Black Gentrification, Black Solidarity and Race in Chicago

The Contradictions of Black Gentrification as Black Solidarity

Mary Pattillo argues in Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City that black solidarity is practiced in the process of black gentrification of North Kenwood-Oakland, a Chicago historically black neighborhood known for its poverty. She asserts that despite the divergent class interests of the recent influx of black middle-class homeowners and the working-class residents, black solidarity is still the predominant factor in political action due to the primacy of race as a unifying factor of in the lives of black Americans and her belief that this dialogue on race between newcomers and the poor is the process of solidarity. Michael Hanchard and Stokely Carmichael, however, would criticize her view on black solidarity as practiced in this southside Chicago community. Both Hanchard and Carmichael would counter, due to black gentrification’s contradictory results for the working-class and poor that reproduces classism, white supremacy, and singular notions of blackness, the black solidarity practiced in this case is not real solidarity that can produce social change. Where Hanchard and Carmichael disagree is in the role of race as a key component of African American political action, since Carmichael’s nationalist position emphasizes organizing among blacks before joining coalitions while Hanchard notes the inevitable disunity and contradictions that arise from focusing entirely on racial identity as a unifying force due to the multiple identities an individual possesses simultaneously.

Carmichael, who sees the primary problem of black America as the double reality of being poor and black and any political program for blacks must acknowledge this duality, which black nationalism does as envisioned by Carmichael. Although he would admire and respect the black middle-class’s feelings of obligation to the black poor and the belief in a linked fate that predominates among blacks of all classes, since black unity across class is necessary to build political and economic power within black communities, Carmichael opposes the capitalist system which creates and reproduces the unequal social conditions that constitute racism. His economic philosophy of black nationalism embraces cooperatives under community control rather than black bourgeoisie, which participates in the white-dominated capitalist system. The black gentrification also works against the economic interests of the black poor, represented by the renters who rely on some form of public assistance to live in the North Kenwood-Oakland area.¹ Moreover, not all homeowners share the same economic background. The older residents who have acquired homes lack the higher income of professional, black gentry who cause property values to rise, hurting retirees and older folks without the means to pay their rising property taxes.² Thus, even those with stable incomes and who own their homes find their economic foothold challenged as a result of black gentrification, which contradicts Carmichael’s belief that real black economic nationalism would provide businesses and wealth through cooperative means. For Carmichael, black power economically means, “We want to see the cooperative concept applied in business and banking...The society we seek to build among black people, then, is not a capitalist one.”³ The persistence of economic injustice and absence of cooperative businesses, housing, and rising property values, in addition to measures taken by the black upper-classes to limit accessibility to public housing demonstrate the lack of real black solidarity. The poverty of blacks, who comprise a majority in this Chicago neighborhood, must be addressed to be a move toward solidarity. The larger issue of poverty remains unaddressed, despite the four mechanisms that supposedly protect the interests of poor blacks. The four mechanisms Pattillo describe that result from mixed-income communities theoretically combat poverty by doing the following: 1. establishing social networks across class that could lead to employment or education, or other resources, 2. improve social control by bringing order, strong management and eventually overall safety, 3. provide a model of upward mobility for the poor, and 4. bring increased political and economic attention to the neighborhood.⁴ But the results of black middlemen fighting poverty have not improved the conditions for most poor blacks. By clinging to a unity that privileges race over class without recognizing the intersection of poverty and race, the poor and longtime blacks of the neighborhood suffer since these aforementioned social mechanisms have served the anti-egalitarian interests of white capitalists and politicians.

Carmichael would also criticize the practice of black solidarity in North Kenwood-Oakland for its attempts to impose cultural assimilation on lower-class residents. Black gentrification paradoxically supports the imposition of middle-class white values. If one perceives Patillo’s characterization of black solidarity as just an updated version of DuBois’s Talented Tenth theory due to her belief in the power of black middlemen, then the increasing class differentiation of the neighborhood perpetuates elitism and middle-class values as the normative for social behavior. Those who cannot act in accordance with white middle-class values as practiced by the black middle-class bear the brunt of black elites’ attempts to criminalize their behavior and attacks on behavioral patterns, dress, and hairstyles. One finds evidence of the black elites’ battles with the working-class and poor by complaining about their barbecues on their front lawns and public spaces, their littering, lack of attention to middle-class standards of house decorum and how they repair cars in the street.⁵ Carmichael proposed black nationalism based on democratic practices and cooperative economics to reject the assumptions of white supremacy inherent in assimilation. Carmichael’s example of black children sent to white schools, or blacks moving into white neighborhoods as part of this underlying assumption of integration, which perpetuates whiteness as superior and blackness as inferior.⁶ In North Kenwood-Oakland, a perverse form develops that, though blacks are returning to the ghettos, they continue to accept white middle-class expectations of social behavior and morality, something that takes the form of pernicious actions against the poor. For example, new residents support screening of tenants of public housing, which culminated in a ban on anyone with a criminal record. This excludes an enormous amount of the working-class and poor since approximately 55% of black men in Chicago have criminal records and would not be allowed to live with relatives in the area.⁷ Clearly, the black middle-class’s claims to leadership in racial uplift are grounded in, as Patillo herself indicates, white middle-class notions of respectability: patriarchal family relations, sexual conservatism, financial sobriety, reserved comportment and intellectual achievement.⁸ These values reflect a class bias against lower-class blacks, who are gradually eliminated from public space as the eradication of high rise housing, screening of tenants, rising property values, and heightened policing by University of Chicago police limit the numbers of opportunities of using public space and living in the area.⁹

Hanchard, on the other hand, would defend his critique of black gentrification and its reliance on race as unifying factor by challenging the assumption of race as a singular identity. As the class distinctions and battles linked to class rage between the black upper-class and the working-class, both sides reassert the primacy of race as a factor in unity. However, as Hanchard demonstrates, using race as sole criterion for political action and organizing inevitably excludes some blacks, thereby ignoring the huge differences and multiple identities every individual balances.¹⁰ Black nationalism, for instance, is limited by its reliance on race as the sole identity for those perceived as black in society, thus ignoring the role of gender, sexuality, class and multiracial individuals whose oppression survives in masculinist, heteronormative organizations. Pan-Africanism also failed for the similar reason of assuming a monolithic blackness that ignored the unique experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world which vary according to nationality, ethnicity, culture, and lived experience.¹¹ As Hanchard himself elucidates, “By asking not “what are black people” but instead, “what tends to happen to people defined as black that does not happen with the same relative frequency to other people in a given society,”¹² one can develop a better basis for political action and solidarity that challenges sexism, heternormativity, racism, poverty, and attacks on the environment. For Hanchard, the only way black politics can make long-lasting social change is to avoid racial essentialism, which imposes a totalization of identity that ignores the multiplicity of lived experience of those designated as black. Chicago’s example of black gentrification displays this by the persistence of class oppression and poverty.

Like Carmichael, Hanchard would also criticize the class-based assault on social behavior of the black poor. Due to competing notions of what constitutes blackness, both the afrostocracy and urban poor express their individual notions of blackness and their other identities in various ways. The lower-classes may express themselves through talking in Ebonics more often, barbecuing in front lawns, and dressing more casually than black gentry, and the homeowners should not dictate what comprises proper blackness for others. Moreover, Hanchard’s theory of black politics emphasizes coalitions, since, “The creation of political community necessarily entails more than recognizing a problem or phenomena, such as racism. It encompasses the combination of ideas, peoples, and practices mobilized in response to a set of circumstances that involves other political communities, peoples, and institutions.”¹³ Without real coalitions that connect those at the bottom of the income scale to others outside of the neighborhood, beyond neighboring black middle-class residents, the ability of the black community to affect societal change by achieving redistributive economic policies is severely limited. Pattillo’s text does not elucidate how black gentrification will connect poor and working-class blacks to broad coalitions that share the same goals of economic and social justice. In fact, the black homeowners seem more concerned with protecting their investments than economic redistribution, though they also wish to dismantle racism. Unfortunately, their economic interests tie them with white elites in Chicago’s economic and political spheres, therefore they are unable to provide less fortunate blacks with a broad coalition that must include poor whites and others who share the same goal. Even Carmichael also agrees that the best type of coalition to develop and fundamentally change the nature of American politics is a coalition between the poor blacks and poor whites.¹⁴ As a consequence, the notion of a singular blackness that ignores the salience of class, gender and other identities limits the effectiveness of using race as sole criterion for a political community.

Another detrimental flaw of the political community built through black gentrification and using race as primary source for political action is the loss of politicizing social spheres. Hanchard identifies a source of black political action in its emphasis on politicizing social spaces due to the formal exclusion of blacks from politics after Reconstruction.¹⁵ For example, during the Civil Rights Movement, blacks politicized the social arena through sit-ins at lunch counters, boycotts, and music, effectively polarizing the nation to aid the attempts to end segregation through formal political practices, such as the black vote in the North. The current practice of black politicking lacks this social dimension since formal politics takes precedence through black middle-class relations with white developers and politicians in Chicago’s city politics. This loss of politicization of social spaces excludes lower-class blacks from the black coalition’s ability to enact social change for multiple reasons. First, low income residents are silenced in community meetings or outnumbered by black middle-class, who can afford to devote more of their time to neighborhood associations.¹⁶ Those less fortunate individuals without the time and funds to attend neighborhood meetings consequently lose one of their spaces to address their own socioeconomic needs. The black gentry also contradict the aims of racial uplift by their dominance of relations to whites in the political and economic systems, since they work with these formal spaces of politics in a way that hurts the interests of working-class residents in housing, economics, and policing. Their ability to express themselves and act in their own interests in neighborhood meetings and on the street is limited by attempts to curtail their individuality and behavior, which are seen as causes of poverty to some of the black middle-class.

For most blacks, the persistence of racism makes race one of unifying factors in black politics. However, as both Carmichael and Hanchard would concur, black political action that emphasizes race ignores prioritizing the class interests of the poor that transcend race. Black gentrification of North Kenwood-Oakland has failed to bring redistributive economic justice and build a stronger, black community built on cooperative economics, preferred by Carmichael’s characterization of black nationalism. Hanchard criticizes black political theory that emphasizes solely race without acknowledging the multiple identities and problems facing blacks. By clinging to a notion of race-based solidarity that neglects the divergent class interests of blacks, the people of North Kenwood-Oakland actually perpetuate social inequities that occurred as a result of racism. Although it is tempting to privilege race as the key factor of black politics due to the preservation of racism in America, Hanchard correctly notes that black political organizers should focus on “what tends to happen to people defined as black that does not happen with the same relative frequency to other people in a given society.”¹⁷ Black nationalist Carmichael would only agree in that black solidarity as practiced by the people of North Kenwood-Oakland is limited by ignoring the class-based oppression of blacks, which can occur under blacks or whites, regardless of who is gentrifying the neighborhood.

Bibliography

Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want,” September 22, 1966.

Michael Hanchard, “The Contours of Black Political Thought: An Introduction and Perspective,” Political Theory, 38, No. 4 (2010).

Mary Patillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).

1 Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 14.

2 Ibid.

3 Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want”: 6-7.

4 Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 109.

5 Ibid., 15.

6 Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want”: 4.

7 Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 282.

8 Ibid., 104.

9 Ibid., 286.

10 Michael Hanchard, “The Contours of Black Political Thought: An Introduction and Perspective,” 524.

11 Ibid., 527.

12 Ibid., 529.

13 Ibid, 525.

14 Stokely Carmichael, “What We Want”: 6.

15 Michael Hanchard, “The Contours of Black Political Thought: An Introduction and Perspective,” 520.

16 Mary Pattillo, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007): 15.

17 Michael Hanchard, “The Contours of Black Political Thought: An Introduction and Perspective,” 529.