landlords are still trying it. treating us like we, deadass, don’t matter.
and it’s making me so angry (er).
K. So when people keep trying you, this is what happens!:
1. you pretend you’re in a rap battle with them in the wee hours of the morning where you are drake and they are meek mills and you crush them.
2. you free write.
I wanna live in a black-owned apartment building.
Lemme tell you about when I lived in bedstuy. The dayskies were always blue. And the nightskies always black. Especially in July. The people on the street were black. The people in the restaurants were black. And. My. Landlord. Was. Black. And lived downstairs. And grew up in the building. And in that neighborhood. And was always there when we called. Like, one time, I called him because I was too afraid to come out of my room. Listen. I heard the window open in the kitchen, which was right next to my room, and heard the sound of a…. thing (!) that was big enough to make DISTINCT sounds…like, this thing (!) was not skittering, it was the sound of a muhfucka WALKING into the kitchen through the window. Then begins the sound of this thing (!) fucking the place uuuuuup! All sounds and crashes everything! Landlord came upstairs SECONDS later. It turned out to be a raccoon. K, so there was that one example of the many times he GAVE A SHIT about us. And here’s another one. Guess what. Bae gave us a rent discount around the holidays, and whenever there was the slightest issue with ANYthing in the house. I never ever felt freer and more loved living in a New York home. So writing that sentence just brought tears to my eyes. Cuz if you don’t feel free and welcomed in your own home…what are we doing here? If you don’t feel like you have rights to your own home space, what are we doing here?
And then I remember that we free. and because of that. I won’t accept feeling like I have to fight to be loved in my home aka womb space (i threw womb in there because it’s gonna go there later…yall this (not) owning our own homes issue is real on many. levels.). And also, I kinda never want to call someone my LAND! LORD! ever again! Is that not absolutely insane to anyone else, BLACK PEOPLE???????
The trying it ends now. Getting buck time. AND both me and my roommate have access to historically white institutions and cultural capital. So good luck. Let the who can out-oppress who games begin!!!! (Cuz btw, this is a more freshly emigrated Asian American family who we felt an immediate kinship to in the beginning). but see… what I am realizing through very real life experience lately is that everyone accesses the American Dream through the exploitation of the black body, mind, and spirit. This includes immigrants of any and every ethnic background. And twisted-ly af they themselves become the mutual victims of this blaxploitation…another weird af characteristic of White American-ness. Who is the nigga. Kinda? Right? Am I saying it ok, King James Baldwin? Watch that, it’s better.
Just give black people their money and land and let it be like my one time in bedstuy for everyone forever.
3. you sue everything around you. it is a wrap. putting my money where my sense of worth is. if you are someone living and paying money to someone for residence, know that you have the right to much more than the minimum. It’s where we lay our heads yo!!!!! ‘tolerance’, outright disrespect, and exploitation have, literally, no place here. Anything other than love and belonging have no place here. we gotta take the people messing with our homes and sense of worth to ACTUAL court. I’m speaking very literally. And I’m speaking to people who lately are on the being tried end of this nonsense…which is maaaaaaad of us….poor, non-white, artists, young, elderly, disabled, non-heteronormative….when i tell you about the day me and my roommate had yesterday dealing with land. lord. issues?? the information that we didn’t know?!!! the realization that, generally, they don’t give a shit about us? yall. trillions of dollars being made off of us living below our worth. nahhhhhh #seeyouincourt #reparationsasaneverydaypractice #bbhmm oh and please believe we’ll be sharing every drop of information we receive and have been receiving on access to free everything, free lawyers, etc., cuz nahhhhhhhhhh. Especially people living in these de-regulated less than 6 units buildings, it’s about to get LIT, cuz that’s the gentrifying HUSTLE right now. Separate info on all of that soon come!
Please leave comments thoughts and info around black owned-ness within housing! Also, how do we do this in cities these days? Can we? Which ones?