![\"18.](\"http:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/18.-Moore-1280x560.jpg\")
It was close to midnight. A youngish, jovial-looking white woman with russet colored hair ran by me with ostensive ease. She donned earphones and dark, body-fitting jogging attire. I was walking home from the A train stop and along Lewis Avenue, which is a moderately busy thoroughfare that runs through the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in central Brooklyn, where I live.<\/p>\nIntegrated neighborhoods are beautiful expressions of community when, in fact,\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0members are seen as worthy of police protection or respect from business owners.<\/blockquote><\/figure>Lewis runs parallel to Marcus Garvey. Black<\/i>. Two avenues to the right is Malcolm X Boulevard. \u00a0It\u2019s Black<\/i>. Fulton Street. Atlantic Avenue. The B15 bus. Bedford Avenue. Marcy Projects. Brownstoners. The C train. Working class renters. Peaches Restaurant. June Jordan. Livery taxis. Restoration Plaza. Jay-Z. Bed-Stuy is quite black. I am, too.<\/p>\nEncountering the strange sight of a white woman running without care on a street in a section of our borough once considered an unredeemable “hood” terrified me. She ran pass the new eateries and grocery shops that sell organic and specialty foods. Within a span of a few blocks, residents and visitors now have their choice of premium Mexican eats, brick oven pizza or freshly baked scones with artisan coffee. Citi Bike racks and skateboard riding hipsters adorn the now buzzing thoroughfare. To many, our part of BedStuy may appear safer, cleaner, and whiter.<\/p>\n
And, yet, I was still terrified. It was midnight. Black boys and men have been killed throughout the history of the U.S. for being less close to and observant of white women’s bodies as I was that late evening.<\/p>\n
Shortly after I passed by with the white woman jogger, my close friend, Marcus, who lives in walking distance from me\u2014closer to a densely populated public housing development\u2014lamented about the lingering tremors of gentrification. Citing the presumed changes in racial demographics, renovated housing options, and increased business development efforts, Marcus hinted at the frustration of black communities undergoing rapid and contested transformation.<\/p>\n
He came upon a flier that was fastened to a tree. According to Marcus, the New York Police Department (NYPD) precinct near his building created a \u201cwanted\u201d sign that was posted not too far from where he lived. The \u201cwanted\u201d were a few black men who allegedly robbed a neighbor. The neighbor was white.<\/p>\n
Never before, in the several years Marcus had lived in Bed-Stuy, had he seen anything similar. There were no signs made after black teens were shot or robbed. There were no cries for the \u201cwanted\u201d after black women and girls were sexually assaulted or followed home by a predator. There was no indication of concern for black people besides the ever-present anxiety black bodies seem to cause both to the state and to white people when they dwell en masse<\/i> in the hood. A cursory review of NYPD\u2019s data<\/a> on the disproportionate and deleterious impact of stop, question and frisk procedures and broken windows policing on black communities is but one example. Marcus\u2019s critique resonated because it illuminated the ways the state and its citizenry afford value to white lives.<\/p>\n
Hence, the reason for selecting the vignettes I\u2019ve opened with here. In both scenes, white bodies signify worth and, therefore, are always centered in our collective imagination. They are esteemed commodities, especially in black spaces\u2014that is, neighborhoods and other publics mostly inhabited and culturally shaped by a majority black populace. Thus, any dreamed and invented \u201cjust city\u201d that is structured by a set of race ideologies that do not factor in the hyper-mattering of white lives and the perceived worthlessness of black and brown lives is not \u201cjust\u201d at all. That is why catch phrases like \u201ccommunity development\u201d or \u201curban planning and design\u201d can be counterproductive if, in fact, one\u2019s praxis is not guided by a commitment to a type of transformative work grounded in the belief that black lives actually matter.<\/p>\n
The connection between space and race became clearer to me after visiting Ferguson, MO, shortly after 18-year old Mike Brown, Jr. was fatally shot by police officerDarren Wilson. Standing in the same street where Brown\u2019s bloodied body had been left uncovered for four hours\u2014in view of his family and neighbors\u2014forced me to question the extent to which ideas about race and space collude to create precarious lives for black and brown people. In an essay<\/a> titled \u201cThe Price of Blackness: From Ferguson to Bed-Stuy\u201d originally published at The Feminist Wire<\/i> shortly after my return, I wrote, \u201cChanges in the racial composition of towns precipitate changes in the ways black bodies are policed and valued in many neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was drawn to the horrific events unfolding in Ferguson because it occurred to me that Ferguson \u2014 like some neighborhoods in New York City, Chicago, Oakland and elsewhere \u2014have not only experienced shifts in its racial composition, but also have undergone changes in government leadership, laws, policing practices and economics that inevitably impact black and poor people.<\/p>\n
Mike Brown\u2019s death was a unique tragedy that occurred within a specific place and time, but the conditions within which it took place are mundane and, seemingly, quintessential characteristics of gentrified black spaces. This led me to postulate<\/a>, \u201cBlack lives and white lives are differently valued and are, therefore, differently impacted under the conditions of white racial supremacy across the country.\u201d Thus, beyond the noticeable changes\u2014such as the movement of more white people into otherwise black neighborhoods\u2014the insidious aspect of gentrification is the seeming logic of white significance and black worthlessness that underwrites the process.<\/p>\n