Hood Owners Association

by with No Comment CultureFeatured

When a person buys a home, they more than likely become the newest member of their community’s homeowners association. That association has rules and guidelines for residents… rules and guidelines that new residents have little to no say about. 

HOA’s use extreme measures to enforce their rules and often stand by the notion its to “preserve the community for the liking of all residents.” 

Humm… 

If only that mindset could be applied to neighborhoods that are majority Black and Brown.

Nope, Black and Brown people are subject to gentrification instead of preservation. Gentrification… a process I’ll refer to as the grandchild of urban “White flight” post World War II, is possibly the simplest and most forward example of racial division in the United States. 

White flight was when droves of White people moved from within the city limits of most major cities to get away from their Black neighbors.

This continued even until the mid-90s… then a reverse Uno card was placed down on major cities across the country and White people started moving back into major cities.

However, they didn’t move back to major cities with the original residents nor the conditions in which Black and Brown people had to endure. Since the 90s, many White people have been incentivized to move into newly developed and transformed neighborhoods for their pleasure and liking. 

Their homeowners association, the American racism foundation, long neglected the cries of Black and Brown residents. Everyone from real estate developers to elected officials ignored the cry for better recreational centers, places of commerce, and healthy eating options. 

Whole communities from Harlem to Houston have been gutted and transformed with a tag of $2,100 a month rent.

First residents from Cabrini Green of Chicago to downtown Brooklyn were either relocated because of their federal housing status or simply priced out due to higher rents.

Then came the tearing down of aging and dilapidated homes and apartments, followed by swanky new townhomes and condos, then finished off with a new Chipotle, Starbucks, and of course… bike lanes and a pet grooming store.

Black and Brown neighborhoods aren’t even offered fresh food options, yet White residents are given brand new communities before signing their Wells Fargo home loan.

Guess a “hood” owners association should be founded to keep the soul, cost, and originality of communities intact. But we need to act fast! Kroger and CVS are coming soon! 

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The Framing of TUAlerts

by with No Comment EducationFeaturedGen Z

Over the course of the 2017-2018 school year, Temple University has experienced it’s fair share of tragedy. Add to that the general unease on university campuses world wide with the rise in gun violence and the stress on safety has never been more prevalent. On more than one occasion the topic of Temple Universities alert system was addressed in the classroom and at my place of work. I was surprised to hear multitudes of my peers reporting instances of bomb threats and evacuations on Temple’s campus that I had never heard about. Why was this information not being reported through the Temple University Alert system? Then a coworker of mine, who is also a Temple Student, brought up the fact that Temple tends to pick and choose what they believe to be important information, as far as student safety goes.

When I first came to Temple, almost four years ago, I remember hearing that there was a sort of “cutoff” where you left what I would call the “safe zone” and entered a “danger zone”. After years of living here I realized that this divide was yet another somewhat masked form of racism and classism exacerbated by the massive gentrification Temple reeked on North Philadelphia thus far. Interestingly enough when I went through the most recent TUAlerts I have received very few of the incidents reported happened on campus. On the contrary there are issues heavily reported just outside the bounds of campus.

Of course it is important to keep students aware of potential dangers around campus. However, it is manipulative and counter productive to pick and choose what is dangerous and what is not. A bomb threat on campus has the same potential danger (if not more so) than an armed robbery or shooting off campus. Not to mention that a slew of the incidents that Temple reports have nothing to do with Temple students. Temple is sneakily framing the greater Philadelphia areas it has not yet built on as the problem so to speak while any place Temple owned is safe and sound. The withholding of information in this case is what gives us incite into how Temple markets itself in conjunction to it’s North Philly neighbors.