Week 5 (2/8) – Gentrification and the commodification of race and history (RS&I)

What is the difference between honoring history and exploiting it? What story is being told in the branding of a new business or new development? 

Read:

Crockett, Jr, S. A. (2012, August 3). The Brixton: It’s new, happening and another example of African-American historical “swagger-jacking.” The Washington Post.

Franke-Ruta, G. (2012, August 10). The Politics of the Urban Comeback: Gentrification and Culture in D.C. The Atlantic.

Summers, B. T. (2021). Race, Authenticity, and the Gentrified Aesthetics of Belonging in Washington, D.C. In C. Lindner & G. F. Sandoval (Eds.), Aesthetics of Gentrification: Seductive Spaces and Exclusive Communities in the Neoliberal City (pp. 115–136). Amsterdam University Press.

Submit by 11am:

1) Response blog RSI-3: What does Crockett mean by historical swagger-jacking? What is Franke-Ruta’s critique of Crockett? And how does Summers’ analysis relate to each of these arguments? What do you find most compelling in this set of perspectives? (250 words)

2) Las Hermanas Palacios response (RS&I)

3) Select CD org you will profile (CD)

In class: