Progressive Seattle activists have failed the black community

There is a feature in Pacific NW Magazine taking a look at the dwindling black community in Seattle neighborhoods where they once lived. They’re leaving (or being pushed out, depending on how you look at it) because of gentrification.

Well, we’re lead to believe it’s gentrification, but the truth is it’s due to the failure of the mostly white Progressive Seattle politicians and activists failing black Seattleites for years. This is what happens when you treat people like props to increase your ideological street cred.

Related: Seattle’s ‘walkability’ hurts the poor

According to the feature, the Central District was once Seattle’s “most storied African-American district, one anchored by black churches like Mount Zion Baptist and First African Methodist Episcopal and one that witnessed the rise of Quincy Jones, the emergence of a prominent black middle class, the formation of the city’s Black Panther movement and the birth of local hip-hop, is getting less black by the year.”

Now? Less than one-fifth of the residents are black due to the growing number of white Seattleites moving into the neighborhood.

This demographic shift has lead some residents to believe there are racist motives (that developers are deliberately pushing out blacks to make room for whites with higher incomes so the developers can make more money).

The motives, in my view, aren’t racist; they’re clearly financial. The developers would happily sell or rent to any race if they can afford to live in their new apartments and town homes.

The people who are hit most by gentrification aren’t black people, per se, but those who are low-income. Now, if you’re black in Seattle, you are undeniably at a higher likelihood of being low income (for a number of reasons, including institutionalized racism, economic reliance on a tech sector providing a ton of jobs, etc.), but white people living with low incomes are equally impacted by gentrification.

I make this distinction because mostly white Seattle activists and politicians will treat the “gentrification problem” as a race issue. They feel they must step in and help the black community because of some paternalistic duty to play the role of white savior. They demonize developers and even the white people who have the audacity to move into the Central District at the expense of black residents. This inherently pits one side against the other and it doesn’t lead to meaningful solutions.

But the mostly white Progressive Seattle politicians and activists keep fighting “racist” gentrification. And black people keep losing. The solution to these ideologues? Say you’re allies with people of color, tell them you feel their pain, speak out against racism in a tweet or a press release, then try to pressure developers to build housing for people who are low-income. How’s that worked out? The Seattle black community is moving to Renton, Kent, Tukwila, and other more affordable areas.

The mostly white Progressive Seattle politicians and activists have failed and it’s because their solutions don’t address the problem: it’s  about poverty and poverty hits people of all races for a variety or reasons. Racism can certainly play a role but the big-picture, umbrella issue is poverty.

How do I know that? Because gentrification doesn’t impact rich people the way it impacts low income. If you can afford the high rents, you’re not leaving your neighborhoods.

Rather than keep black people in black neighborhoods by keeping the rent low, how about we work with folks so they can afford more?

Related: Rev. Jackson’s hypocritical, illogical attack of Amazon

Even working within the sole focus on issues concerning one particular race, how about we work with the community to ensure that they are able to better compete for jobs at high paying companies like Amazon?

For example, the tech industry is notoriously white because mostly white people are getting into STEM programs in schools. Isn’t it worth your activism to get black students more interested in STEM programs, rather than say Amazon or Microsoft are racist for not hiring black people?

I guess we’re not supposed to have this conversation. Well, I’m not. I’m not the right shade … of Liberal. In fact, the mostly white Progressive Seattle politicians and activists will likely call me racist for this. So be it. I’d rather not treat people as props; I’d rather focus on doing what these politicians and activists have failed at: helping people get out of poverty, regardless of skin color.

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