Geographies of Displacement, a panel discussion in Los Angeles
Geographies of Displacement was a panel discussion organized by at land’s edge in conjunction with the Migratory Times project of the Institute of (im)Possible Subjects. It was held at the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, on Dec. 15, 2016. The event brought together for discussion six anti-gentrification groups across East and South Los Angeles: the Crenshaw Subway Coalition, Defend Boyle Heights, North East Los Angeles Alliance, LA Tenants Union, School of Echoes, and Uplifting Inglewood. In the gathering, groups shared their organizing work, contextualized the specific ways in which gentrification is taking place in their neighborhoods, and addressed how the role of the culture industry opens communities to speculative real estate practices. They considered how practices of solidarity can develop into a city-wide movement against unjust displacement.
As capitalism overruns, areas in the Greater Los Angeles area we must discuss the continued attack and removal of marginalized communities by gentrification. The panel on anti-gentrification organizing is a meaningful conversation that must be maintained to help articulate the economic and cultural futures of ethnic enclaves, many of which connect closely to immigrant communities that enrich Los Angeles as a cultural and capital magnet.
These various organizers think about what it means to have a future in spaces made by economically disenfranchised people of color. From their tactics, it one discerns that cultural, communal aesthetics, and political representatives are central to the futurity of ethnic enclaves in Los Angeles. The disempowerment of gentrification is that its alluring Brown/Black spaces both attracts the White voyeur that wants to experience brownness or blackness and codes those same people of color for over policing in turn.
These organizations’ conversations can help explain what repercussions or proactive organization can do to help empower people being affected by gentrification.
For instance, what can be done about artwashing by a racialized working class? How should these communities respond to public land that is overtaken by private companies developing around LA Metro sites?
One central tenet shared by all organizers is that these ethnic enclaves are not disposable and are necessary for the cultural potential in our glocalized world. Another necessary conviction in anti-gentrification organizing is the deeply coalitional practice that helps connect activists and educators in these battles of displacement. Race also plays a critical role in articulating the legacy of racial disenfranchisement of these ethnic enclaves. Racism’ role pushes for a delineation of who should be involved in the rebuilding of a community and asserts providing jobs to community members affected and preserving their way of life.
Corporate capitalism stands against community ownership that can be seen as a form of collectivism or collective empowerment as cultural and racialized spaces. These organizations are articulating the future of raced coalitional communal empowerment of marginalized population in Los Angeles. One that is active in co-learning and sharing knowledge towards a classed and raced empowerment.