Little Free Libraries and Racism

[Trausti]

Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my White Neighborhood?

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young black couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn! …

Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from black neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their blackness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a White space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

What the hell.

 

[ZiprHead]

There was one near my house. A file cabinet painted yellow and said "Brockway Free Library" on the side. Some asshole stole it.

 

[thebeave]

NY Times won't let me read the article, so I'm not even sure what's going on. So, she's a black woman living in a white, upscale neighborhood and is afraid her little library is going to attract black buyers to her neighborhood? Or at the very least, cause them to hang out on her lawn to browse books? Which means she's racist against her own race, or something? What does any of this have to do with race in the first place?

 

[Bronzeage]

This a higher level of navel gazing than we usually see from people who like to share books with strangers.

 

[Toni]

NY Times won't let me read the article, so I'm not even sure what's going on. So, she's a black woman living in a white, upscale neighborhood and is afraid her little library is going to attract black buyers to her neighborhood? Or at the very least, cause them to hang out on her lawn to browse books? Which means she's racist against her own race, or something? What does any of this have to do with race in the first place?

Trausti altered the article clip that he posted. It's better to read the article yourself.

The way that I read articles behind paywalls is to use an incognito browser. That used to work at the NYT but now I have a subscription.

 

[Toni]

Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my White Neighborhood?

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young black couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn! …

Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from black neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their blackness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a White space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

What the hell.

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood. How did that happen, Trausti?

Folks, don't make the mistake I made and respond to Trausti's altered clip of the article. Follow the link.

 

[laughing dog]

Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my White Neighborhood?

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young black couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn! …

Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from black neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their blackness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a White space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

What the hell.

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood. How did that happen, Trausti?

Folks, don't make the mistake I made and respond to Trausti's altered clip of the article. Follow the link.

Yeah, the title of the linked article is Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my Black Neighborhood?

Truly, a disingenuous bait and switch OP.

 

[Trausti]

Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my White Neighborhood?

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young black couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn! …

Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from black neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their blackness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a White space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

What the hell.

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood. How did that happen, Trausti?

Folks, don't make the mistake I made and respond to Trausti's altered clip of the article. Follow the link.

Yeah, the title of the linked article is Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my Black Neighborhood?

Truly, a disingenuous bait and switch OP.

It is. You’re apparently okay with racism when it’s directed at people you don’t like. Imagine if the NYT editorial board published a sincere piece by a White women concerned about non-Whites in her neighborhood. The reaction would be apocalyptic.

 

[southernhybrid]

Okay. I read the entire piece. Yes. She is navel gazing. The point is about gentrification. The woman put out the library, hoping to enrich her Black neighbors, but then she saw a White couple stop and take a look at the little library and it made her worry that her once all Black neighborhood was in danger of being gentrified, which would probably push out some of the less fortunate Black residents in the area. She knew that it wasn't right for her to feel such prejudice, but considering how many times Black people had been pushed out of areas throughout US history, it made her resent the White people who had now invaded her once "Black space". But yeah. It's one woman's ruminating about the past and whether something she did may not work out the way she had hoped.

It made me feel relieved that I live in a racially integrated neighborhood that was once all white. Everybody gets along fine and since I know a lot about most of my Black neighbors, including one of the husbands in a mixed race marriage, I'm glad that nobody seems to have such thoughts. Mixed race families are very common here, which seems to mean that my city has learned that our differences make us interesting and we are all members of the human race.

But, I don't like gentrification. It's going on in a part of my small city, but it's not pushing Black people out. It's pushing poor people out of the neighborhood, poor people who come in both light and dark shades of skin. The home prices in that area have gone from less than 100K to over 200 K. A lot of the residents are renters. I don't like to see people displaced from a neighborhood that they've called home for decades. I can understand the writer's conflicting feelings about her little library, but i don't really understand when people want to publish such personal thoughts.

Btw, there is a little library on my street. It was in front of a retired teacher's home, but she died suddenly several months ago. Neighbors across the street agreed to put it on their property. The libraries are in many neighborhoods in my town. There is even one near the area that I am concerned will be overly gentrified before too long.

 

[Toni]

Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my White Neighborhood?

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young black couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn! …

Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from black neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their blackness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a White space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

What the hell.

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood. How did that happen, Trausti?

Folks, don't make the mistake I made and respond to Trausti's altered clip of the article. Follow the link.

Yeah, the title of the linked article is Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my Black Neighborhood?

Truly, a disingenuous bait and switch OP.

It is. You’re apparently okay with racism when it’s directed at people you don’t like. Imagine if the NYT editorial board published a sincere piece by a White women concerned about non-Whites in her neighborhood. The reaction would be apocalyptic.

Nope.

I was dumb enough to think you were honest. I won't make that mistake again.

 

[laughing dog]

Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my White Neighborhood?

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young black couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn! …

Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from black neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their blackness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a White space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

What the hell.

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood. How did that happen, Trausti?

Folks, don't make the mistake I made and respond to Trausti's altered clip of the article. Follow the link.

Yeah, the title of the linked article is Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my Black Neighborhood?

Truly, a disingenuous bait and switch OP.

It is. You’re apparently okay with racism when it’s directed at people you don’t like.

My comment was about your deliberate falsification of a story. I made no comment about the content of the story. You have no basis for your claims about my views about people I like or do not like in this matter.

Imagine if the NYT editorial board published a sincere piece by a White women concerned about non-Whites in her neighborhood. The reaction would be apocalyptic.

If you had simply presented the actual story without the disingenuous changes and ended with the above, your OP would have at least be honest. I wonder why you felt the need to present such a blatantly dishonest OP.

 

[Jarhyn]

Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my White Neighborhood?

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young black couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn! …

Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from black neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their blackness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a White space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

What the hell.

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood. How did that happen, Trausti?

Folks, don't make the mistake I made and respond to Trausti's altered clip of the article. Follow the link.

Yeah, the title of the linked article is Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my Black Neighborhood?

Truly, a disingenuous bait and switch OP.

It is. You’re apparently okay with racism when it’s directed at people you don’t like.

My comment was about your deliberate falsification of a story. I made no comment about the content of the story. You have no basis for your claims about my views about people I like or do not like in this matter.

Imagine if the NYT editorial board published a sincere piece by a White women concerned about non-Whites in her neighborhood. The reaction would be apocalyptic.

If you had simply presented the actual story without the disingenuous changes and ended with the above, your OP would have at least be honest. I wonder why you felt the need to present such a blatantly dishonest OP.

I might indicate, and I'm sorry that you will hate this, there's a couple other posters who have defended their failure to stand on a position by indicating that they have failed to take a stand on a clear case.

Do you want me to name those names that remind me of this?

I agree with much of what you say insofar as the clear bad faith fountaining out of the OP like metaphorical piss from a baby Jesus statue.

I think that falsification like this is plainly unacceptable. I read.the OP and details didn't add up. I wondered if this was some kind of Uncle Tom situation... And oh boy was it worse than that.

So much for that experiment I guess. Trausti wins the stupid prizes for playing the stupid games yet again.

 

[laughing dog]

The actual article is about gentrification not racism. She details the how racism played a part in developing racially segregated neighborhoods in the LA area (including an incident of a cross burning on her uncle's house. Then she writes

But now, as younger generations of white people move back to the neighborhoods their parents shunned, in the phenomenon I call “white return,” it all suddenly feels up for grabs — again......Don’t sell. Stand your ground. While that is possible for some of us (I won’t be selling because, really, where would I go?), it’s not for everyone, and it’s not a permanent solution. It also doesn’t solve the bigger crisis of belonging.

To my reading she is expressing her feelings of deja vu. Whether her views in the her OP are racist I think is debatable.

 

[Jarhyn]

The actual article is about gentrification not racism. She details the how racism played a part in developing racially segregated neighborhoods in the LA area (including an incident of a cross burning on her uncle's house. Then she writes

But now, as younger generations of white people move back to the neighborhoods their parents shunned, in the phenomenon I call “white return,” it all suddenly feels up for grabs — again......Don’t sell. Stand your ground. While that is possible for some of us (I won’t be selling because, really, where would I go?), it’s not for everyone, and it’s not a permanent solution. It also doesn’t solve the bigger crisis of belonging.

To my reading she is expressing her feelings of deja vu. Whether her views in the her OP are racist I think is debatable.

I've lived in north Minneapolis for some number of years now. I keep inviting you out for coffee to meet the weirdo wizard and maybe spill tea over that crazy "Russian Princess" downtown and you keep not responding.

Honestly, I'm looking to sell my house here soon, though. It's had me in a lot of thoughts concerning to whom and for what price, and how much I can afford to sacrifice of it's sale price hoping that the sacrifice makes home ownership attainable for the buyer in a way that actually contributes in an accelerated way to their success.

I can't exactly say I'm a gentrifying influence though. I just live in a place my neighbors won't complain about an unmown back yard full of bugs and frogs and possibly field mice, and where I can walk around in a long coat with a stick and not have the neighbors bat an eye.

 

[Toni]

Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my White Neighborhood?

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young black couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn! …

Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from black neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their blackness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a White space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

What the hell.

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood. How did that happen, Trausti?

Folks, don't make the mistake I made and respond to Trausti's altered clip of the article. Follow the link.

Yeah, the title of the linked article is Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of my Black Neighborhood?

Truly, a disingenuous bait and switch OP.

It is. You’re apparently okay with racism when it’s directed at people you don’t like. Imagine if the NYT editorial board published a sincere piece by a White women concerned about non-Whites in her neighborhood. The reaction would be apocalyptic.

So you falsify a quote from an article YOU linked and now you are making up things about other posters' responses and their views about race.

 

[Emily Lake]

But, I don't like gentrification. It's going on in a part of my small city, but it's not pushing Black people out. It's pushing poor people out of the neighborhood, poor people who come in both light and dark shades of skin. The home prices in that area have gone from less than 100K to over 200 K. A lot of the residents are renters. I don't like to see people displaced from a neighborhood that they've called home for decades.

This 100%. I don't like gentrification, regardless of who is doing it, because of exactly that effect.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But, I don't like gentrification. It's going on in a part of my small city, but it's not pushing Black people out. It's pushing poor people out of the neighborhood, poor people who come in both light and dark shades of skin. The home prices in that area have gone from less than 100K to over 200 K. A lot of the residents are renters. I don't like to see people displaced from a neighborhood that they've called home for decades. I can understand the writer's conflicting feelings about her little library, but i don't really understand when people want to publish such personal thoughts.

The problem is gentrification is not a cause, but a result.

Improve a neighborhood, you attract people with more money. This displaces some with less money.

 

[Derec]

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood.

And of course, you find it perfectly acceptable for a black woman to be upset that there are white people in her neighborhood.

How did that happen, Trausti?

Obviously Trausti wanted to illustrate the absurdity of the article and NY Times publishing it by changing the race she was upset about.

Anti-white racism is considered a-ok by the woke NY Times editorial board. That's also why they hired anti-white racist Sarah Jeong a few years ago.

 

[Derec]

Okay. I read the entire piece. Yes. She is navel gazing. The point is about gentrification.

The woman put out the library, hoping to enrich her Black neighbors,

Only her black neighbors? Sounds a bit ... racist.

but then she saw a White couple stop and take a look at the little library and it made her worry that her once all Black neighborhood was in danger of being gentrified, which would probably push out some of the less fortunate Black residents in the area.

"Push out" is too strong a word. As the neighborhood improves and real estate prices rise, will some homeowners be tempted to sell and realize their gains? Sure. But the gentrification benefits those people because they get to take the extra cash.
In any case, it is not the fault of the white couple browsing some books. It certainly is not their skin colors' fault. What if it was a black couple who are doctors who just bought a house and contributed to "gentrification"? Is that more acceptable because they have the same skin color as the writer?

But, I don't like gentrification. It's going on in a part of my small city, but it's not pushing Black people out. It's pushing poor people out of the neighborhood, poor people who come in both light and dark shades of skin.

Would you rather bad neighborhoods stay bad? Improving a neighborhood changes its structure to some extent. Same goes for when a neighborhood goes the other way and declines.

The home prices in that area have gone from less than 100K to over 200 K. A lot of the residents are renters. I don't like to see people displaced from a neighborhood that they've called home for decades.

If you are renting you are at an disadvantage when neighborhoods improve. On the flipside, renting gives one more flexibility. It's a tradeoff.

 

[Toni]

Yeah, what the hell. I just clicked on the link and she talks about a WHITE couple. The author is obviously black. It's about gentrifying a BLACK neighborhood.

And of course, you find it perfectly acceptable for a black woman to be upset that there are white people in her neighborhood.

How did that happen, Trausti?

Obviously Trausti wanted to illustrate the absurdity of the article and NY Times publishing it by changing the race she was upset about.

Anti-white racism is considered a-ok by the woke NY Times editorial board. That's also why they hired anti-white racist Sarah Jeong a few years ago.

You are obviously making assumptions about me that are neither accurate nor supported by my posts.

Your self satisfaction seems to be more important to you than accuracy in your accusations