By Sikivu Hutchinson
Inglewood, circa the late seventies, and there are white
kids on the swings and the jungle gyms, roving in the hallways, clutching their
milk money all Dennis the Menace freckle faced and anxious, waiting for story time
on the magic carpet in the second grade classroom of my elementary school. Most of them have been bused in as part of a
short-lived integration policy implemented by Inglewood Unified. The policy was
an outlier. A Hail Mary pass to Kumbaya when there were still a significant number
of white families in the westerly parts of a city which once boasted Klan
rallies on its major thoroughfare in the 1920s. In this snapshot it is over a decade
after the Watts Rebellion, the final catalyst for white flight from South L.A. Wormhole
to 2019 and the kids of these reluctant colonists have descended in dog
walking, baby strolling, cell phone clanking droves onto the ghettoes they once
sneered at steaming warp speed down Manchester Avenue fortified with a ripe helping
of Jimmy Buffett at the Forum escaping to the homey comforts of the 405. Inglewood (once dubbed Ingle-Watts and now on
the precipice of two new multi-billion dollar stadium developments that community
activists have pushed back on), has become the new “jam” of Becky and Biff with
2.5 kids and a $500k starter home loan to burn on planting white picket fences
in the hood.
In a county in which Black homelessness is the highest
in the nation, the white picket fence resurgence is a whiplash glimpse into
apocalypse for Black homeowners and renters. As Ron Daniels notes in the Institute
of Black World Twenty First Century, “What is equally egregious are the attitudes of
some of the newcomers whom residents of Black communities sometimes
characterize as ‘invaders’ or ‘neo-colonialists.’ This is because some
newcomers are not content to become a part of the community; they arrogantly
attempt to change the rhythms, culture and character of the community.” Nationwide,
the Black
homeownership rate is now lower than it was during the Jim Crow era. And the
gap between white and Black homeownership is larger than when the Fair Housing Act
was passed in 1968 (Black homeownership is 30.5% lower than whites). Coming to L.A. during the Great Migration period
in the early-to-mid twentieth century, African Americans were partly seduced by
the so-called California Dream of single-family homeownership, a supposed
antidote to Jim Crow apartheid. In the ensuing decades, Black homebuyers were
run out of the Westmont neighborhood of South L.A., terrorized and swindled out
of their 1920s resort property in Bruce’s Beach in
Manhattan Beach, and blockbusted by angry white mobs in Baldwin Hills. Post Watts
Rebellion, sunshine, endless sprawl, and exurban fortresses became the currency
of white generational wealth and white supremacy.
Despite the insidious legacy of racially restrictive
covenants, redlining,
subprime and predatory lending, and outright white domestic terrorism, home
ownership has always been the biggest
source of generational
wealth for African Americans. Sixty two percent of Black wealth is tied to
home equity. Yet, Black home equity is hamstrung by institutionalized segregation which
depresses home values in communities of color relative to those in
predominantly white communities. Disproportionately low levels of Black
equity are also impacted by low savings’ rates among African American homeowners.
According
to the Economic Policy Institute, “The typical black family with a head of household working full time has less wealth than the typical white family
whose head of household is unemployed.” This staggering disparity means that
most Black households simply scramble to remain afloat. Savings (much less investment
in stocks, bonds, and other high risk market investments) are often difficult
to accumulate when folks are one paycheck away from eviction, foreclosure, and
potential homelessness.
Hence, the threat of gentrification cuts to the heart
of black self-determination in a community that has been hyper-segregated,
demonized as crime-ridden, and sold to the highest bidder by Black politicians
and white developers.
North of Inglewood, the Crenshaw District’s built
environment has become dominated by perpetually clogged streets, epic lane closures,
rogue construction, and unhoused folks crammed into campers, vans, cars, tents
and sidewalks. Over the past several years, this part of the South L.A.
community has been under siege from runaway development rammed down its throat
with no grassroots input. One of the most egregious examples is the controversial
proposal to erect a 75-foot, 577 unit apartment complex on the corner of Crenshaw
and Obama Boulevards. The long vacant site was once home to a Ralph’s supermarket
and was originally slated for retail store development. The proposed “District Square” apartment
complex was to be built by developer Arman Gabay. As has been widely reported, Gabay,
who was recently indicted and arrested for bribing a County employee to secure
a lease, had close ties with Councilman Herb Wesson. Gabay is also in default
for millions of dollars in federal loans. The outrage of scofflaw Gabay being
granted the contract for the development is not lost on residents who face
foreclosure and homelessness due to predatory and subprime lending. Black folks
don’t have the luxury or privilege to wrack up loan debt while fronting multi-million
dollar residential developments. Gabay exemplifies the leeway granted to corporate developers who
were handed
billions of dollars in loans under both the Obama and Trump administrations on the backs of American taxpayers.
At September’s South L.A. Planning Commission, Wesson withdrew
his unqualified support for the development, backing an appeal
initiated by the Crenshaw Subway Coalition’s Damien Goodmon and area residents.
The appeal seeks to postpone the development in a push for affordable and
supportive units.
The challenge to the District Square development comes
on the heels of successful opposition to a neighboring complex on Brynhurst Avenue
near Crenshaw. The complex would’ve been rammed into a single family
residential block. The massive structure was widely opposed for being
incompatible with the neighborhood, environmentally hazardous, and unaffordable.
At the other end of the spectrum, the L.A. City
Council recently voted to table an ordinance that would have prohibited sleeping
on sidewalks near schools, parks, and libraries. Community activists charged
that the ordinance would criminalize the unhoused and lead to more racial
profiling. Given that the majority of the
unhoused are African American, “selective” enforcement of the ordinance would exacerbate
systemic over-policing of Black folks who have been forced onto the streets by
astronomical rent and housing prices. The city has filed a friend of the court brief
challenging a 2018 “Boise
Ruling” that bars local governments from prohibiting folks from sleeping on
the streets if there aren’t enough shelters. The city’s shameful challenge
comes as a recent City Controller’s audit
on Measure HHH— which was supposed to be used to construct 10,000 supportive units
for the unhoused—confirmed that no supportive housing units have been built with
the fund. According to the audit, only a
little more than half of the projected 10,000 will be for permanent supportive
housing.
The escalation of market rate development in
historically Black South L.A. fuels the dispossession of unhoused Black folks.
South L.A. and Inglewood homeowners report being besieged with calls and flyers
from realtors and flippers looking to buy up housing stock in areas that only a
decade earlier were branded “ghettoes”. Former Black strongholds like Harlem, D.C.,
Philadelphia, Seattle, Houston, Oakland, and Fillmore and Bay Point in San
Francisco, have morphed into designer ghettoes greedily carved up by developers
in imperial land grabs reminiscent of the twentieth century “urban renewal” or Negro
removal schemes that ripped apart Black neighborhoods. Last month, the Crenshaw Subway Coalition
launched a series of “Summer of Resistance” townhall
meetings that will continue into the end of the year with community actions
against the neo-colonial forces of development in City Hall. November’s meetings
will spotlight the potential displacement of thousands of Crenshaw residents,
the fencing of Leimert Park and the Planning Commission’s complicity in the
market rate boondoggle that is bleeding South L.A. dry.
