When No One Is Watching(46)
Kendra gives me a pointed look, and Sydney lays a hand on my shoulder. “Theo is my assistant. He’s working off his reparations debt.”
“How interesting. Were your family slaveowners?” Kendra asks, and my big white feelings threaten to make an appearance, though the question makes sense given Sydney’s intro.
I shift in my seat. “I don’t know. Mom’s side of the family doesn’t talk about that kind of thing, but it’s possible, I guess. A week of being Sydney’s research buddy isn’t a high price to pay, just in case.”
“Seriously. You should be paying me for this education,” Sydney says in that tone where I can’t tell if she’s joking or she actually dislikes me, but she gives my shoulder a squeeze before releasing it, and my abs clench against the sensation it creates.
“Let’s see. You already saw the exhibitions down at the center.” Kendra grins as she leans back in her office chair. “I think, given the nature of your tour, you might want to look into the ebb and flow of the neighborhood demographics. I won’t say it’s cyclical, but more like a tide. Bringing one demographic up to the shore, then pulling back and leaving another in their place, and sometimes mixing them all up.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“There are the Black residents, of course. In the early twentieth century, the neighborhood had lots of working-class Italians. Then we got the first waves of Caribbean immigrants. Latinos. Africans. Everyone lived together peacefully enough in those times of overlap. My grandmother used to tell me about her best friend growing up, a Jewish girl.”
“Where did everyone else go?”
Sydney elbows me, and then Kendra grimaces and reaches into her desk drawer, riffling through papers to pull out a folder. She plops it onto the desk and slides out a map of Brooklyn. It’s colorful, the majority of it red and yellow with some blue along the waterfront.
“This is the map that created the Brooklyn we know now. See all that red? Those are the places that banks decided were bad investments. If you lived in those areas, it was impossible to get a loan or services that most people took for granted. And if you can’t get a loan and your house starts falling down, what are you supposed to do?”
She snorts.
“This is redlining?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “So. Bankers decide amongst themselves to not give any money to help enrich alllllll of this red area, which just so happens to be where Black people live. Things start to go bad. Everyone who can move does, but oop!—what’s this? All the other areas start enacting housing covenants saying ‘Hell no you can’t sell this house to no black people.’ Because our mere presence could turn any other color on this map red.”
She curls her lip.
“Is that why things went downhill?” I ask, since Sydney is being oddly subdued. “I did a little research, mostly looking at photos. Lots of places fell into disrepair in the eighties.”
“Crack,” Kendra says, steepling her fingers. “They couldn’t get us money, but they sure could get us those vials.”
I don’t have to guess who they are in this situation.
“But there have always been nice houses, too,” Sydney counters. “Always.”
“Right. Because we had intracommunity support to make up for what we were denied, and that’s something you might want to cover, too. Black real estate agencies operated, making sure people could find places to live. Before, you weren’t gonna find an ad for a house in this neighborhood anywhere but in Black newspapers like the Amsterdam News. Black lending associations replaced bank loans.”
“But didn’t banks lose money that way?” I ask. I know I’m probably annoying with my questions, but Sydney hasn’t Howdy Doodied me yet.
In all the times I’d moved in New York, I’d only thought about how safe the area was for me, not what my presence meant for people in the neighborhood. Not about what advantages I had that they didn’t. I was poor, too, after all, even though I had figured out how not to be, for a little while at least.
“Racism isn’t generally very cost-efficient,” Kendra says. “But they’re making their money back hand over fist now that gentrification is in full swing. Out with the old—including us.”
I sense Sydney stiffen beside me even though I’m not touching her.
“Is the church getting evicted?” she asks in that small voice that seems so unlike her.
“Eviction is so uncivilized.” Kendra’s lips press together. “The landlord just kept increasing the rent according to the new property value, while not doing standard repairs and upkeep. Had us freezing our asses off in here last winter.” She shakes her head. “We wouldn’t leave, so he sold the place. It’s going to be a school again, from what I’ve heard.”
“But there’s already a school in this neighborhood,” Sydney says. “I mean, I work at the school.”
“You work at the public school. This is going to be an independent school priced just high enough to do the work of segregation for the people who will send their kids there. In the building that was one of the first schools for Black children in America.” Kendra shakes her head. “I doubt it was purposeful, but ain’t that something?”
I just sit there, embarrassed and sure that anything I say will result in me making things worse.