Gentrification, Part I

1. Noun: the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.
 
But what happens when the middle class
has shrunk to
nothing
and you are being told
over and over again
that it is YOU, never them
 
YOU must do better
earn more
be more
so you can
be just like US
 
So that you can have
custom cabinets with
marble countertops
moen faucets
and a numbered
parking space by
the center of town
 
You can be
in walking distance
to the city
that your ancestors built
with bloody, calloused hands,
the family home on
canyon road
sold for a fraction of
what it was worth
 
You look around
and suddenly
the people in your neighborhood
aren’t you anymore
 
The light skin and
turquoise splashed
upon their bodies as
they walk without a care in
the world
because they do not walk
through this world invisible
 
unlike YOU
 
They will always say
it’s not intentional
but their actions
will always speak
the words
their lips know
they shouldn’t mouth
in public
 
The privilege they
carry sits in the
cells of their flesh
and it is indivisible
from who they are
 
They will look through
the specially colored
glasses that have been
crafted by their identity,
the ones that tell them
that others should
bend in discomfort
to meet where they stand
 
They pretend
the advantages they
stand upon don’t
lift them to a warped vista,
one where their shoes
don’t have to sink
into dirt and dust
 
How beautiful it
must be to only
see the world
when it’s clean
and in one’s favor
 
They will tell you the
only way to their path
is to follow who they are,
their patterns,
their demands,
their supposed self-sacrifice
that has been bought and
paid by the generations who
came before them
so that their tab
was already clear
 
They will look at you
as they invade,
slowly, and make you feel
that you are the one
who does not belong
in your skin
in your culture
in the center of your own gravity
 
You will begin to
wonder why you are here
and if you truly
have a place in the
world you once knew as
your own
 
You will ask for
a seat at the table
except the chairs
were already reserved
in advance
a long time ago
before you ever
had the freedom to
request one
 
They will echo the
same things like a
record with a stuck
needle:
YOU must do better
earn more
be more
so you can
be just like US
 
They will tell you
how they think
you should put
the small bit of security
you have managed to
carve for yourself
on the line
 
They will tell you
that it is never them:
it’s the economy
it’s wages
it’s demand
it’s never the fistful
of dollars being
shoved into the
pockets of modern day
colonizers
from the last connection
you have to your
roots, the land
 
It’s never the decimation
of culture
and neighborhoods,
communities crying
for hands that want
to build them up,
rather than
construction on the bones
of all you ever knew,
sold for a profit
 
It’s never THEM