A local artist on a local art mailing list (that I'm not on) posted something about a big warehouse in the southeast central industrial district being sold for 3 times market price. This warehouse is the location of studio space for many artists, and the writer was bemoaning the situation and proposing some sort of vague struggle against the further gentrification of the area.
So the message was forwarded to another list that I am on and the whole thing reminded me so much of what happened in the Mission District in San Francisco when I was living there. I decided to write a little rant about it:
This whole thing seems rather sadly comical too me, especially in light of the SF gentrification battles of a few years ago that I witnessed, which is why i had my tongue firmly in cheek when i sent the link i did. Now I'll be serious.I think it's sad and shameful that, just as in SF before, most
artists and their friends get outraged and activated only after
their own little privileged bubble gets threatened, blind before
then to the identical or worse plight of other groups who had
been threatened by the same forces long before.The only just, sustainable, and long-term way to fight the
struggle we're talking about is by forming a larger
community/alliance with other groups, like the working poor,
minorities, the homeless, small local industrial companies and
other businesses, community improvement groups (like City
Repair), and other stakeholders (heck, even skateboarders!) in
the neighborhood(s) of concern.In SF this didn't happen until it was too little too late, or not
at all. The Mission's dancers and painters and wacky performance
artists rose up with their street protests and clever posters but
only long after tons of the poor latino families, blue-collar
workers, and small businesses that formed the fabric of real
Mission District culture had already been forced out of town.Without their being the sort of solidarity with the rest of the
community that I'm talking about, it's hard to feel much sympathy
for these mostly white, middle-class artists who never really
cared before they found out that their cheap studio space was
going away.
Posted by steev at Septiembre 8, 2004 07:44 PM