I HAVE ANOTHER DREAM


in which community activists stop saying silly things.

Nice to see the Post-Gazette turn occasional TWM whipping-girl Mackenzie Carpenter loose on subject matter worthy of her talent and our attention. Ms. Carpenter's two pieces (here and here) about the retail-industrial contstruct that is the Eastside shopping district make an interesting and entertaining read, especially for residents of (or frequent visitors to) the city's East End. As someone who lives within easy walking distance of the area, is a regular customer of at least three of its retail outlets, and recently gave thanks for its Borders Books and Music store, I'm obviously biased. And yet, even if I'd never set foot in any of the stores, I'd be hard-pressed to comprehend the silliness that passes, at least in Ms. Carpenter's articles, for criticism of the development. To wit:

"There's really nothing there for us," says Alethea Sims, president of the Coalition of Organized Residents of East Liberty. "We feel as though there is a concerted effort to remove the low-income black people who have lived here for years, to make room for these new people."

The second part of the silliness is self-evident to anyone who'd ever driven down that stretch of Centre Avenue before the Eastside complex opened. To her credit, Ms. Carpenter notes and counters it in the next two sentences:

Actually, no residential relocation has occurred as a result of the Eastside development, Mr. Mosites said. The site now housing Whole Foods contained only a few businesses -- a car wash and a cab company that, he said, didn't even respond to calls from community residents.

Unless she knew about some low-income black people that the rest of us did not -- where they homeless and sleeping behind the car wash? were they invisible? -- Ms. Sims' claim about the concerted effort is as patently false as it is laughably paranoid. But the real stunner here, the one that's patently false and laughably paranoid and, as an added bonus, inexplicably insulting to every African-American who lives in East Liberty, is that first part.

There's nothing really there for you? Really?

Don't black people read books? Buy music or movies? Drink alcohol or coffee? Have bank accounts? Shop for fresh meat and produce and seafood? Shop at discount drug stores? Wow. I had no idea. I always assumed that black people, even a few low-income ones, could find something of interest to them at Borders or Starbucks or PNC Bank or a state liquor store or Whole Foods or at least at Walgreens. But I'm sure Ms. Sims knows her community better than I do.

Even if she does expect so little of them.

Posted: Tue - December 11, 2007 at 04:51 PM          

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