In Shaw (an historically gentrified blog)

Diversity out the ying-yang

I've been advertising somewhat for a roommate. My problem, diversity. I'm comfy with it, actually it benifits me. However potential roommates, problem. I don't think a lot of people are comfortable with economic diversity. Can you stand to live next door to the poor? What about the working class, people who dump your garbage and clean your toilets at work, the guy who fixes the thing-a-ma-jig, the mover guys? Can you tolerate them kicking back after a weeks worth of work or coming back home after some fairly odd non-business hours? Can you also deal with the fact that your new neighbors who look like you are replacing those working class families? One day the woman who works at the bank as a teller with her 2 kids, next a single guy who is in charge of the IT department who went to Brown U. Or what about the gay couple who work for a non-profit that bought the house once owned by a retiree housing her kids and grandkids?
Now mix.
I have been encountering interviewees that I swear have only lived in strictly middle class neighborhoods, thinking of diversity only in terms of race or religion. They can deal with their own economic kind but anything that whiffs of poor and indescreet (they're poor and they don't keep it to themselves) screems 'unsafe' & 'high crime'. Maybe that is true. Then there is the replacement factor, the new residents vs the old.
My block is diverse out the ying yang. My neighbor has decided to figure out who else is gay on the block and point them out (isn't there some sort of rule against that? Anyway current count 5 gay men, and 1 suspected lesbian). There are the black families who have been on the block since forever, the one Latino family, the buppies (Black yuppies, I think I'm one), the Section 8s, the working class family, the working class-business man (works w/ his hands, gets paid WELL), professionals, various non-blacks, seniors, kids, just-outta college, Jews, Catholics, the 7th Day Adventist folks and what have you.

Diversity. Out the ying yang.

posted by Mari @ 5.3.04