is cultural genocide that just obliterates communities.
And therefore, we are drawing our line
of dirt here in Anacostia, historic Anacostia,
declaring to the world that we shall not be moved.
Kimon Freeman, angry black man in therapy,
co-founder of WEAC radio.
My name is David Taylor.
I'm the commander of the Sixth District Metropolitan Police
Department.
Many express what you mean with the term gentrification,
of course.
It's changed for the better.
If you look at anything, change is often that constant thing.
But it's also one of those things that everyone's
reluctant to have experience or to experience.
I think if you ask the residents, of course,
I mean, they have a right to be concerned.
They have a right to be concerned.
It doesn't have to be a bad thing anyway.
My name is Hope Foster.
I am a Washington DC native group in this neighborhood,
the Shaw neighborhood, because it's more than just a word.
It's a process.
I'm not opposed to things being restored, not at all.
But when you move people, you move community.
You move ties.
It can't just be about the financial piece.
And that's what gentrification is doing.
It's moving people from what is important to them.
Wayne Quinn, I live in the District of Columbia.
I'm an attorney that specializes in land use.
And I'm a partner at the law firm of Holland and Knight.
Well, the court has recently used that term.
But the gentrification is not found anywhere
in any of the statutes.
There's nothing that says what it is or what it isn't
and how you deal with it.
And yet, for those who are opposed to development,
there's a statement, oh, this shouldn't happen,
because you're going to raise our taxes.
And when you raise our taxes, then
the poorer people can't live there.
But the fact of the matter is, that's
going to happen anyway.
Taxes are going to go up.
And it's better to have income to offset
the expenses of a municipality than not to have those.
And so I would argue strongly that gentrification
is a misnomer and should not even be used.
My name is Sabia Prince.
I'm an urban anthropologist.
I'm from Washington, DC.
The root of gentrification is not about race.
The person that coined the term was a sociologist.
She was describing a white working class community
that was gentrified by white middle class wealthy people.
But there's this little thing called intersectionality.
And so you will find that people of color
are put at a disadvantage when it comes to gentrification.
Gentrification is policy.
And the reason why is, again, most people
focus on the demographic piece, because that's what they see.
You don't see the policy stuff.
You don't see it when developers, other business people,
politicians are behind closed doors making deals.
People make plans.
So by the time you see the demographic shifts,
that means that stuff has been in process for years.
We have the wonderful situation where about 1,100 new residents
are coming into the District of Columbia every month.
And mostly, most of those are probably between 25 and 35
in age.
They don't care about cars.
They ride bikes.
Live where they work.
They like smaller units.
So that the market is driven in a different way
than it was 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, or five years ago.
Probably 10 years ago, you wouldn't have caught
a white person walking down my street.
You wouldn't have.
You wouldn't have.
Not bad or good, but that means somebody who was black
is no longer in that neighborhood.
What happened to them?
Gentrification is occurring all over the city.
And the way in which it unfolds varies.
In Washington, DC, one of the earliest cases
was Georgetown going back to the 1930s.
Portions of Georgetown had a large and flourishing
African-American population.
That population was seriously diminished
through policy changes that were around beautification,
enhancement, getting rid of alleys,
getting rid of houses that were falling apart that were not
well maintained.
So you have like an H Street corridor or U Street
corridor historically associated with the riots, posts
to assassination of MLK.
Those were areas where the uprisings occurred,
where there was lots of property damage,
and where those areas were just neglected.
They were blighted.
They were allowed to do that.
For those who are watching who are unaware,
like, oh, this could not be happening.
Don't you land it on a little thick.
The city decides what areas is savable and what areas
are to go to hell.
And there'll be a limited police presence.
And you know what happens in that area.
Late 1980s, there was still some drug issues
that were quite significant.
The community, which was a predominantly
African-American community, was very upset about that.
They would call the police, and they weren't satisfied
with the responses.
Sometimes the police would not come.
They even engaged in their own patrols.
A rampant drug problem in one area of Washington DC
prompted residents there yesterday
to bypass the police.
Police say this rundown apartment complex
in inner city Washington is an open-air market
for cocaine and crack.
So when a local mosque of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam
offered to send its members to patrol against drug dealers,
apartment dwellers agreed, even supplied keys
so the Muslims could search apartments
and examine people they felt didn't belong.
Well, we just couldn't put up with it.
That was it, because we have kids out here trying to raise.
And that was bad for them.
So we had to do something.
They said that as the community did become wider and wider,
there was a greater police presence
and that the police also responded faster.
So they interpreted that as their bodies, their lives,
their community not being that important at that time,
or not being a priority.
After white residents began to come in,
there was more value put on the community,
generating safety and doing more patrols in that area.
So that was the takeaway for them.
There have been a change in dynamics, of course.
I think from a racial perspective,
we've had more whites moving to the cities,
but we've also had more Hispanics moving to the city
and even had more first-time blacks to live in the city,
and increasing that category as well.
I think diversity is good.
I think it gives us all of us an opportunity to grow.
And I think we can learn from each other's experiences as well.
I've heard even gentrifiers say things like,
I appreciate diversity.
I want to be able to live in an environment
that has a lot of different people in it,
and maybe some people honestly believe it.
But certainly what we know is a plethora of stores and restaurants,
and you do not see a lot of heterogeneity.
I would describe Georgetown as a white enclave,
an area that was historically had a lot of African-Americans in it,
has now become this area that's associated with a lot of wealth.
And so when you have a space like that,
there is also an understanding of who belongs in that space
and who does not.
Any honest black person will tell you this.
If I go to that neighborhood, the chances are,
the police are gonna fuck with me.
So the message is clear, stay out of that neighborhood.
Yeah?
So there you have it.
I think most of the white people who come to D.C.
come here with great intentions.
They hear because of a job and an opportunity.
They hear that it's a cool city.
A lot of people around this country and around the world
appreciate our culture.
Whether or not they appreciate us remains to be seen.
So I don't fault them for that.
However, that does not remove them from the white privilege
of them not being able to recognize
that just because the police have treated you a certain way
doesn't mean they treat us the same way.
One of my concerns would be that this city, as we know it,
is just going to completely change.
And it's going to be predominantly white and predominantly
wealthy and somewhat homogeneous and somewhat unwelcoming.
Then some areas that were more recently predominantly black
when I go there and I see predominantly white.
And it's not the issue with white.
It's the issue of this notion that in our society,
black is wrong.
And so when you see me, I'm trying
to figure out what it is you see when you see me.
That's what I'm struggling with.
You come and you see me and you get to call the cops.
Because I'm unknown to you.
Well, you're unknown to me.
Last Monday, 6 o'clock in the evening, 18-year-old Jason
Goosby and his friends were just standing outside
of a bank in Eastern Market.
Jason is a freshman at UDC.
They weren't committing any crime by just standing there.
We've learned a white woman called 9-1-1
and said the guys made her feel uncomfortable.
Now to the 9-1-1 call.
It's a transcription released by the city.
Hi, yes, I want to report that there's
three teenagers in the Citibank on Pennsylvania Avenue
and 7th that are waiting at the door to let people in
but aren't doing anything inside the bank.
We just left, but we feel like if we had taken money out,
we might have gotten robbed.
Here's a closer look at what happened next.
Get off him, bro.
He didn't do nothing.
He didn't do nothing.
He didn't do nothing.
He didn't do nothing.
To me, that's a perfect example of a black body
being out of place in their own city
and in a space that historically had been African-American.
It's the perfect illustration of that,
the kind of fear that's associated and projected
onto the bodies, particularly of black males.
People of color tend not to call the police.
Let's just understand that off the bat.
I mean, unless it's something serious going down,
you really need their help.
I have observed and I've been told about cases
where gentrifiers have called the police
for very minor things, usually kind of small quality
of life issues, such as noise or perhaps the gathering
of people that, again, don't belong.
Their bodies don't belong in that space.
Or there's a perception that they don't belong in that space.
And they see the police as mechanisms through which
these things can happen.
I don't see African-Americans and minority groups
looking at the police in that way.
Again, the police are really for serious emergencies
because the police are unpredictable.
But why are you calling the police?
Why are you putting them in the hands of the police?
You want to see them lay down on the ground
and them searching through their pockets?
Is that what you want?
Certain folks are in here and they are not comfortable
with you being here.
And those laws enables the police to do those things.
Police are an extension of the powers that be.
And they're only here to enforce their ideas
and their agenda.
And so, when you say how are they part of gentrification,
they are the enforcement of gentrification.
Because the property tax don't get you.
If the intimidation of classism doesn't get you,
the police will get you.
Those cases of same guy been stopped by police 100 times
on his way to work.
And any normal person do, they will move.
And that's what a lot of people do.
Some of the issues that's been confronting all law enforcement
officers is many of the issues with regards to race, of course.
There have been some confrontations
going on across the nation and more recently here.
But I think as an agency, our training sets us apart.
We have an academy that deals with so many things,
that arms us with so many approaches and strategies.
One of the things that are implicit by training.
I think that has allowed all of us to be cognizant of many of the things
that we're confronted with out there.
Seeing them twice, twice that I can remember,
ride through the street.
Never once have I seen you walk through the street.
Never once.
They don't seem to let you get along with them, you know.
The police are concerned that's something
I don't deal too much with, but for as I can see and know about,
it seems as though it gets along all right.
Of course, I know.
They still call us niggas, man.
We've improved over the years.
Without a doubt, folks often want to blame the police for this and that.
And we get that. We get that.
There was a cop, a white cop, half my age,
who stopped me leaving my studio that I've been here for five years
and flashes a light in my face and said,
hey, where you going?
I'm like, I'm going to my business.
No, we just had to go to the second one.
Step to the car, put your hands on the hood.
Hand on the gun.
I'm not putting my hands on your hood, sir.
And then he calls in back because I'm not
compliant to any of his commands.
Because I'm not going to be humiliated for nothing.
That's not happening.
And so when he calls in back up, the second cop comes in and says,
oh, no, that's the guy from the radio station down the street.
See, what is that?
If the cop knew who was in this area,
he would know all the business owners.
And if anything, he would have said, hey,
you out a little late tonight.
You need a ride?
That would be a community policing.
Not the criminalization because a black man is walking down
the street and it's late.
So I see white guys walking down the street,
drunk, stomach all of themselves.
I haven't seen them being accosted by a police.
They're definitely not a business owner.
But we have a lot to do.
Everybody will always say, well, the police, community policing.
But the community has so many other concerns going on.
It's not police related.
One of the things that's been ingrained in us,
I think police is our job to offer some type of hope and support
to the communities in which we serve.
The art, though, of getting to know each other,
that's on each of the residents.
That's on each of the citizens.
They have to get to know each other.
We can bring you together.
We're the most visible in many of our communities.
So if we're the most visible agency
in many of the communities, why not?
We don't have a problem with that.
We don't have a problem with it at all.
The police don't create none of these laws.
They are only the guard dogs for the real power structure.
And that is why they continuously get offered
and never be punished fully for their actions.
And until that happens, we're going
to continue to see these problems, and at some point,
it's going to have a flashpoint.
We need to make sure that any police officer that
works in the community should be from that community.
I think that they come up with all kinds of reasons
to fight against this.
But the mayor must live in a city he or she represents.
Our councilman must live in the area of the city
that she represents.
Why not the police?
It would just make things a lot easier
if the police knew the people on that block,
and it would have a better relationship.
Hey, aren't you so-and-so, boy?
What did I tell you the last time I was out here?
I'm calling you mom and taking you to your house right now.
This is the second time I've seen them out
and done a whole different conversation right there.
If I see them again, I'm going to have to arrest them.
You understand that, right?
Yeah, that whole different conversation.
It doesn't really matter if the police are predominantly
black or white or the race of the police, chief, et cetera.
Because, again, racism is something
that's very much structural and can be maintained
by people of color just as well as it can by white folks.
Being from the community is a plus, of course.
But you can do just as good of a job,
even if you're not, as long as you have the energy
or the wherewithal to get to know the community.
I think what you're getting at is hiring more officers
from the communities.
But I think, again, I think we've made a diligent effort,
or we're making a diligent effort,
in bringing the officers from DC.
We've just enhanced the Cadet Program.
That's going to bring more DC residents
on to the police department.
And you can start in high school.
Anacostas just opened up a new academy.
It's going to support that effort.
What we see right now is that the African-American population
west of the Anacostas River is now 33%.
The black population east of the river is 92%.
Gentrification is generating this.
East of the river is the underbelly of the nation's capital.
We have the highest poverty, the highest unemployment,
the highest infant mortality, the highest illiteracy.
It's also, of course, by virtue of the blackest area
of the nation's capital.
And this is all by design.
You've seen a consistent story throughout American history.
It has not fundamentally changed.
I grew up in Ward 7.
I went to school over here at the age of 12.
We moved over toward 8.
It's challenging.
It's challenging, extremely challenging at times.
Everything is connected over here.
We have an illiteracy effort that needs to be addressed.
If you can't read or write so on in about a time
before you're not going to want to go to school anymore,
then you're going to become a truancy piece.
Now you're engaging the police now.
Because you are truan, we also have
a mental health issue over here.
Mental health is real over here in Ward 7.
Health and human services, child and family services,
behavioral health, they're doing major work over here.
And unfortunately, many of those needs, whether met or unmet,
affects police.
And I think one of the things that we've
learned firsthand is that you can't
arrest your way through this.
They can't keep blocking us up forever.
It's a misdemeanor.
But there are changes in the air.
So gentrification happens in stages versus the arts.
And so we have the Arts Center.
And we have a theater.
And we have a museum.
And we have a community radio station.
And these things are embraced.
But they're about to show their teeth.
And their teeth will be shown when the Wizard Stadium
and the Mystics Training Facility in Elizabeth
is completed and they turn that into a gated community,
a colony, if you will.
Instead, the Lev Street Bridge Project
is taking an abandoned bridge and creating a park that
will bridge east of the river and the rest of the city
together.
People in charge of that project,
they're working with us to create community land trust,
to ensure the preservation of our community.
There may be land adjacent to development
that may be developable.
And that would not displace anyone.
It might have an effect on, quote, gentrification
to go back to that term, which I don't think is a good term.
But it would raise the level of cost, perhaps.
But at the same time, if affordable housing
is part of the development, then I'm
not sure that that issue truly exists.
I can use to exist when there was no affordable housing
program.
I think I know that the mayor has done a phenomenal job.
I think she's dedicated more money to affordable housing.
I want to say, you can quote me if I'm right, $200 million.
I believe she's dedicated to affordable housing.
Now, I think that's making those folks who
need it a priority of not getting forced out of DC.
But no, if I was a resident, I wouldn't fear getting pushed
out of DC.
There are a number of strategies
that people are turning to that are,
some of them are very conventional,
and some of them are more militant.
I've spoken to some people this weekend.
They are in Berry Farms, which is a public housing complex.
It goes back to post-Civil War, the Civil War period.
Currently, that is being threatened
because the government plans to knock all that down.
And when they come with the bulldozers,
they're going to have to be moved by force
because they're not going to voluntarily lead.
Little inklings of that have been
seen in a strategy that was utilized by activists.
There was a busload of developers
came through their community to look at areas that
were ripe for development while people were already living.
The people who were organized were offended by that.
They got together, they linked arms,
and they blocked the road and didn't
allow them to go through.
Actually, the police recalled there was a scuffle.
Someone's child was arrested because he saw his mother being
pushed around.
He didn't like it.
He got involved.
The police ended up arresting him.
No, we don't have any out of South East.
We don't have any out of South East.
We're from here.
We're going to stay here.
We're from here.
We're going to stay here.
We're from here.
We're going to stay here.
We're from here.
We're going to stay here.
One of my biggest fears is that we'll continue to deal
with many of the issues that we've
been dealing with 30, 40 years from now.
We'll never change or challenge the paradigm.
That's one of my biggest fears.
We should grow.
We should give the communities opportunities
to rise above their circumstances.
I think that's what we're here for.
A great, great grandmother lived in Georgetown.
We had a rural house there.
And so significantly, by me being a fifth generation
Washingtonian, I feel that this
is my home.
I don't want to leave my home.
I want to make sure that blacks are
able to stay east of the river from this point forward.
Until we have these conversations about racism
and about privilege, we're not going to really go anywhere.
America is ready for the conversation of race.
How do we deal with the east of the river, not just racially,
but economically?
And it's a fear, but I hope it's as well.
See, I've seen a hand writing on the wall.
I'm just waiting for it all to pop on.
Rules don't have to be a little different
coming east of the river.
So here is where the fight is going to be waged.
