Twenty-Two: Williamsburg Blues (08-09-2022)
On a recent trip to the sunny, liberal paradise of Brooklyn, New York, I noticed a bizarre phenomenon: a proliferance of unabashed and unconfronted Hassidic Jews. The cavalier nature with which these people walked about the neighborhood was unexpected considering the heinous crimes that are being committed upon the Palestinian people not a world away in Israel. Despite the undeniable evil occurring in the name of Jewish freedom, there in Brooklyn the same people could walk the streets freely, flaunting their culture as their close relatives engage in persecution and terrorism in the middle east.
One must be careful when attacking the Jews, as even an uncareful naming of the group can lead to ad hominem accusations of anti-semitism or prejudice. In fact, many would take offense with the charges that Hassidic Jews in Brooklyn should be held accountable for the crimes of Israeli Zionist Settlers in Gaza, but consider that perhaps we all should be held accountable. By not acting, by not at least scapegoating some group in America, then no lethargic justice can be served. While it has proven impossible to reduce America's contributions to the Israeli project, it may still be possible for Americans to, independent of their government, place the blame for their disagreements with the Israeli government's policies on a single group, and target that group mercilessly.
It is entirely possible that Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the place I am assuming I was when I saw about ten or twelve Hassidic Jews, was once a vibrant, bustling Black Community. If so, then these present occupants, wealthy and insular Hassidic Jews, are solely responsible for the suffering of any imagined displaced Black residents. In fact, it can then be extended through this assumption that they share the same settler ideology as their Israeli counterparts, and thus would agree with those Israeli policies and would then, rationally, be responsible for them.
Shamefully, much of America's cities have met this fate. Some style of gentrification is present in any major US city, and through gentrification, any city's present residents are being displaced. These residents, while they may be multi-generational residents of a neighborhood, were not the original demographics of the British settlements in the East or frontiersman settlements throughout the rest of the nation, but this round of displacement cannot stand like any previous round did. This time, the displacement of indigenous residents can be stopped, the economic drivers of migration in and out of the cities can be stopped, ignored, or avoided. Rapid development in cities, the redevelopment of urban blight, should be completed at cost to serve existing residents regardless of their economic standing or ability to repay those loans. If a community exists in an area or manner in which the economy cannot support, then the government should step in and support that community at a loss indefinitely.
The only silver lining to the undeniably unjust system present in American cities, the ownership of housing by a select minority, the economic inability to revive communities without displacing residents, the refusal to invest in public infrastructure, the dissolution of social community, the degradation of behavior, the propensity for crime, the exploitation of the working class, is the presence of funky, fun things to do for out-of-towners. Brooklyn's shift from working-class neighborhood to artists' housing haven to major metropolis, a standardized series in the latest wave of gentrification, has thankfully produced plenty of shopping, spending, and pampering for people like me, who would never be able to afford to live there, but would love to act like I belong for social media.