Comments

1
I actually got the same vibe when reading that. Very out of touch.
2
The title of this really should read, "According to know racist Charles Mudede its dumb that only white folks are bothered by a shooting"
3
talk about racism
talk about global warming
we are divided

5
Charles -- when are you going to wise up about what's happening in South Seattle? The zoning changes and Sound Transit's infrastructure is for developers, so they can sell to white people. And here's the kicker: the least-wealthy households pay for it! You need to wrap your considerable intellect around how those major urban initiatives are ethnic-cleansing devices.
6
It is for whites. But more specifically for Magnolia and Queen Anne residents. With kids. In private school. And housekeepers.
7
CHARLES, fine points, but your own publication is just as guilty, here's from SLOG Food News May 22: The March of Molly Moon's Continues

"Molly Moon's will open their eighth location in Columbia City sometime in June, according to Eater. Given the ultra-whiteness of Molly Moon's, and the historic diversity of the neighborhood, owner Molly Neitzel has already addressed the gentrification question, telling Eater earlier this year that, "You don't want to be accused of gentrification, you don't want to put a product into a neighborhood that seems like it's out of reach of most residents in terms of affordability."

Very sweet of her, but unless you're worried that upper-middle-class white lesbian couples with kids can't afford to end their evening dog walk with ice cream for their brood, I think you're good. Opening an artisan ice cream shop in Columbia City is basically a drop in the bucket at this point."

Uh huh, now let me guess, I honestly don't know, but is Tobias Coughlin-Bogue a white person?

Your own house has dirty gentrification laundry and dishes in it too, Charles. Time for some housekeeping before calling out your neighbor's?

Anyway, fight the fight! whatever that fight might be, I guess...

LOOK, Dragons, Charles!

oh are those windmills, tilting in the winds...?
8
I'm usually more in line with Charles' detractors, but as a Garfield graduate who also spent a lot of time in the Columbia City vicinity in the 90's, the language she uses does smack of colonialism. That being said, I feel a lot safer down there now than I did then, so that's a thing too.
9
@7 "Tilting" regarding windmills refers to the old term for jousting.

But I'm fine with you casting Charles in the role of the tragic/romantic hero. ;)
10
"Never explain. Never apologize."
11
Yes, Charles, let's look a the full history of the Rainier Valley. Because it was the AA population that pushed-out the Italians in the Northend (of what was then known as 'Garlic Gulch') and the Japanese out of the south end of the Valley (Mizuki Nursery, etc.). See, the Valley/CD wasn't 'black' until the 70's.

Of course that change from the 50's - 80's didn't happen because the neighborhoods were blighted by ice cream and lesbian pedigree dog owners. No, it was some other factors that pushed the Valley into urban decline (precipitating the current renewal.) Why don't you tell us about THOSE factors Chuck?
13
@9, thanks, indeed, jousting with windmills, Don Quixote, obsessed with chivalrous ideals, he takes up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked.,,,only because he is really the aged Alonso Quixana and he is really chasing windmills, but Don Quixote, even though his quest is fantastical, his devotion to his cause remains pure,,,sort of like us in here ranting about the way things ought to be,,,
14
You wanted light rail, right? If you're in favor of LR, you're in favor of gentrification. Derrrr.
15
Ah, yes indeed, this is a very good question.

What color is the audience Charles Mudede imagines when he writes?

He does not say, we must read it in between his lines.
16
White whiney @seattletimes columnist white-whines some more. Thank god for The Stanger.
17
Seattle is fucked end to end for the working class. People are moving to Lake Stevens (ugh) Arlington (uuuuugghghgh) or south to the various bullshit places nobody wanted to move to until 5-6 years ago. Face it, the Seattle metro area is the new Bay Area for rich assholes with no taste and poor hipsters with no possessions. There's no place for anyone else.
21
@19:

Sure, because your job, your family, your friends, your health care providers, your cultural and recreational pursuits, they're all just going to pack up and move to location B (or in your case Malibu) right along with you, yes? And it's becoming increasing less "can't afford location A, move to location B" as it is, "move to location M or N", because locations B through L are all rapidly catching up to what it costs to live in location A.
22
@9 Beetlecat: Agreed. By the way, I LOVE your avatar!
@17 The CHZA: I know I couldn't afford a cardboard box in the Central District now, 20 years later after paying $560 / month for a one-bedroom with parking garage space in Ballard back in the day. I feel sorry for everyone struggling to survive in the Emerald Jungle.
23
This was a great post. I was hoping Charles would call out the phrase, "tent-pole businesses that mark a certain Seattle sense of establishment," which seems particularly coded.

I think this post highlights the author's blind spots, focusing on the text of her post rather than attacking her personally. This is what civil dialogue looks like.
24
@11: The CD was definitely Black in the late 50s-60s. In fact, Blacks couldn't rent or buy anywhere else in Seattle.
25
There's nothing wrong with writing for a white audience. An ethnicity is allowed to have a dialog among its own members.

The problem with smug liberals is they tell themselves they're not. The problem with failing institutions like the Seattle Times is they can't face the reality that they don't speak to the whole city. The Times is a niche paper where the whites talk white issues to other whites. Quaint.

Can't wait for the Times to finally die and stop using up all the oxygen.
26
Go read a f*cking book to learn about the history of racism in this country

It's real. It's been real. And we've gotta face it to figure out how to deal with the aftermath and come to terms with our own prejudices

It's time to quit that asshole behavior..hey people- what the writer is commenting on is prevalent throughout our society

And the only way to address it is by acknowledging it exists

We're born with the privilege to understand..so use it to open the history books, to read the narratives, and see that inequality that exists

There's something deeply wrong. And it has been for a LONG time

So quit being sarcastic dickheads and just LISTEN for once. It's actually okay to admit you're wrong. It's okay to admit that there are things you'll never understand. You don't have to

All the world needs is a little RESPECT

I was once an arrogant little prick..but I learned that there are these struggles..these real shitty things humans have done and continue to do because of the color of people's skin..because of their identity or background..because the individual judging had such deeply rooted problems within their own lives that they shift the blame to the other

I know because I've done it too..but I'm learning. Learning that there's more to this life..there's things that matter..and part of that means growing up and maturing and realizing you're part of something greater than you even realize

So I'm here to listen and support and admit that we've got a lot to change
27
@26. Is current gentrification really a model of systemic racism? Explain in a way that factors in the inherent inequality of life and being human in general. Are white people moving into this neighborhood to purposefully harm POC or are they taking their limited means and trying to gain an advantage by moving somewhere affordable and trying to make it less dangerous and more livable?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with inequality of outcome. That's called being free to do as you please with your wits and means in an open society The real fight if you're interested in equality is to create opportunities for people who have less or none of them. If we work to create a more level playing field by lifting up the bottom socioeconomic rung of society then we stand a better chance at creating a society where people can thrive no matter what their skin color or sex. So the disadvantaged neighborhood doesn't necessarily exist to begin with.

It's ridiculous how peoples calls for equity here have avoided still existing institutions of systemic racism lately(the prison industrial complex, the drug laws STILL creating disparity for POC) and focused on reducing white people to a subordinate listening role. First, you don't create an equitable society by chopping the top off an existing one. Second, in an equitable society EVERYBODY has a voice. Even if you don't like what they are saying.

In essence, People moving where opportunity presents itself is a model of equity. There are plenty of racist institutions left to fight. I'm not sure this is one of them

28
Yep. The Times is written by white people, for white people. Charles should totally go work for them, raise some hell!
30
@27 "Is current gentrification really a model of systemic racism? [...] Are white people moving into this neighborhood to purposefully harm POC or are they taking their limited means and trying to gain an advantage [...]"

Hold up, isn't this the point of the word "systemic"? That real patterns of injustice emerge out of individuals not desiring to hurt anybody, just trying to live their lives?

Do you see how this happens, and how it affects opportunity? We can come back to free society after that.
31
Good article as it does provoke introspection. I'd qualify that Nicole writes for a demographic that is predominantly white. Good thing I don't write headlines as that just doesn't zing.
32
@30. Your proving my point. If there was equality of opportunity in the neighborhood to begin with there wouldn't be an advantage for whites and others to move in and capitalize on low costs of living and rents. The fight for equality doesn't start with gentrification.

In my view, the problem can't be the people moving there. We've already seen what a society with race restrictions on geography and community looks like. We don't like that, why would we institute the same shitty rules, but for a different race or economic class?

34
@32 nah, you're proving my point. "If race didn't affect opportunity, the social system wouldn't cause disparate impact by race" -- again, that's how systemic racism works in a nutshell. You can't go saying "it doesn't start here!" about every link in a cyclic chain.

You are logically correct in that if we completely leveled opportunity for every individual, race would by definition no longer be a factor. Because that implies racism must have disappeared. But you don't have a big enough magic wand. Even if you confiscate and level all property (are you a super duper socialist?), you haven't actually made race go away. It's still kind of a big deal actually.

Some people make your arguments to spin around and about starting work anywhere, but I have no reason to think that of you. So what's your proposal?
35
"The old neighborhood of blacks—with their crimes, their ghetto ways, their culture of poverty—are still "making themselves known."

I found this remark to be particularly coded and backloaded with racist condescension. As if this neighborhood was rescued from its terrible plight of being unwhite and without expensive, shitty pizza from its saviors but those plucky people of color keep letting those white folks know while they wait in line for their expensive, shitty ice cream that they're still here and boy, isn't that just a cute triumph!

So much of what is wrong with how Seattle is gentrifying (and not if it should because like it or not, I'm pragmatic enough to accept that the horse is now miles away from the gate) is distilled in this article. I find the author problematic at best in the way she grasps this issue.

36
Brodeur has apologized for her words.

Is it good enough, this apology? Perhaps not.

But if it were good enough, would Charles Mudede accept it?

Is he the weak kind of man, the kind who mucks about with forgiveness and redemption and absolution and other childish ideas like these, or is he the strong kind of man, the kind who knows what is right and what is wrong and what your score is, and does not change his mind about it?
37
Brodeur is a spineless hack. Her musings have all the depth of a republican housewife hobby project. She sings any bullshit lullaby she believes her frightened, right-wing white-wing readers want to hear. Her porous integrity allows her betray fellow staff members so that she can continue to administer obsequious blowjobs to blevin's moneyed pets. How else can a non-talent such as her can survive in a dying industry?
38
We are saying the same thing then. I agree that race does affect opportunity in this scenario and that's where I believe change should begin. At the opportunity level. You don't have to redistribute wealth to create equity. That's a dangerous road to tread. 40+ million people died in Russia 80+ in maos china behind that idea and that's another societal model we should try to avoid.

Inequality is fair. Sounds counterintuitive, but if you look at it on an individual level it totally is. People are different. Have different abilities, intelligence, drive. That creates different outcomes. Equity is not created by disadvantaging people who would succeed through whatever advantage they hold or work for. Equity is created by leveling the playing field so things like race, sex, and sexual orientation are not obstacles to success. Being white is the advantage, does it make sense to strive for equity by disadvantaging whites? Or should we try to make being white no longer an advantage worth mentioning?

Logistically, we could start with reparations in the form of equal or greater funding for inner city schools. Changing drug laws to do away with sentencing disparity, and supporting all people in a lower socio economic bracket with free continuing education and entrepreneurial aid.

Again. These are just the viewpoints I hold that make sense to me.
39
Brodeur wrote an apology that seems very sincere. I'm sure Charles won't care. This kind of stuff is all about shaming people, not about enlightening them.
40
@33 In calling out Charles for not looking far enough into the past, you've made the same mistake. This region has been continuously inhabited for roughly the past 10,000 years. White pioneers were definitely not the first people to settle in what is currently Columbia City.
41
Sorry, @34. Also, I don't see racism as a cyclic chain. That would imply that breaking one link would unravel the whole cycle. We know that this isn't true. Push down one form of racism and another pops up somewhere else in its place. Jim Crow, to housing discrimination, to the war on drugs... I have a weed analogy. Uproot the offender by creating equality of education, opportunity, and hiring and compensation practic. The animosity surrounding any race issue will hopefully fade away when representative numbers of different color people are succeeding at what they put their mind and bodies to without barricades.
41
Charles and the Seattle Times Jerry Large play the embarrassing role of being the "go to" black angst writers in Seattle. It's sad that two knee jerk slouches are the only people allowed to have opinions on race in Seattle media and even sadder that they don't see themselves getting played in this role.

I suppose Charles preferred the good old days when the CD was violent and Columbia City was even poorer. Damn those white people paying us more money to move.
42
@12 well, he's saying, no need to take the racial pulse and history of this Molly Moon joint, because all that racial stuff is past and in Seattle diversity means sexuality not race...really?
44
@43 what you should have said is "I resemble that remark!".

Please wait...

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