“The Souls of DC Folk”

Tariq West argues that by-and-large, poor black people weren’t forced out of D.C.; rather, they were “coaxed out by the cynical incentives of despair.”

Those of us who lived in DC through its most soul-wrenched hours (whether by choice or chance), own the joy and pain, the culture of this city. I literally ache for Chocolate City sometimes, for the people I came up with, for how this city was let to fall down on top of us. I experience Go-Go as no less than eulogy.

Gentrification is an emotionally charged subject, at least in part, because we feel like we deserve recognition, a float in the parade of the inevitable. We have marked and been marked by this city. We deserve a sticker or t-shirt or exclusive rights to knowing glances, for loving DC when there was much less to love about it.

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