“A Lighter Shade of Brown?” by Alfredo Huante examines gentrification in Boyle Heights, a community that has received attention due to activists against gentrification, and how gentrification works to empower and protect the white dominance and establishes new racial hierarchies and perpetuates racial inequalities. How to Kill a City: San Francisco by Peter Moskowitz is a case study examining the ways in which San Francisco, a city that was known for its diverse populations, has become gentrified and left its original communities to the edges. Last Black Man in San Francisco is a film about the lived experience of gentrification and the people and communities it directly impacts. How to Kill a City: San Francisco mentions this film and how it was created by residents in San Francisco and the intentionality of using old school film techniques to encapsulate the original San Francisco. Both papers examine cities in California, a state that has become increasingly expensive to live in, which is why my own family moved to Georgia. Additionally, this quote, “ This is what a gentrified city looks like: nothing like a city at all” (Moskowitz 159), connects all three pieces together because gentrification takes away the natural beauty that is created through diverse communities and replaces it with capitalist ideologies and businesses that continue to protect white dominance. The worst part of all of this is that when gentrification happens and white people move into these communities, the government begins to invest and make roots that they never did when people of color resided there. Additionally, “A Lighter Shade of Brown?” highlighted the idea of “educated vs uneducated” became established but it is not really about who knows more or less but rather who has learned more about white supremacy ideologies and has internalized them into their practices. Gentrification is a process of taking what people of color have created within their communities and kicking them out to use their cultural contributions, labor, and communities for profit and aesthetic appeal. It displaces Black and Brown residents, erasing histories and replacing them with commercialized versions that cater to the white and wealthy and creates racial inequalities and hierarchies to protect this new version. My family lived in California for their whole lives but they had to leave, and my aunt who lives there now has to rent rooms in her home to stay afloat.
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