competition that I've been wanting to have with a fellow Black millennial that's been socialized as feminine and female and I've really enjoyed having that part of the competition as well.
Controversy of Chicago's Parking Privatization
00:01:14
Speaker
Plus, the hot topic this week, I had to go in
00:01:19
Speaker
Terrible, terrible parking meters in Chicago. And I want this to be a prescriptive warning for you to not make that decision. But first, of course, I have books this week. I have one book this week. It is Ariana's book. But let me take a pause. Let's talk about the chocolate. But yes, Bookshop.org slash shop slash Tiffany Jeffers is your resource.
00:01:51
Speaker
a book for me on Bookshop.org. Nothing against the site with an A, but this one is just all books all the time. And when you purchase for me as a Bookshop affiliate, you get to give back to producing this podcast.
00:02:08
Speaker
Pretty soon, I'm going to have other guests. I'm going to be on location. The videos are going to get even more sharper and better. And that comes from you buying from the bookshop.org store. Plus, I have a curated selection. I have a black urbanist book list.
00:02:26
Speaker
with all of my classic urbanist books that I think are worth reading. Then I have a bookshelf that's specifically for books like the one we're going to talk about today, like the art of culture that specifically speaks to the Black experience, the Black feminine experience, the Black queer experience, Black disabled experience. Oh, those live on the bookshelf, that bookshelf. And then, you know,
00:02:52
Speaker
for my crappy people out here. I have a shelf for you as well. And there's some pretty awesome and dope books there too. So, bookshop.org slash shop slash Kristin E. Jeffress. The link is in the show notes. The link is right here, I just told you. And yes, you can search Kristin Jeffress Media and you will find me on Bookshop. And now let's talk Hot Topic. Yes, Hot Topic y'all of the week is
00:03:25
Speaker
A bad, bad budget deal. Now this is a simmering hot topic. It's been a hot topic now for about 15 going on 16 years. And it's going to be a hot topic. Unfortunately for another 65 plus years. Why? Because that's also part of the problem. So in the show notes today, our reference article for today is from
00:03:51
Speaker
Chicago's PBS affiliate WTTW in 2022. They did a wonderful explainer of why this is a problem that Chicago's parking meters are running the way they are. So just for people who don't understand the whole concept and the logic around parking meters. So right now under this whole settler colonial experimentation that we're doing,
00:04:19
Speaker
land has value. Yes, including your parking space, just like you pay rent for your your house or you pay a mortgage and then of course you pay property taxes on your property if you've paid off your mortgage.
Economic Impact of Parking and Transit
00:04:36
Speaker
Where you park your car if it's not part of your designated property is also part of
00:04:45
Speaker
Something that needs to be paid for that's why we pay for parking in some places, and we don't pay for it in others now when you go to like target walmart all those places they've paid for the parking lot.
00:04:59
Speaker
The parking lot is an amenity for you to come and shop at the store. Now in other places where like say you go to your favorite downtown district or favorite sort of walkable shopping and restaurant district, some of those places either have already paid for your parking or you still have to pull a ticket
00:05:20
Speaker
and you get it validated at the desk. Generally, that's how most Whole Foods operations work. When I go to Whole Foods, that's what I do. This is not a sponsored ad for Whole Foods. Let me make that clear. It's just one of the places, and same target, Walmart, those are not. Bookshop's the only affiliate here, but just like I curate those books for you, and I tell you what books to buy, or at least think about buying,
00:05:44
Speaker
The parking lot is like that. The parking lot is set up for you if you come in a vehicle, like a private vehicle, for you to be able to do that. Similarly, that's why I'm so big on public transit being covered because parking lots are covered. It's honestly, to the average consumer, it's cheaper to park
00:06:06
Speaker
than it is to get on transit because parking is basically if you've already budgeted to go to the gas station and then everywhere you have to go there's a space if you're having mobility issues you can and but your issue is just that you can't walk far but you can still use your arms
00:06:26
Speaker
or you have the adaptations I know several people including one of my cousins that has adaptations where they can use they can drive as a quadriplegic like but still you have a vehicle that's outfitted for you and then you can pull it into a parking lot and then you can roll or walk or scoot or use your walker to and you can carry your walker to go to the store.
00:06:47
Speaker
or you know you can you and several of your family members I mean many of you have families big enough that you can probably get away with driving around in the 16 passenger van everywhere that you go which is technically counts as a as a van so
00:07:01
Speaker
That is the concept, but in many cases, what we are talking about is a concept that many places, many jurisdictions require parking above and beyond what is actually used for space.
00:07:19
Speaker
If you have ever participated in the event called parking day, where you literally purchase the meter out and park in a parking space, you learn that, wait, a bed can fit in here? A couch can fit in here? Oh, look, that portable IKEA kitchen, also not a sponsored mention, that portable kitchen from IKEA that has a sink and a stove, wait, a tent can fit in here?
00:07:49
Speaker
Wait, a parking space could be a studio apartment. Start the, start the noggin tapping here, start the brain tapping, side of head tapping here. Yes. So that has become an issue, but that's a separate issue. And this is why Chicago's parking meter issue is just weird because effectively
00:08:16
Speaker
In a short-sighted budget moment, the city thought that it should sell off their parking meters to a private company for a billion dollar check. Now, Chicago is massive.
00:08:33
Speaker
And a billion dollars in 2008 sounded like a big amount of money. We now are in a world where there are some people that are going to be trillionaires. Not just billionaires, but trillionaires. That should scare you, but that's another hot topic for another day.
00:08:48
Speaker
So not only is the city of Chicago locked into this deal where they can't make any money, they've paid off their investment. The billion dollars has been recouped by the parking meter company.
00:09:05
Speaker
There's, yeah, so there's a whole bill, they could have been generating maybe a billion every year, but that's not the worst part of it. Because the parking meters are owned by a separate company, even though they are on city land, anytime they want to put in a bike lane, food trucks,
00:09:28
Speaker
All of those people have to pay above and beyond what they normally would pay. Also, if you think meters are bad that you have to pay, and imagine that there's no recourse. There's no, okay, nobody's sitting here. There's no demand. The meters are often overcharging.
00:09:49
Speaker
And so, of course, you as the consumer is going to be like, OK, well, I'm not going to actually drive my car into the city of Chicago. I'm not going to even go to Chicago. Big parts of Chicago are not are underserved by transit. Yes, even with CTA in their coverage areas, just like D.C., both of those train systems.
00:10:08
Speaker
are very good at what they do but there's so many underserved areas and it's not okay anymore to just say oh well the people that live by don't choose not to live by transit or don't deserve transit. Many times those homes are cheaper because transit is a economic value for people
00:10:27
Speaker
And they go somewhere else. And so if you're listening to this and you're that person, you're like, yeah, that's me. Like, I hate paying these meters for my Chicagoland people. I'm so sorry for you that one as a municipality putting on my public affairs municipality hat. You can't get that money to go to public services.
00:10:48
Speaker
And you won't be able to grab that money for several years. And to say we eliminate parking minimums, we eliminate like the need for, you know, we increase transit.
Improving Public Transport Accessibility
00:10:59
Speaker
Say you want to put in a bus lane, you want to put in a bike lane. This money's got to go to this private entity instead of being reinvested back into creating the service. It has to go to the private entity on the job. So.
00:11:13
Speaker
I want to encourage y'all with this hot topic, watch the video, research this. But I really wanted to make this a hot topic because while we are talking to a Chicagoan today, we're talking about reasons why one may move away from Chicago, even though it has all this lovely cultural, these cultural resources. But we talk about how so much of that cultural resource has been made because us as black folks have had to move around and
00:11:40
Speaker
Many Black folks are car dependent. My life has improved, honestly, having access to a car in addition to public transit. I use it all. Y'all know I use it all. I'm just now getting back on my bike for reasons. And many people will never return to riding their bicycle. So I want us to really think about as I'm going to challenge my municipal budget folks, federal and state budget folks,
00:12:07
Speaker
Think long and hard, a billion might seem like a lot of money, but you all are the economic driver.
Black Cultural Influence and Migration
00:12:17
Speaker
Just like I've written, and I'm gonna include this in my show notes, I've written about how companies either pay their fair share,
00:12:25
Speaker
Having parking not even be a full public private partnership or being a full private partnership where you sold the meters and they are privatized and there's no economic benefit coming back to the city whatsoever other than maybe taxes, but I don't even think taxes are included in this. This is just a very weird, very wild situation. It creates unnecessary friction. We live in a world now where people do expect either you
00:12:52
Speaker
pay the parking fee, you pay the fare as a provider of a service or a business, or you get out of that business and you get moved on to doing something else. So now let me pause.
00:13:08
Speaker
And we're gonna, I didn't wanna have such a long hot topic. I wanna really let Arianne's voice shine through. Arianne is a journalist. She is from, teaches at Northwestern. She has written a book called, We Are the Culture. And I'm gonna take my ad break and talk about this book and her. So take a moment and let's go to our book shop store.
00:13:31
Speaker
Yes, so We Are the Culture is our book of the week by Ariane Nettles, our guest for today. It is basically chapter by chapter. It talks about how from journalism to sports to black media, black fashion, Chicago was the nucleus. And I love about this book, not just Ariane's personal stories, because you know I love me a good personal story and she's brought us some good reflections of personal stories on this episode today.
00:14:01
Speaker
But it also just highlights what the joy and it's also for those of us who are working in media, those first few chapters, it's motivation to continue to do a good thing and continue to stay motivated. So We Are the Culture is available in my bookshop store, bookshop.org slash shops slash Kristin E. Jeffers. And let's get on into this interview with Ariane Nettles.
00:14:44
Speaker
So welcome back to Defiant Gentrification. Again, I'm Kristen Jeffers, and I have a wonderful guest with me. And in fact, I'm gonna have my guests introduce themselves. Now you're gonna, I've already done some of the introduction, but I want her to talk, because this is just an honor to be on the mic with another journalist that has such a place orientation as I do. And of course, the place we are talking about today is Chicago, and it is worthy of being acclaimed and talked about.
00:14:57
Speaker
I'm doing all this introduc
00:15:12
Speaker
And yeah, let's just get into it. Arianne, tell folks about yourself. Hi, I'm Arianne Nettles. I'm from Chicago from the South Side. I'm a journalist and I currently teach at Northwestern.
00:15:27
Speaker
Yay. So, Ariane of course wrote a wonderful book, We Are the Culture, and it's about Chicago, and how Chicago is y'all can really make that t shirt Chicago versus everything. This black culture, because
00:15:44
Speaker
As I'm going through it and I'm still in the middle of it and I'm enjoying it. Like it's so rich. It's so culturally rich. Like you did that. You did the thing in the pop culture. And she totally did the thing. And of course, as someone who loves infusing place into my work,
00:16:04
Speaker
Now I'm kind of realizing that's just okay. Those of us who stayed in like the South South were like, Oh, well, we're just telling our story. We're just making sure everybody knows what's up. And I noticed all of my colleagues and friends who are on some part of the migration trail.
00:16:22
Speaker
Y'all tell their stories to make sure that people know about it. But honestly, Chicago is credited for the migration itself. Do you want to tell folks a little bit about that? Because some of my audience is still like, oh, well, why did y'all all pack up and move all across the country? And then you're still complaining.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I guess the first thing is we still complaining because even though, you know, families change. I do think it's important to recognize like many of us do.
00:16:59
Speaker
that discrimination and racism looks different in different places. So it's really disingenuous to say that people packed up and they left the South and there was no more racism, right? We know that that was not true. So of course there's still issues. Those issues just look very different. And so I did want to make sure that like, whenever I would talk about those things, I didn't want to glorify it. But at the time there were
00:17:30
Speaker
some reasons why people decided to kind of pack up and leave. And the reason why I want to say multiple reasons is because, you know, everybody is still not a monolith. And so, you know, this combination of reasons were around what people really cited and what the Chicago Defender really used when
00:17:58
Speaker
asking people and kind of convincing them to move to places like Chicago. So the first was not just racism, but violence. And so the increase in lynchings and like really physical violence, although Chicago
00:18:21
Speaker
still did very much have kind of a its own segregation that segregation was not legal. It was
00:18:33
Speaker
there were invisible lines that we would actually see in 1919 during the race riots in 1919 that happened in Chicago during that red summer that many places experienced. We also had that here. But that physical violence was not as common in places like Chicago. And it was not as outwardly
00:19:02
Speaker
open. But one thing that I think I did not maybe understand until I got a lot older was the economic reasons for people to move out of the South. So at the time, you know, there was this bug, the bull weevil. Yes.
00:19:28
Speaker
And it was really affecting crops, you know, like cotton crops. And so you had so many Black folks who were into sharecropping as their primary form of taking care of their families.
00:19:46
Speaker
And if let's say they're doing this on white land and now the white landowners are not making as much money, they're paying the black folks work in the land less money. And it just made it really difficult for people to be able to take care of their families the same way that they could. And so when you look at places like
00:20:08
Speaker
Chicago, and I'll push Chicago there because at the time, right, you're starting to have this kind of industrial revolution. We see factory jobs. And then especially at the start of the World War, a lot of those lower wage factory jobs.
00:20:26
Speaker
that may have been able to be employed by, let's say like immigrants into the country from places like Europe, that immigration was stalled. And so these factories were more open to now hiring black labor. So opportunities, financial opportunities, economic opportunities,
00:20:50
Speaker
were opening up for black folks in a way that they previously weren't, right? And of course, you know, when you think about it, why? It's also because they want to pay black folks lower wages than the white people, right? It's still racism, it's still
00:21:07
Speaker
it's still segregation, it's still discrimination, it's still, they were still pitting like the black workers against like the white folks who were trying to like unionize and organize and then black folks weren't allowed in the unions. And so there was still a lot of stuff. However, if it is between you picking cotton
00:21:27
Speaker
and not being able to take care of your family, but there's an opportunity to come to this place. You read the Chicago Defender. It's telling you where to go to get a job, what number to call to find a place to live, what schools your kids can go to. Everything is laid out there for you. It's looking appealing and
00:21:51
Speaker
Most people are starting to now have family who's made that trek, who've moved to other places. And now they have somebody to kind of welcome them. And that's really important, right? Having community, creating community. So you're going to want to move someplace where there is a community to welcome you, where they say, hey, not only do we want you to come to Chicago, we're helping you get here and we're telling you exactly where to
Cultural Impact of HBCUs and Regional Identity
00:22:17
Speaker
go when you get here. And that kind of is what made the difference.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah. And I think a lot of folks don't always see that. And, uh, one of the things like way, way back, I had talked with, um, Marcus Robbins and his Andrea Marcus Hunter, rather is Andrea Robinson about their lovely, lovely book chocolate cities that really digs into the numbers, the data, the migration patterns. And, you know, as a North Carolinian, like a lot of people are like, okay, well,
00:22:47
Speaker
We're one of the handful of Southern States that had sort of this like hybrid environment. In a lot of ways we were by the 50s, some of those same factories were hiring us, but nobody's unionized anyway. Like unions, they won't even let nobody unionize. And then we're on the East Coast and there's still this closeness. Like you can't get, but so far, and you could easily like your six hours from DC and your six hours from Atlanta,
00:23:17
Speaker
But I will be interested, and this will be a good way to kind of talk about kind of, you grew up in Chicago, but your family had roots in the Mississippi Delta. And then you have family, like you've got family that have created a cultural institution. Then they start talking about it a little bit. But let me, I'll get back to the Chicago parts, but let me talk about this culture shock and homesickness that you had in Tallahassee.
00:23:47
Speaker
like oh yes yeah tell me about that because i i did my i did my background i was like okay the tallahassee years i briefly went to um tallahassee for a law school camp over at forest state summer 2006 um
00:24:02
Speaker
My, our Drea Roland who's another wonderful journalist fan grad and like has, you know, found their way back in the journalism, we thought we was gonna be we thought we was gonna be lawyers, but clearly, okay. Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yeah, we said we thought there was another plan. So I'm assuming that looking at your degrees, it wasn't journalism at first. Like, yeah, it was business. Yes. How did fam and Tallahassee hold of that play in you deciding it wasn't Memphis that made you say, look, I got to do something else. So tell me about those collegiate early years before. Yeah.
00:24:44
Speaker
So they actually so you know um Tallahassee living in Tallahassee um at first because I had grew up in Chicago and outside of spending summers in Atlanta I had never really gone anywhere like I always been up under my mama
00:25:01
Speaker
And even when I spent the summers in Atlanta, I was up under my auntie and sometimes I would cry and my dad would have to drive down there and come get me. Cause I would cry too much. So I was just, you know, I just, I just was a homesick girl. I did not leave my family, right? Yeah. Yeah. Same. Me too.
00:25:20
Speaker
Me saying, I will go to school. It's Tallahassee, right? So far from home. You know, that was an ambitious decision. But when I stepped on the campus, it felt like home. It felt right. And then but that that first week I was crying every day. Oh, I was struggling. But then I mean, that's why culture and connection and community become so important. And, you know, I think that
00:25:48
Speaker
Now, culture is so connected, right? Because we have YouTube, because we have all these different social media things, things don't feel so regional. I mean, I think we still have our regional things where we're like, oh, this is special, but things don't feel foreign. When I went to Tallahassee, I felt foreign. I was like,
00:26:12
Speaker
these Black people are different. But then also, I'm like, oh, but also now I got a friend from LA. Oh, she's different. Oh, wait, now my friend from New York, he's different. Like, so it's like friends from everywhere. Everybody's different. And so it was like the first time I was really exposed to how regional differences
00:26:34
Speaker
you know, even if you, we all black. And somebody was telling me about how, I can't remember where I heard this, but it was, I'm sure it was on a podcast. And I remember someone saying, when you're at a HBCU, that's what happens because you're in an all black space. And so you're able to appreciate the differences outside of the fact that it's like, we just black, right? And so I appreciated that because I,
00:27:03
Speaker
was able to really appreciate like Florida culture for specifically, right? So, and I say that because if I'm talking to people and I'm like, oh, I just love Florida, right? And people are like, Florida. And I'm like, listen, I'm not talking about politics in Florida. Because I don't really like no politician, right? And as a journalist, I should not fan any politician. I can have respect for some. I can, you know,
00:27:31
Speaker
I think that some are on a decent track, but I'm not, you know, crazy about any... No, and we're supposed to be calling that out. Exactly. We're supposed to be calling it out.
00:27:42
Speaker
Exactly. So, but when I say I love Florida, I'm talking about the people of Florida. I'm talking about these rich cultures, right? Like, you know, and recognizing like, okay, well, when I'm in North Florida, this is what it feels like, right? Then I go down to South Florida and I'm starting to get like these kind of like Caribbean and Haitian like influences mixed up in there, right? That's a different flavor. And so like, these are such unique
00:28:10
Speaker
cool, amazing differences that I want to celebrate. And then moving to Memphis, you know, Memphis is just a cool, bluesy place. It's a very religious place, too, where, you know, the joke is that there's a church on every corner, but it really does
00:28:31
Speaker
steep through how Black Memphis cares for each other. So my experience living in Memphis right out of college was so much love and care. It was just a lot of community care, right? Something happens to somebody, people in this community feel obligated to step in and help them, right? And so that's what I felt. So coming back to Chicago, it's like I was coming back to Chicago with all this love.
00:29:01
Speaker
for these places. So even though initially I'm like, oh, I feel out of place, I feel nervous, I'm homesick, right? Like I quickly got over those feelings. And so I appreciate this connection that we have to the South. I appreciate the connection that we have to, that my family has to this Mississippi Delta area, right? Like, cause I know that we,
00:29:28
Speaker
could not beat us without Mississippi, right? And specifically Mississippi because black Chicago is filled with people, with families who originated specifically in Mississippi, right?
00:29:45
Speaker
We cannot not love Mississippi, right Mississippi culture, the richness of it and love and appreciate ourselves right and so I think that.
00:30:01
Speaker
I know me. I've been thinking a lot about that and I've been thinking a lot about our connection to that and how I just want to make sure I'm always appreciative of it and feeling that connection. I don't ever want it to be
00:30:18
Speaker
I don't want everyone to feel like competition. You know, of course you have to just feel like, you know, you should feel like I'm from the best place in the world, right? Like I honestly feel like, I honestly feel like everybody should feel that way. I think you should feel that way. But I don't, I don't see like the South as like a different place. I feel it, I feel like it's just a different part of me. You know, but I feel like it's a part of me for sure. Like there's no way I can't be who I am without the South.
00:30:47
Speaker
Oh no, no. And I also like, cause I'm on that East coast migration. Like there's so many Carolinians here and a lot of people don't realize, yeah, we got that chocolate city moniker in DC, but it feels different. Whereas like, I feel like Chicago is like you have your sections. DC had that moment where it felt like everybody was black, but
00:31:13
Speaker
there are economic factors going on here. We had, we went through waves of the federal government saying, Hey, black folks come and work for us. Uh, hopefully we are not in that progression where we're going back to the person that was working in a cage, but, or why that, but that's the thing you need community because even if you're not at that point,
00:31:36
Speaker
when we as Black folks decide to go somewhere, it's a different drive than others. I used to have a concept, and I still have it, it's still in the archives of my blog, this concept of being an American expat in America.
00:31:51
Speaker
Because often I knew, yeah, I knew my accent was different. I knew my relationship to food was different. I even knew my relationship to like, you know, we're, we're strongly just like Memphis is like a very churchy city.
00:32:06
Speaker
North Carolina is a very churchy state. Even this day in Charlotte, like people ask, people have a church, even if they're more liberal and even if they don't necessarily like do God the same way, even if you don't go, you go, you go, you got, you gotta find somebody. Yes. You got, that's, you know, that's your family church. What does your family go to? Yes.
00:32:27
Speaker
And so that's what I feel like community making is in Black communities. And that's what I worry that we miss out on. I have started this show really because I started to notice, and you as a working journalist, you notice. You know that words matter. You know that how we talk about certain phenomena matter. And
00:32:54
Speaker
in the conversation around where black folks are living. Like literally for me, I was sitting in my master's program in public administration, immersing myself in my subject matter. And then I read my textbook critically.
00:33:08
Speaker
And there is, and I was learning about just how many thriving black neighborhoods were thrown away. Cause down South, it didn't matter who you were. They were just don't get rid of you. And they don't take them. Yeah. And they still them. Yeah. And you probably weren't thriving because they weren't paying you enough. Yeah. They might let you work on the field.
00:33:30
Speaker
Like side by side, maybe don't let you work in the factory side by side. Yeah, you got your little black school and yeah of course we are HBCU culture is like unmatched. I mean, you know, I say Aggie pride to somebody even though I went to the white schools but it's a
00:33:45
Speaker
G-ho is G-ho. They count. And also, you know, like, that's what I think whenever I finally, like, life lets me, like, really dive into my podcast how I want to.
Maintaining Cultural Identity Across Regions
00:33:57
Speaker
Yes. That was my idea behind it was not...
00:34:01
Speaker
that it's just for HBCU alums, but that HBCUs are for all of us, right? Because they are tenants of our community, right? Like, HBCUs are where kids go and have cheerleading competitions.
00:34:19
Speaker
HBCUs are where the community gathers to go get COVID shots. HBCUs are these important places and they are and will always be and it's not, you did not have to go to one, right? To recognize and understand their importance and so like, and you know, like you mentioned, even just like as an economic driver of a neighborhood or a community or a region,
00:34:47
Speaker
And so I think that that is what celebrating Black culture is, right? It doesn't necessarily mean you only celebrate stuff that you are connected to. You should be able to celebrate stuff that has nothing to do with you or that you were just tangentially near, right? Yeah, yeah.
00:35:04
Speaker
No, and growing up with A&T, A&T, like everything stops for the parade. And then not so much the tailgate, like everybody does the tailgate, but the parade is a whole different avenue. And of course, just getting up and seeing the bands and everything. My mom's a Bennett Bell, so just kind of one of the two remaining, all women, HBCUs in the country. I had Spelman.
00:35:31
Speaker
So some of that we have to some of that energy. And I think, you know, that was that created like a Southern bubble, like that created that bubble of well, why would people leave?
00:35:42
Speaker
And why would people break their own community down? And why are people complaining about not making money and getting ahead? And oh, you know, they went up north and now they're coming back. They're coming back because, you know, we're millennials. So the the return migration is starting to happen with people. But in a lot of ways, you and I kind of moved like, well, your hometown is a major black cultural center. And I'm like, I need to get to a
00:36:09
Speaker
even bigger major black cultural center. You know, yeah. What made you decide to come home if you don't mind sharing? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, um, at the time,
00:36:23
Speaker
I mean, I came home, but I'm always, well, I will always leave. And I don't want to say it in that way because I feel like I'm always connected. Because after coming home from Memphis, I worked here for a while. These were all before I was journalist too.
00:36:41
Speaker
I moved to the Atlanta area for a little bit. It just wasn't like the job wasn't a good fit and everything. And so I came home, right? And so I just say that because I've always been open. Like I think I'm open to things that feel right. And I don't feel like I'm losing Chicago when I leave because
00:37:03
Speaker
somebody told me really early on, like, Chicago is home, it's always gonna be there. And so just having that idea in my brain has, like, really allowed me to not really be afraid to move places. Like, I've looked into moving to D.C., right? Like, I've looked into moving everywhere, right? I've always been open. And so I'm not, you know, I'm not, um...
00:37:29
Speaker
I love this place and I will always work on it and work for it and that will not change no matter where I reside.
00:37:40
Speaker
And so, but, but I think at that time it was just like, you know, literally I'll go someplace, try it out. And it's like, this isn't a good fit, you know? So it is, it is, if I'm not, if I'm not living in Chicago, it does need to be a good place that is usually like job wise, good fit. Job is usually the reason.
00:38:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because I don't often get to have this kind of conversation with people and guests. For black women and black feminine folks, the job has to be right. It has to be paying. And oftentimes when we go in these job environments and our thoughts are challenged, I know for me, I lived in Kansas City for a year and some change. Now, Kansas City had the infrastructure
00:38:30
Speaker
It was fun. I still miss burning. It's like, that's the one thing that I wish I could get properly. Now we have Hill Country here in DC that kind of does that style. And of course, when I would go to Gates, people, I would be like, oh, it's the chopped kind. And I have a cousin that moved with his wife out to Kansas. Wait, what's that? Tell me.
00:38:50
Speaker
So out in North Carolina, like our barbecue style is so. Oh, yes. Oh, wait. No, no, no, I do know that. Let me tell you why I do know that, because my dad orders Gates seasoning online. Yes. Yes. And I have some in my cabinet. Yes. Yes. Yes. I can picture it now. Yes. Yes. Is that vinegar? Is that chopped? And that's the other thing. Like, you know, when you when the when the food changes, like for me. Yeah. I got to be able to change this. I do got to be able to eat. That is a priority.
00:39:19
Speaker
I mean, luckily, I think, well, I will say the only thing that is a priority is that I have to be around black people. And so I probably would not consider a job anywhere or a role anywhere, anything that would not have me in
00:39:42
Speaker
community with Black folks because I don't want to feel like I'm the minority and I can't, you know, I'm not sure if I'm the only Black family on the block. And that's honestly, that's never going to be me. And so I get that some people, you know,
00:40:02
Speaker
They don't mind that they grew up that way. But that was not my experience growing up. I was always surrounded by black love, black culture, like black everything. And so
00:40:17
Speaker
I can't leave what feels so great and then like move anywhere where I'm like the only like that, that is not going to ever be for me. So if a place did not have enough diversity, like it would not even be a option. Like it would, it would simply be like, we're not even going to talk about it. That is probably my one only, we're not even going to discuss it. Yeah.
Complexities of Urban Living and Diversity
00:40:46
Speaker
And I'm glad you're saying this because I got some people that's going to listen and be like, well, why can't y'all care more about like the urban forum? And if y'all have public transit, like I don't care. I don't care. I'm going to drive. Um, so I don't need public transit. I have a car. Um, the thing that I cannot replicate and I cannot make is I cannot make
00:41:09
Speaker
people love me and my son. I can't make people not be racist. I cannot make people, and that is not to say that it has to be like an all black place, right? Like I don't understand that, but I'm just saying is that like, I don't want my son to be like the only black kid in his school. I don't want these things, right? Like one of the things that I love that I have, that I prioritize
00:41:33
Speaker
over everything is that I have a special needs son. And one of the things I prioritize is that he has the best school experience when he is in a school where the teachers and the teacher's aides view him with love. And he is a person that they could
00:41:59
Speaker
that he could be their son, right? And I say that because like his teacher now is white. And so it's not that it's an all black, you know, I mean, like it's a predominantly black school. So it's not necessarily that it's race, but like the school is, you know, it's mostly black and Latino. And, you know, everybody that works there loves those kids so much. They see these kids every day, they care about them, they hug them.
00:42:27
Speaker
They like, I mean, like the love is you can feel the love they have and with kids who like, you know, like my son is nonverbal. He can't tell me. So I have to have a place that I can trust. And one time when I was living outside of.
00:42:42
Speaker
Atlanta, he was like, I think it was maybe only one or two black kids in that class. And they would just call me all the time and be like, we think Jackson's not feeling well today. Could you come pick him up? And I'm like, what?
00:42:58
Speaker
He seems very fine to me, right? And it's like, do you just not want to deal with him? You know, so it's just, it's just, and even if that is an unconscious bias that they are having, because they're not used to working with little black kids, they have that bias. And so I'll have time for that.
00:43:14
Speaker
I don't have time to decipher it. I don't have time to maneuver it, right? Like we have so many things to work through in life. These are things I don't have time to worry about, right? So I don't have time to worry about if my neighbors are racist, okay? I'm gonna assume that you would not move into this neighborhood if you was racist, because it's all these black people, right? I'm going to assume that you would not work at this school with all these black kids if you were like black kids, right? So I have to like,
00:43:44
Speaker
self-select for my sanity, because there's so many places in this world where we can't help that, right? We cannot make people not be racist. We cannot make people not be bigoted. And we absolutely cannot even make people confront the biases they don't even know that they have.
00:44:10
Speaker
I don't want to be the recipient of those in places where I need to relax, where I need to just be
00:44:18
Speaker
Yeah, right. And I'm not gonna leave a place where I feel so comfortable to a place that now I have this animosity where I lay my head at night and all that. I'm not doing it. So that is actually the only thing. That's my only non-negotiable. And I do not care about that. And I know. And we see on social media, every day somebody's like, I moved my family out to this suburb.
00:44:48
Speaker
And we are the only black family and people are, the kids are teasing my kid. And I think my fam, the people are tormenting us and I got time for that. I do not have time for that. And again, I know everybody has a different situation. So I'm not judging other people's choices. That's their choice. It's not going to be my choice.
00:45:13
Speaker
And I got a choice. Yeah. Yeah. And we do have choices. Like, I know for me, I love that little village life that we have right here, but it does feel a little corporate and sterile. Like, it's like, I love, we went from being in a mostly like black part of PG, but even a part where even PG people are like, y'all there.
00:45:35
Speaker
you know, I'm surprised y'all can survive there, how y'all holding on there. That's what I was looking at. I was like, I was like, let me, I said, if I move to DC area, give me up in PG County. I will tell you exactly where you might be like want to go and especially having a disabled child like
00:45:52
Speaker
You know, Maryland, that's the thing. Maryland has become the poster right now, you know, the black governor situation is real. Now, like we just said, we don't love every politician. Exactly. Black governor, mayor of Baltimore haven't, and being willing to be authentic, like at least have that appearance of authenticity, be on the streets, speak the language.
00:46:16
Speaker
with Stan showing up very authentically in a crisis situation, as I talked about the whole Baltimore, the bridge crash in episode one, but just being there and being supportive and the community supports them.
00:46:33
Speaker
and the community loves our culture. Like, that's what I have to see. I have to see the community loving our culture. But then I'll be wrecking my cars. Like, car got scratches. Car has all been up. I got enough room. I have a Honda Fit. So I have, like, all this room. The seats are all down. But then I'm not carting no child around. It's just me and my partner. And we take turns. And she's like, one day, she's like, OK, I need this for going on site for my job. And then both of us are like,
00:47:03
Speaker
huge like transportation nerds, like we love and we do it together. But before her, there was like certain places I wouldn't necessarily go. And then before her, I realized, OK, some of my people that are so excited about, oh, we need more bike share. We need more this and that. But they won't ride the metro all the way out.
00:47:26
Speaker
They won't ride the Metro to the tail ends unless it's in Virginia. And even then they complain then because then they claim that they're in more of like a solid or redneck white situation. And I'm like, well, where do you want to go? Like we built Metro here. This is where places are living. And yes, I I miss food. Like now I will say this DC's food, the gentrification here.
00:47:52
Speaker
One of the things that it has taken from us a little bit is food is different. Food is very different. We're just now getting hair salons back in an equilibrium. But then again, I think everybody's like charging a lot for hair. And my style has just left me. I'm happy for her. She's buying a house in Philly. She's doing her own gentrification to find a community.
00:48:15
Speaker
where her and her husband can buy that house. She's like, I'm gonna be right outside. She found like a black, black salon in Philly. And I'm like, gosh, you know, you know, the way I was brought up like, and it was a Chicago, it was Chicago ones who I borrowed my haircare techniques from the ladies of black curl magic and cut it kinky. Like, yeah, yeah. I, I, they, they got us traveling for hair, but I'm like, okay.
00:48:41
Speaker
but where am I supposed to go? And on my little pittance of a, well, I'm totally independent right now. I'm totally in the freelancing bucket. And that's really like, these are the things I'm thinking about. And then I love fiber arts right now. So having that extra room and that's a rule of refuge and being creative. I got my partner sewing now. That's the way we're kind of reclaiming like our Southernness and everything. And wanting space. Sometimes if you want a lot of space, you don't have to move out.
00:49:11
Speaker
because frankly, just in the inner city, it's not gonna be a lot of space, you gotta go out far, right? So I really do agree that people need to make whatever decisions make the best for them. So I don't judge anybody on their decisions. I feel like I have just learned some key things that are key to maybe my survival, right? Or in my specific situation.
00:49:39
Speaker
because everybody you know like even even me and my my bestest of friends we all live so different right like i have one of my best friends is a downtown liver she's always gonna be downtown in a high rise okay that's gonna be her she says i'm single without any kids
00:50:00
Speaker
That's how I'm gonna live my life, okay? And so she wants all- Well, you guys use the concierge, the mail comes, the food is right. She wants every amenity, okay? And then I have another friend who is just gonna do suburban life, okay? She is like, listen, I am gonna do suburban life. And she's like, now I've done it for so long. My kids are little suburban kids. And that's where they like to live, right? And they like,
00:50:30
Speaker
You know, there are certain things that are good about being in a suburb where it's kind of like, oh, we're also, everything is like maybe routed within like a five minute distance. So like all of their best friends are like most too. So like, I mean, I get it, right? Like, so I totally get it. And I think that, you know, I never am like, everybody got to live how I live. But for me, if a neighborhood
00:50:55
Speaker
If there are no if there are no neighborhoods that are diverse enough for me and my threshold is higher than most, it's probably not going to make sense for me to move there.
00:51:08
Speaker
because of just how I move and how I live now, because it's like compared to how I live now versus if it was compared to how I was when I was in Atlanta or outside of Atlanta, right? I was not in Atlanta. Where were you, like what part of east side or west side? I was in Alpharetta, so I was north of the city because- Okay, yeah.
00:51:30
Speaker
people advised me to live there, because that's where my job was. And they were like, oh, you should live in Alpharetta. They have really top rated school systems, but that top rated school system did nothing for me, right? So again, that's a lesson that I had to learn for me. However, if my son was neurotypical, you know, maybe he would have
00:51:56
Speaker
you know, been successful in that school system in a way that he wasn't because he's not right. He's seen as different. He can't communicate in that way. So yeah, so everybody's different. But yeah, people are like, you should absolutely move to Alpharetta. I'm like, sure.
00:52:13
Speaker
They're like, yeah, yeah, which also granted, you know, like everybody says, Atlanta traffic is horrible. So they're like, you don't want to have to deal with that every day trying to go to work. So you should just live in Alpharetta. That's what I would do. They got top rated schools.
Personal Choices in Urban Living
00:52:28
Speaker
I'm like, OK, OK.
00:52:30
Speaker
Hate at it. And that was also one of the reasons why I was like, let me just go back home. So knowing yourself, being like, if I get someplace and I'm not feeling certain things, I'm going to just want to go home.
00:52:44
Speaker
No. And I'm loving that we talking about this as the episode because like I've been wanting to get somebody on here to talk about what black women think like, and not that we're a monolith. Right. But so many people are like, I just can't understand why you would prioritize like making sure you have your culture. I'm like, well, what do you do at night? Like, do you not realize that you've had access
00:53:07
Speaker
to building physical infrastructure that benefits you. Yeah. The data points, like these, these school ratings, even the walk score, like when we were MPG, we were like, okay, our walk score should be higher.
00:53:24
Speaker
Now it was lower on a technicality because the road was just too wide to really walk across safely like we were seeing folks get hit all the time because most of our folks were transit dependent and they were dependent on having to walk across the street to the grocery store.
00:53:40
Speaker
When we still had two pharmacies and they shut them down, they hurried up and shut them down. As soon as like that, all the pandemic money went away, but that's it. Like they were okay with us, like not having the pharmacies, but having plenty brand new remodeled Burger King. Not to say it ain't, you know, I not eat everything, but just no options. Exactly. No options.
00:54:03
Speaker
And that's what you feel. It sounds like you feel like that, too. And that that's yeah, it's always. Yeah, it's always a trade off. Right. Like where I live now, there are no close, good grocery stores. Right. That one. And so and again, so it goes back to your individual priorities. Right. So
00:54:27
Speaker
Well, when I'm at home, I'm always going to live on the south side of Chicago. So that's period. Right. Like that's going to be it. Yeah. And I'm in a neighborhood that is like all black. Right. But it was like that. That's not even, you know, but like most of it's not every neighborhood on the south side. So I don't want to say that there are other pockets, but Chicago is still
00:54:51
Speaker
really segregated so there's not there's not many that you're gonna live in where you're like this is a you know mixed neighborhood most of the time it's like this is a Mexican neighborhood this is a black neighborhood this is a Puerto Rican neighborhood like they are segregated okay um and so there are things that I like I love my
00:55:14
Speaker
Like my inner neighborhood, like for the block, my block and the blocks that are around me, I made sure when I moved over here, there were kids playing. I feel relatively safe. I feel safe enough to walk around. I don't know how far of that circle would be for me, but within this I feel good.
00:55:34
Speaker
But there's not a... Let's say if I forget something, there's a Walmart that's maybe seven minutes away, and then there's one of those little grocers where the food isn't necessarily fresh. And I went in there one or two times, because I just needed something, and I'm like, ugh.
00:55:55
Speaker
So I can't go grocery shopping in there, right? And that's a trade-off, right? Versus when I lived in this neighborhood called Hyde Park, which is diverse, but it's only diverse because it's where the University of Chicago is. It's really expensive. So I lived in like a co-op apartment. I could never afford to buy a home.
00:56:19
Speaker
Like how I have a house here, I could not afford to buy a house there. To buy a house there, you need a doctor and a lawyer, both of them together, and have some savings.
Challenges Faced by Black Communities
00:56:33
Speaker
You need that level, right? And it's just me.
00:56:37
Speaker
So, but there was a, you know, like it was a Trader Joe's and well, it wasn't the Trader Joe's yet. It was like a different thing, but like now there's a Trader Joe's there, there's the Whole Foods. So all of these things are in walking distance of that apartment, but where I am now,
00:56:55
Speaker
none of those things, those types of, you know, grocery stores on your back. So it's like, you do have these things where you're like, oh, when I am in a black neighborhood, it is also likely going to be under resourced. Yeah, right. And
00:57:12
Speaker
Am I going to run away from that? You know, it just depends. Right. So so I also don't blame people. Right. Like if you have your priorities or whatever. And I felt like most of me and my friends who have kids who live in Chicago, though,
00:57:27
Speaker
Most of us all, once we live in black neighborhoods, most of my black Chicago friends, especially the ones with younger kids, because they want to make sure that those kids grow up in the city, know how to navigate the city, aren't afraid of the city, right? Don't grow up in the suburbs with this fear of going to the city.
00:57:47
Speaker
And not to say that, like, of course, sometimes some people move to the suburbs because you're like, I need to be close to my job. I can't drive two hours to get the job to work every day and rush out. I get that. But I think most of us have this desire to still be connected to our city.
00:58:04
Speaker
And so we just look for that balance, right? Like there are some neighborhoods where it's like, okay, I pay a little bit more, but then I get kind of this, but then I pay a little bit less, but then I don't have this, right? So then I'm just like, okay, I'll just get the groceries on my way home, okay? I don't have a grocery store in seven minutes away, but that's fine, right? I'll pay for grocery delivery, whatever, right? Like, you know, you just kind of maneuver and you kind of like figure it out. Like what is the balance that makes sense for you and your family?
00:58:34
Speaker
Um and so yeah I that's yeah when I think about it all of my Chicago friends we all really have our kids in the city and when we talk about it it's usually for that reason that we really see our kids as city kids and we want them to be able to
00:58:55
Speaker
I mean, granted, like Chicago is big. And I only say that compared to like places like where DC proper is tiny. And then there's, you know what I'm saying? It's not that tiny though. It's not that tiny, but like, it's not like DC proper. It's not as big as Chicago. Right. Right. Chicago proper is huge.
00:59:16
Speaker
Right. So I just say that to say that, like, I'm not comparing it to every city. Right. Because, um, there's also, you know, every breakdown is kind of different. Like, so when I say the suburbs, right, I guess I'm saying like the traditional, I want to be away from the rest of y'all kind of want to be a little bit better. Five is on a different level. The Midwestern suburbs. Cause like when I was in Kansas city, it was like,
00:59:42
Speaker
We can't touch Kansas City. Now, Kansas City proper is already large enough. Like I lived it like in the 30s. Like we were talking numbered streets. And of course, y'all's numbers like go straight down numbers are like DC numbers expand out from the capital in this odd way. And they don't really make it look cool. I was looking at the map because y'all are like a circle, right? It's kind of like we're in a circle.
01:00:06
Speaker
we're more of like a grid. So we're, we're, we're, we're actually like, we're, we're an actual grid. So it's like, you have like your zero zero coordinates and then you move out from there. Well, no, our zero zero is the literal capital building, but not the quadrants aren't equal cause they can't be equal cause some of the, some of it is water. And then for those who really know DC history know that Alexandria and Arlington were in the original district proper.
01:00:32
Speaker
So that's another reason why it's a little bit tinier. Okay. And then we have, we had the original boundary line, like Howard itself is in what was considered Washington County. So there's elements of DC that used to resemble more of a city county dynamic.
01:00:57
Speaker
But DC has become known for because people love people love our met we love metro so much. We want to have that metro experience, even if we got to drive to we qualify, so you got malls like tyson's corner that have the metro station right next to it is still an enclosed mall.
Preserving Cultural Heritage
01:01:15
Speaker
You got people that are living in like, I think I saw a basement that's going out for $350,000. That's why, that's why our prices are as high as they are because like there are, there is variety. Then you have the folks that live. Well, the buoy folks have to kind of fight because there's multiple buoys in a lot of way. There's like one minute is upper Marlboro, then it goes back to being a movie and you're still in PG count. Now, mind you, you're still in PG County.
01:01:40
Speaker
And then you have Montgomery County and then you have like you have the counties have a counties have that municipal level the district itself is considered a city with state elements.
01:01:52
Speaker
which is why we're pushing for statehood because effectively that's the really the only sensible thing to do with the district because Maryland is slightly more conservative in some ways and DC is slightly more liberal or at least progressive, if you can even say that. Of course, it's all getting mixed up. Alexandria City as itself, you still have the old town and it looks very colonial. There are some buildings I don't like to touch, some buildings I can't fathom living in. Like there's literally a remodeled slave quarter where people are living like apartments.
01:02:22
Speaker
I can't touch that, but then I turn around on the other block and there's Alpha Street Baptist Church historic black church legendary, like, and then you, and then people do complain about the gentrification. But the one thing about it is that we still are transportation is resourced enough where you can find a neighborhood for you.
01:02:42
Speaker
If you want to be connected, you can find a neighborhood that connects you there. But you might have to leave a jurisdiction and our jurisdictions have to work together more. And our transit, like the head of our transit agency, he loves riding the train and he's trying to bring us all together. He's trying to actually build up a more of a regional thing besides the sports teams. And yeah, of course, we just have one of each sports team. It's not like we got two cross town baseball teams. We just were trying to even need to. It's not we don't win.
01:03:12
Speaker
And we don't, and we honestly don't even need our men's basketball team. Like we had our whole argument where they were going to move across the Potomac and people are like, Oh, y'all are bad. Oh, and not only are y'all back, y'all going to take all the money. Like right now we're having a budget problem. Like these are the things like people are so excited. Like, Oh, well sports is going to bring them in, but then y'all don't want to stay like.
01:03:32
Speaker
really that phenomenon where people move into the suburbs to be away and to be away from stuff and all of that, people just leave the area. They either go way into Virginia and realize they're practically in Richmond. Now some of them do stay in Richmond and they're okay with one train a week as some of them are Baltimore and some of them, but they're coming back.
01:03:53
Speaker
To the Chicago suburbs, probably those north side suburbs that they were like i'm leaving i'm gonna go be west wing i'm gonna be one of those people oh wait. i'm a lower level gs in this I want to buy that house oh wait that house in Chicago is half the price.
01:04:12
Speaker
of DC and just like they want to feel comfortable. Yeah, we have our comfort levels as well. That's well and good. But what I love about DC is that you do see everybody. Like this neighborhood, they try, they're in neighborhoods they have tried to gentrify and it is so funny because it is not happening properly. Now the sad part about it is yes, the rent rates are too high.
01:04:36
Speaker
But the grocery store is still there, we still got all of our whole foods is and we are up in there at all times of the day and night like you can't not go to Whole Foods and see somebody black because they they didn't they kind of failed at that.
01:04:52
Speaker
They, you know, everybody rides public transit, everybody does, everybody does things here. And you've got the core of, but one of the things I think is different, and that's why I love the book so much. And I do want to mention the book before we kind of wrap it up. Like I was like, we could, we, now we don't talk off, we don't talk offline a little bit more. Cause this has been fun, but that is why I love the book. Cause lately,
01:05:17
Speaker
I've been thinking a lot about how DC is the chocolate city, supposedly.
01:05:23
Speaker
It is a chocolate city and population is a chocolate region, but I'll be in Baltimore more often than not. Like no lie now, of course, all my DC people listening. Y'all know y'all need to be sending me some artistic recommendations and food recommendations. And y'all need to be telling me the right parts of PG and even like Alexandria and even Arlington to roll up in so I can feel like that I'm eating like I'm in North Carolina, but I'm having a good time. Me and my partner are having fun and everybody's cool with everything. But Chicago,
01:05:53
Speaker
There was room for people to create. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to get a job at the government. I'm going to be all right. Oh, I can't do X, Y, and Z because the government is going to come after me. Our promised land to me is still too tied to the federal government and the fact that somebody didn't get you a job in some sort of division.
Chicago's Contribution to Black Culture
01:06:14
Speaker
And nothing wrong with that if that's what you need, especially like my friends with children, like you do what you gotta do. That's like we've talked about in this episode, but whereas Chicago, I think that's where the room was for everything to flourish and have all those institutions. Yeah, it's also a very, it's just a very different hustle, right? Like if let's say, you know, you working at a,
01:06:43
Speaker
a meal or a factory, right? Like you might do that and then pursue your music career on the side, right? Like that's your creative outlet. But if you are a
01:07:03
Speaker
doctor at Howard Hospital. That is your passion, that is your everything. So I also recognize that certain careers are demanding in a different way, right? And I think that that has just maybe affected the vibe of the place, right? Everybody knows D.C.,
01:07:25
Speaker
for it being like more upper middle class, right? Having black folks earlier, right? Like black people being able to have those types of jobs where they couldn't anywhere else, right? So, you know, here,
01:07:42
Speaker
Black folks were making money, but what they were making the money in was just, it was a little bit more creative, right? You gotta open up something, you gotta do something. Institutionally, we still were not welcome in bigger, major places for just really a long time, right?
01:08:06
Speaker
those strides, those advancements look different and then that affected what the cities look like today.
01:08:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I do agree with that. I just, one thing I'm hoping is like people read your book, like, cause it reads like one of those great black history, black culture reminders. I don't know. Since we're around the same age, I don't know if you remember that little pink book of black history women. It was like workbook size.
01:08:38
Speaker
My aunt had sent it down for me from Detroit like my aunt actually she was the first she was my first Migrate like my mom's sister. She moved to Detroit
01:08:47
Speaker
in the 80s, taught, retired from like Southfield and all of that. And she would, since she did not have children of her own, but she had plenty of nieces and nephews, we would all get a shipment from UPS. The brown truck blowing up in front of our house was Christmas day every quarter. And in that brown truck, she would send clothing and she would also send us so many books, like pretty much all of the black books I would get.
01:09:08
Speaker
And then of course, like my mom and Oprah are the same age. So just seeing Oprah on the screen, even though my mom's way more religious and way more traditional, my, my aunt, her sister was the more progressive one of the two, you know, it's the, the famous, when you have the two pairs of sisters and the one, yeah, that that's our little dynamic, but yeah.
01:09:31
Speaker
this book and it had that's when I learned about Ida B. Wells and Mary McLeod Bethune and Catherine Dunham and like all these black women and of course Tar Beach now I didn't have an actual copy of Tar Beach but of course it was in the library because Tar Beach hit right there at kindergarten time when we were like we were being shaped
01:09:52
Speaker
And so this was a big deal that people wanted to pay attention. And of course, you know, in my last episode, I talked to one of my fellow North Carolinians where we were talking about how we were growing up in the new South and all the new stuff was coming up and you know, everybody was coming up and Atlanta and DC were coming up and even we were coming up, but it was that exposure and those books and it wasn't until I was older that I realized that not everybody is getting these kinds of books
01:10:19
Speaker
And now here you've written something that, of course, because you're a journalist, you know, we got to cite our sources and we got to have our facts and we got to interview everybody. So it's the main people and it's the person that you're highlighting. And it is so readable and it is so accessible. Like I'm thinking about when you're talking about the defender chapters, your book feels like reading the defender. It's I could give that book to anybody and they can see how everything happened.
01:10:49
Speaker
And then they can relive the parts that they remember living in. Like, I'm on my way to the Oprah and Jordan parts. And I'm like, OK. OK. I'm going to get. Yeah, that's going to be because the other part of the book is so like I just. And the thing is, you know, we live in an audio book realm. And of course, we know we teach podcasts. We're on the podcast. You know, that's.
01:11:11
Speaker
It's wonderful that we have all these options. And I'm definitely not that person that's like, oh, well, you didn't read. You just read somebody read to you. Like, just, just go away. Go be able to somewhere else. We don't have time for that. But I wanted to commend you for writing this kind of book to bring this together.
01:11:29
Speaker
And I love that we had this kind of conversation today because so many so many of the conversations I have are like, you need to do X, Y, Z. And I don't understand why people aren't moving here and I don't understand why people want to like don't want to go here. You got to solve the racism problem. You got to solve the sexism problem. You got to solve the ableism problem. And then you got to honestly, they do need to solve the food desert problem. Like one day I would hope that somebody
01:11:57
Speaker
would be able to overcome the barriers we have in the food world right now. Because clearly, we love to eat. We have talked about it so much.
01:12:08
Speaker
And I watch because I'm on the East Coast and I'm recording this hour later than it is where you are. So that is it, though, for me, like where you have centered certain aspects of music. Like I love that you give us a song at the beginning of every chapter. Like I had to do it because I was like, yep, yep. I everybody that reads my newsletter know I have a song. I started a DJ a little bit like quiet DJ. I'm not.
01:12:36
Speaker
No record scratching, more of jazz in a white college newspaper and media spectrum. But I love that. And I really am excited for some of my folks that follow me because I'm so hardcore on all the built environment stuff to really start sit down and read this book. And instead of what they were doing in 2020, where it was all those prescriptive books, they're just getting to know the people who did this.
01:13:06
Speaker
And they're seeing that, oh, they don't do it anyway. Why not make it easier? Or, oh my gosh, it was so sad that they all had to leave. And oh my gosh, were my ancestors really that oblivious to a man handing them a plate of food on a train?
01:13:25
Speaker
That that is the the writing and everything has really centered in. And I want to I really like that. And that's why, of course, it's going to be the only book recommendation on this episode. And I'm so glad we were able to sit down and talk. And I'm so glad that with this podcast, I get to have these kinds of conversations. One last question I want for like the main portion, the recorded version, like
01:13:52
Speaker
How do you feel like in the vein of the show, how do you feel like you personally are defying gentrification? And do you feel like the region as a whole that you're in in Chicago is doing well defying gentrification? Of course, we talked about living in a lot of different places. I mean, do you feel like other places are doing it better?
01:14:12
Speaker
leave us with how you feel like you're defying, because I, of course, believe you can defy as black folks, but ending is a whole other round. That's maybe not our responsibility. That's kind of the idea here. It's kind of like the discussion we have around racism. So yeah, it's just racism, you know, is what it is.
Strategies Against Gentrification
01:14:30
Speaker
I guess I would say is that, um,
01:14:35
Speaker
There are a lot of people who are like staking claim on these neighborhoods that we helped build. And just saying, this is where I live and I'm happy with this place. And you don't have to
01:14:58
Speaker
you don't have to try to convince me to move and get other people in here. And I just said that because I think that that is sometimes how it may work, you know, like convince people that there is another thing, you know, like in Chicago, so many stories. There's been a lot of books out lately that have kind of referred in different ways to white flight in Chicago, where so many people in,
01:15:27
Speaker
Chicago, white people left and moved to the suburbs. And now, of course, a lot of those white people want to move back to the city. And I think that, you know, a lot of folks are like, this is my neighborhood. I love it. Like, you're welcome to live with us. But we're not going anywhere, you know? But you're welcome to come, too. You know? And I say that because I've never heard a neighborhood say, you can't come, too.
01:15:55
Speaker
right, but it is, we're not going anywhere, you know? So many, like on my block, so many of my neighbors have been here. They have been here for years and years and years. One of my neighbors, you know, everybody just calls him the mayor. They're like, he's the mayor of the block, right? Like he has been here for generations. Like this is the mayor's block. It's not even my block, really. It's the mayor's block, right? And so anybody else is welcome to come join us.
01:16:22
Speaker
But this is the mayor's block. And so just like staking that claim and not being able to not being afraid to say, this is my city. This is my neighborhood. These are places that I'm allowed to live and work and be whatever those neighborhoods are. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. No. One hundred percent. Like I definitely feel like that as well. Like I people
01:16:49
Speaker
With this show, I want those stories to come out. People don't hear enough about us. Because when we were trying to come in their neighborhoods, they were the ones bombing the houses. And y'all really had. It seemed like y'all were really the best friends of the house
Conclusion and Call to Action
01:17:04
Speaker
bombing.
01:17:04
Speaker
Yes, there were many, many house bombings, especially leading up to 1919, because we had so much overcrowding in the Black Belt and people who had the means wanted to try to move other places. And it was, you know, we'd be bombed, yeah.
01:17:23
Speaker
Whereas here we just, the money, the money is a difference. Like you have some of the dollar amounts I am seeing in Southeast and near South, like basically what we would say wards five, seven, and eight, um, for people who know DC and even ward four, like just any of the black neighborhoods, uh, of course a whole new map showed up. Like, I think like.
01:17:48
Speaker
a couple days ago on my timeline, where it showed the neighborhoods that we've actually lost to the neighborhood changes now. DC, we're still at parity in the District of Columbia proper. And I want to honor that, yeah, we have all these different neighborhoods and there's some sharing, my banker, and I know I have a banker, but you know, I'm an independent, so I need to have a good relationship with bankers. So we were opening accounts and he's like, yeah, I grew up, you know,
01:18:16
Speaker
He didn't say what like Latin a country he was from from, but I knew I was like, okay, Columbia Heights, that's your end. You know, you're from that in and y'all got that, but it's not like the borders are like this permeable thing. If anything, we're starting to see that national retailers, once they take those incentives away, they just don't want to be with us in the first place with all these pharmacies and all these like locking everything up.
01:18:46
Speaker
And then we have our community where it's, and I think it's, you know, I've noticed, I think it's more of white millennials waking up to, oh my gosh, I can't afford a house. Whereas that's always been something we've had to think about. We've always had to just get go where we could with our choices and our choices as black millennials and black folks in general, we're going to be different. And for so many of us, we've never had.
01:19:14
Speaker
So of course if you've never had, and especially if you stayed in the South, we never had. So of course when we get somewhere, like if we made it to the North and we get that house, we're going to be happy with it. Then we're going to use that space. Like we're going to use, like people are going to be posted up in the backyard. We might subdivide it and there may be another family in the house and there may be like,
01:19:37
Speaker
a business at home or there may be like we are creative in how we make our places like people want to put all kinds of labels on it but we're going to stay creative and we're going to be defiant anyway and so yeah I
01:19:53
Speaker
I, I'm so glad you came by today and just tell everybody, like, I'm gonna put all your links and stuff in there. I'm gonna use your good bio, but tell everybody where they can find you. Other than where, of course, you know, we're still hanging out here on that Twitter. Twitter is something else. Yes. I am Ariane Nettles, Twitter, Instagram, everywhere. So.
01:20:16
Speaker
yay good for you having one and making that one work for you because you know i'm over here trying to brand myself and i'm just a person a person that loves cities and yarn so i guess that's where we are at the moment and yes um i'm gonna of course for those of y'all listening i'm gonna come back i'm gonna close out the show i'm gonna do one more ad break and of course thank y'all for listening again this is Defying Centrification with Kristen Jefferson we'll be back
01:20:44
Speaker
So we're back after the interview. And yes, this is one more push to go buy this book. Go buy this book. If you have your appetite wetted by a hearing, let's just have an honest, raw, kind of un-informal conversation about being two black millennials, one who's a parent.
01:21:04
Speaker
a parent with a disabled child and another who's a queer person about where we live, how we live, the motivations of where we've lived and what it's been like for us, you know, people coming into the Great Recession and people that are vulnerable to schemes like
01:21:19
Speaker
That's right. Parking meters. Read this book. And then you're a black millennial like us. You will remember some of these things. You will remember when you react with some of these things. This is a multi-generational book because so many of these things your parents will know about, especially things like soul training.
01:21:39
Speaker
You'll want to have this, you'll want to read this book, you'll want to read it with your family, you'll want to make it a discussion point, you'll want to assign it in your classes. So just go on over to Bookshop.org slash shops or just New Jefferson, get this book. There is an e-book, it is available, doing so with support, doing so in my bookshop store with support me having more of these kinds of conversations. You like these conversations? Go to that Bookshop.org store and support me on that.
01:22:06
Speaker
And yes, we are at the end of today's episode. I hope that you enjoyed this. I hope that you got something out of it. I hope if it rankled you by hearing the tenor of our conversation, that you think about why we live the way we live, and that we're not your average. I won't even say that we're NIMBYs. I'm definitely a NIMBY, and yes, yes in my backyard, we gotta think
01:22:36
Speaker
So think about that and of course we're coming up with some more guests this season and if anything this is going to be a high cast about urbanism and gentrification and urban planning. It's going to have guests you won't expect. It's going to have people talking about this and
01:22:52
Speaker
in a totally different way and provide a variety. We're gonna have practitioners, gonna have journalists. So if you like what you're listening to, please come back. Please rate us and review us on all the networks that you can rate and review us on. I would especially love that if you're watching this video version that you subscribe to the channel, you share it, and also you can rate and review and subscribe to all audio versions as well. So, Kristen, well,
01:23:24
Speaker
the host, the source of interviews for this show. I report some parts of this. I reported it in Zoom, it's in my iPhone, none of this is sponsored. Bookshop is my affiliate, sponsored. And if you want to advertise, let me know. So, be sure to check me out.
01:23:44
Speaker
And yes, if you want to keep up with the show, if you want to make sure you get the show notes, Substack has a wonderful transcription version of this. So you want just an audio written transcript. It's there. If you want to just have a comprehensive list of all the episodes, you go to TheBlackHerbertist.com. You click on Read Newsletter. And not only do you have podcast updates, you have my livestream updates on Mondays. You have my essays on Sundays, where I oftentimes share more of my craft work.
01:24:13
Speaker
so absolutely please subscribe on sub-stack or linkedin and i know a lot of y'all are my little linkedin warriors you stay on linkedin all the time definitely just add me to your linkedin stoop get me in your inbox patreon is still there for you patreon.com plus christening efforts if you want to support financially thank you to my new patreon this week you will be on if i have
01:24:36
Speaker
I believe I'm up to about 35 page supporters. And yes, you can follow me on Patreon without paying now. There's a new feature. But I would love it if you would kick a little bit back for the show, the page for brilliant staff. And I have a vision for this platform. I've had to make some pivots over the years. But I know having you here, and I will enjoy having you. So until next time, do everything you can to end and defy gentrification, please. OK.