I decided to follow up my presentation on Harlem by looking further into the community I love so much. I have decent background as I grew up here and attended Columbia Secondary School, so I have a decent understanding of the controversies with Columbia University. My essay ties the gentrification of Harlem to Dubois’s theory of multi-consciousness and the myth of inferiority. I also made a short video in slideshow format to visualize these changes in the community.

Harlem has become a centerpiece for the black identity in America. Over the course of the 1900s it became a spiritual and sacred space for not just black America but black people worldwide. Harlem was and is a hub for the birth and maintenance of so much culture for Afro-Americans, hosting the “Harlem Renaissance”, a nurturing environment for black art and intellectualism to survive and thrive. W.E.B Dubois identified the problem that inhibits the psyche of the black man as the conundrum of split consciousness. The split consciousness between living as a black person but then also the inevitability of viewing oneself as inferior in the face of white supremacy. As Harlem reached its peak it unlocked the beginnings of the potential to break away the walls of double consciousness, to finally meld together the statuses of being both Black and American. As James W. Johnson declared Harlem is its own city within the city, the neighborhood asserted black identity without alienating it from the rest of America. Tragically Harlem now has become a stage for the epidemic of gentrification. The once sensational neighborhood is besieged by numerous forces, leading the charge on Harlem is Columbia University. 

 Rather than move along corridors of intellectual isolationism, a contradiction in terms, we must encourage and foster greater dia- logue with disciplines outside of African American studies, including Latino and Asian studies, with whom we share so much potential. (Gomez 190)

W E. B Dubois’s case for multi-consciousness within the black population following the African Diaspora does well to explain the plight of Afro-Americans. The average black person does not wish to pack up and take all their lives back to Africa like Marcus Garvey proposed, but neither do they want to continue life as is in a racially oppressive hierarchy in America. Dubois identifies this state of limbo, there was no single place or culture for black Americans to gravitate towards. Following the diaspora black people lost touch with their cultures and traditions, most Afro-Americans in America today couldn’t tell you where in Africa their ancestors hailed from. The absence of a root culture forced blacks to learn and pick up the traditions of white people, devaluing and further alienating the black populace. However, as black people arrived in waves in Harlem over the course of the Great Migration a new black culture began to form. Harlem brought together Afro-Americans from all over the country in a large urban environment, a completely new experience from isolated pocketed black communities in rural areas. Harlem encouraged a new era of black thought, art, and pride. Arguably the culture of Harlem was Pan-Africanism at its best, uniting all of black America into a single concentrated neighborhood that took a life of its own. Harlem became a “Cultural Capital”(Johnson 1925) as James W. Johnson put it. However, the idea of Harlem being the center of black America is a shaky one now. 

When colored people do leave Harlem, their homes, their churches, their investments and their businesses, it will be because the land has become so valuable they can no longer afford to live on it. But the date of another move northward is very far in the future. (Marable 270)

Johnson’s insight is flawlessly applicable to the condition of Harlem today, the once vibrant community has become a shell of its former glory as external entities drive away the populace. I have lived in Harlem for over 12 years and have seen the changes in the area. I identify three significant events that I have witnessed as symptoms/catalysts for the gentrification of Harlem. 1. The loss of the Pathmark on 125th street and Lexington avenue. The supermarket was once a largely trafficked store and was a crucial food source for families in the area. Now it’s a dirty block full of police activity and homeless drug abuse victims dropped out from the surrounding rehab centers. This event caused the classification of East Harlem to be the dirty “ghetto” and West Harlem to be hailed as the better side. Its become so profound that 125th and Lexington has permeated culture by becoming a meme because of how bad it is. This conditioned thought process subconsciously encourages gentrification as West Harlem is far more gentrified than East. 2. Inverse of what happened with Pathmark, on the West Side a Whole Foods was opened up where an empty lot once stood. The Whole Foods without a doubt has brought in way more traffic from upper class white individuals and families, creating demand for higher income housing. 3. Columbia University’s multiple expansion projects, most famously the establishment of the Zuckerman Institute, a massive research facility. Right across from the facility lays the school’s newest ongoing development, the groundwork for a 36 story graduate student and staff housing high-rise. This is the most recent development and does not bode well for the future. There is a lot of controversy regarding the housing facility. Years ago Columbia made a plan to create secondary middle and high-school as a way to develop commitment and ties to the community of Harlem. The agreed upon location was where the current housing is being built, the school was instead moved into a nearby DOE building shared with two other schools. “It seems pretty obvious to me that people who have been here a long time feel this is a bait and switch,”(Weinberg). I attended said school from 6-12th grade and at close hand saw what Columbia’s “commitment” looked like. The school received very little university funding and we always struggled with money for clubs and trips. CU likes to flex that high-school students have the opportunity to take a university course every semester on campus. Yet in order to qualify for the opportunity, students had to meet stringent gpa requirements, effectively favoring wealthier students that will on average be better equipped for school work. In my experience the majority of students that took CU courses were from  upper class families. 

As a Harlem resident it’s depressing to witness the changes to the neighborhood, waves of college students do their damage and leave after graduating. The high volume of wealthy Ivy League students end up raising rents while also transforming the culture of the neighborhood for their temporary stays. Businesses go belly up or thrive depending on the whims and wishes of these students. Majority of the historic soul food restaurants have disappeared in favor of chains and health food trends. 

The closing down of Harlem restaurants is a product of the influx of wealthy younger, non-natives into Harlem, forcing soul foods’ traditional customers to leave the neighborhood.  It is just one instance of a greater dilemma in Harlem—the fact that gentrification breeds displacement. (Gorrild 2016) 

To circle back to Dubois, gentrification effectively undoes Harlem’s potential to break-away the issue of split-consciousness. The gentrification of Harlem is a literal reversal of history. Black people moved into Harlem from East to West, now it is being taken from the West. Imagine how demoralizing it is to be a Harlemite witnessing the standards and costs of living go up only because of the invasion of wealthy white people as you and your neighbors are pushed out. Gentrification implicitly supports the myth of black inferiority and white superiority, passing off the changes as improvements and accrediting the invading demographics as “bringers of civilization”. While Harlem may still be a majority black neighborhood, the remnants of black culture feel more niche and tokenized than anything else. While not as drastic it’s a similar energy to gas stations in the Midwest selling Navajo print blankets and rugs.  In short you could say that gentrification is a new “neo-neo-colonialism” on a local scale but with the same damaging psychological effects.

Works Cited 

/staff/elizabeth-Kim. “Harlem Residents Deride Columbia’s Plan For A Residential Tower As ‘Bait And Switch’.” Gothamist, Gothamist, 11 Dec. 2019, gothamist.com/news/harlem-columbia_residential_development.

Fellowship, Marie Gørrild 2008 New York City, et al. “Gentrification and Displacement in Harlem: How the Harlem Community Lost Its Voice En Route to Progress.” Humanity in Action, www.humanityinaction.org/knowledge_detail/gentrification-and-displacement-in-harlem-how-the-harlem-community-lost-its-voice-en-rou

te-to-progress/.

Marable, Manning, and Leith Mullings. Let Nobody Turn Us around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal: an African American Anthology. Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. 

Gomez, Michael A. “Of Du Bois and Diaspora: The Challenge of African American Studies.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 35, no. 2, 2004, pp. 175–194. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4129300. Accessed 14 Dec. 2020. 

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