Ethnic Cleansing in San Francisco

[flashl]

Gentrification Rears Its Racist Head

"They want to kick you out so they can build housing they know you can't afford and allow rich San Franciscans to enjoy it. They don't feel that poor Blacks or other people of color deserve to have a view like that."

Appolonia Jordan, San Francisco Bayview

Alan Goodspeed was my next door neighbor in the Ingleside District on the south side of Ocean Avenue in San Francisco. He was a Black man from Marshall, Texas, who had moved to San Francisco during WWII and worked as a machinist for twenty five years in the shipyards of Hunters Point. Within that time, he bought a home and raised a family.

When Alan passed away a few years ago, working class Black people had already become an endangered species in San Francisco. According to a 2005 demographic study, there are probably less than 40,000 Black people left in the city. Back in the day when Alan and I changed the oil in our cars in adjoining driveways and jawed about whether Muhammad Ali would regain the title, there were almost 100,000 black people in San Francisco.

So, here in 2007, ethnic cleansing of the Black population in the city "where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars" is more than halfway to completion.

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Several years ago, there were seminars conducted around the country encouraging cities and towns to reclaim their abandon downtowns. The results? Gentrification. The targets are usually elderly Black women.

[muntrv]

1. Reminds me of a post here regarding New Orleans. Blackwater was

in the 9th ward, driving away the black American residents and keeping them from returning to their homes.

[flashl]

2. Helplessly, I have watched little old ladies get the bad end of ‘progress’ n/t