high drama at the black cat
Also known as: one more reason for me to leave.
Also known as: the trouble with gentrification.
Also known as: this place is just fucked.
I'm sitting here at my coffeeshop, reading my (of all things) Civil Rights Litigation homework in my previously described, thrivingly-gentrified neighborhood, on a street that used to be a run-down gang main drag (what was it before that? i don't know, my portland history is only informed by the mythology commonly passed around and that mythology seems to begin in an era of gangs and decay) -- this coffeeshop is in it's own way a little trashy and caters to white, indie-kids, pseudo artists and geeksters, lots and lots of queers and, wait, did I mention they're all white? They're all white.
So it was noticeable when these two young black guys walked in, loping around in their oversized clothes and disjointed swaggers, lingering by the ice-cream cooler, looking around, talking to each other, not getting in line to buy anything, just standing out like sore thumbs. I looked up at them. It isn't completely unheard-of for black kids from the neighborhood to come in here -- they don't tend to hang out much, but they come in sometimes to buy sodas or cigarettes or use the internet computers in the back -- I looked up at them and noted their clothes, their swaggers, their blackness. I felt that gnaw in my stomach, that gnaw that doesn't have an answer, that gnaw that starts gnawing every time I walk through my neighborhood, that gnawing on the confusion of class and race and how I fit into it all and how fucked up it all is and what to do with it. A tangle of guilt and misunderstanding and whatever else.
One of the guys leaned across the counter from the wrong side and asked the barista if there was a bathroom he could use. She said, "Only for customers, but yeah, you can use it." She pointed to the door. He used it. The other just stood in his spot and stared at the ice-cream. His friend emerged and said, "Look, they have ice-cream." They slouched toward the line and stood for a bit, shuffling hugely baggy pants forward as customers moved along. I stopped watching them. Suddenly, there was a crack of activity, a woman's voice said "shit!" and a rush of rustling clothes and feet slapping ground, a blur of white jacket out of the corner of my eye.
I looked up too late. Everyone in the shop was looking up. Then the barista, shocked and wide-eyed, started explaining: "I was taking the money out of the tip-jar, I had a handful of ones and that guy just reached across, right under my nose, and grabbed it right out of my hand. He grabbed it right out of my fucking hand!" Pasty white faces looked lazilly around and people said, "wow" and "shit" and "that was *fast*." The woman sitting to my left jumped up and walked outside to stare down the sidewalk after the long-gone guys. A damp sense of limp outrage sort of sparked among the crowd for a minute, then passed. The barista called the cops. I heard her explain it. Now, ten minutes later, it's like nothing happened, but the barista has probably still got a lingering adrenalin buzz. Meanwhile, those guys are probably down at the convenience store five blocks away buying candy and lottery tickets and laughing.
Why is this neighborhood gentrified? Why was this once black neighborhood suddenly full of white liberals with coffeeshops? Why don't the black kids shop here? Why are the white kids suspicious? Why was the fucking barista taking the tips out of the tip jar right then anyway? Why is this a race thing? Because it *is* a race thing. It's not a thug thing or a criminal thing. It's black kids in their once black neighborhood stealing tips from white baristas who sell coffee to white geeksters who have taken over their street with the things the so-called progressive Portland neo-yuppies value: bike shops and food co-ops and indie rock bars and clothing boutiques and 80-million goddamn coffeeshops.
After all these years, what is the solution? What changes this scenerio? What do we do? How do we learn to like each other, to look after each other, to care for each other, to understand something of who we all are? What's the missing piece, the missing equation in this value system that keeps people so separate and contentious? Case in point: the next season of Survivor plans to separate the contestants by race. To prove what? To appeal to whom? What century are we living in?? What are we doing to ourselves?
Also known as: the trouble with gentrification.
Also known as: this place is just fucked.
I'm sitting here at my coffeeshop, reading my (of all things) Civil Rights Litigation homework in my previously described, thrivingly-gentrified neighborhood, on a street that used to be a run-down gang main drag (what was it before that? i don't know, my portland history is only informed by the mythology commonly passed around and that mythology seems to begin in an era of gangs and decay) -- this coffeeshop is in it's own way a little trashy and caters to white, indie-kids, pseudo artists and geeksters, lots and lots of queers and, wait, did I mention they're all white? They're all white.
So it was noticeable when these two young black guys walked in, loping around in their oversized clothes and disjointed swaggers, lingering by the ice-cream cooler, looking around, talking to each other, not getting in line to buy anything, just standing out like sore thumbs. I looked up at them. It isn't completely unheard-of for black kids from the neighborhood to come in here -- they don't tend to hang out much, but they come in sometimes to buy sodas or cigarettes or use the internet computers in the back -- I looked up at them and noted their clothes, their swaggers, their blackness. I felt that gnaw in my stomach, that gnaw that doesn't have an answer, that gnaw that starts gnawing every time I walk through my neighborhood, that gnawing on the confusion of class and race and how I fit into it all and how fucked up it all is and what to do with it. A tangle of guilt and misunderstanding and whatever else.
One of the guys leaned across the counter from the wrong side and asked the barista if there was a bathroom he could use. She said, "Only for customers, but yeah, you can use it." She pointed to the door. He used it. The other just stood in his spot and stared at the ice-cream. His friend emerged and said, "Look, they have ice-cream." They slouched toward the line and stood for a bit, shuffling hugely baggy pants forward as customers moved along. I stopped watching them. Suddenly, there was a crack of activity, a woman's voice said "shit!" and a rush of rustling clothes and feet slapping ground, a blur of white jacket out of the corner of my eye.
I looked up too late. Everyone in the shop was looking up. Then the barista, shocked and wide-eyed, started explaining: "I was taking the money out of the tip-jar, I had a handful of ones and that guy just reached across, right under my nose, and grabbed it right out of my hand. He grabbed it right out of my fucking hand!" Pasty white faces looked lazilly around and people said, "wow" and "shit" and "that was *fast*." The woman sitting to my left jumped up and walked outside to stare down the sidewalk after the long-gone guys. A damp sense of limp outrage sort of sparked among the crowd for a minute, then passed. The barista called the cops. I heard her explain it. Now, ten minutes later, it's like nothing happened, but the barista has probably still got a lingering adrenalin buzz. Meanwhile, those guys are probably down at the convenience store five blocks away buying candy and lottery tickets and laughing.
Why is this neighborhood gentrified? Why was this once black neighborhood suddenly full of white liberals with coffeeshops? Why don't the black kids shop here? Why are the white kids suspicious? Why was the fucking barista taking the tips out of the tip jar right then anyway? Why is this a race thing? Because it *is* a race thing. It's not a thug thing or a criminal thing. It's black kids in their once black neighborhood stealing tips from white baristas who sell coffee to white geeksters who have taken over their street with the things the so-called progressive Portland neo-yuppies value: bike shops and food co-ops and indie rock bars and clothing boutiques and 80-million goddamn coffeeshops.
After all these years, what is the solution? What changes this scenerio? What do we do? How do we learn to like each other, to look after each other, to care for each other, to understand something of who we all are? What's the missing piece, the missing equation in this value system that keeps people so separate and contentious? Case in point: the next season of Survivor plans to separate the contestants by race. To prove what? To appeal to whom? What century are we living in?? What are we doing to ourselves?
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 12:09 PM
1 Comments:
but that gnaw does have an answer - that is the start of the equation as far as i can tell. that gnaw is mysterious, unknown and important. go with the gnaw.
i would.
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