Two Artists Are Giving Out “Gentrification Citations” To Local Businesses, Including Uncle Ike's

[Ken Burch]

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/09/07/24540129/two-artists-are-giving-out-gentrification-citations-to-local-businesses-including-uncle-ikes

Late Monday night, members of an activism collective issued gentrification "citations" to 23rd Avenue businesses and development projects in the Central District. Uncle Ike's and CommuniTea Kombucha were two of the businesses that had the flyers taped onto their windows. The flyer, shown after the jump, reads:

NOTICE

THIS IS A KARMIC INFRACTION

Violations:
• Being an unapologetic gentrifier.
• Unchecked white/class privilege.
• Destroying Black and Brown communities.
• Making mortgages/rent unaffordable.
• Exasperating income segregation.
• Stealing Black culture while displacing Black People.

Fines will be collected along with reparations in the revolution.

In interviews, artists Yeni Lopez Sleidi and Emnet Getahun told The Stranger they decided to issue the karmic infractions after experiencing gentrification first-hand or hearing from distraught friends who were pushed out of their neighborhoods. Sleidi, who is visiting town from her home in Miami, Fla., runs wwwayward.com, which focuses on the intersections of race, sexuality, and politics, among other topics.

The collective's goal, said Sleidi, is to reignite the conversation about the ongoing gentrification of the Central District and the displacement of people of color across Seattle. "It's easy to say that gentrification exists, acknowledge it, and move on," said Getahun. "But it's alive and thriving for black folks and people of color."



Ian Eisenberg, owner of Uncle Ike's, a controversial topic in the neighborhood, said he was concerned that the activists were the same people who shouted anti-Semitic epithets at him during a protest last year. He said he was concerned about an article about Israel on Wwwayward's site. (Neither Wwwayward nor the activist collective is anti-Semitic, Sleidi said.)

Sleidi said that Uncle Ike's was targeted because people of color had centered the cannabis shop in the conversation about gentrification. The karmic citation project was meant to call out people contributing to gentrification in the neighborhood, and according to Sleidi, those gentrifiers include white people as well as people of color, particularly those in the tech industry, who have the means to afford to live in fancy apartment buildings that are causing neighborhood rents to skyrocket.

[Warpy]

1. A little more subtle than Boston in the 80s

Unapologetically ungentrified businesses featured "DIE YUPPIE SCUM" t-shirts in their windows, especially in the North End.

[Ken Burch]

2. I think the "Die Yuppie Scum" thing was more a joke than anything else.

This, by contrast, is a serious and valid political statement.

[Warpy]

3. No, there was a tremendous amount of anger behind it

as neighborhood after neighborhood of rooming houses that housed marginal workers were converted to neighborhoods of brownstone mansions housing a couple of yuppies and maybe one rug rat.

Boston was just starting to feel the effects of gentrification in the 80s and didn't like what it was feeling. With the loss of housing for marginal workers, there was an enormous increase in homeless people.

Boston is not a subtle town. Those t shirts were how a lot of people felt about gentrification. It just fit on a t shirt insted of being a tl:dr.

[Ken Burch]

4. I stand corrected. Thanks for the history lesson. n/t.

[freeplessinseattle]

5. I have mixed feelings about this

Admittedly am biased towards Ike's because I like their cheap (but highly effective) product ($5-7 a gram, a few varieties offered weekly) and they are on my way home from my workplace.

I can see the protesters' point, and at the same time I'll bet a lot of residents are grateful for the more affordable product, greater variety, (incl. medicinal) and under less sketchy circumstances. (Heck, I'll bet some street dealers buy the $99 oz for re distribution)

If they are worried about the availability of pot ruining people's lives though, I wish they would include the beer and wine shop across the street in their protest.

My workplace also happens to be near a grocery store that will be replaced soon by a Paul Allen development ugh (massive apt building with retail below, of course) but still a bit better than the Wal-Mart that was going to be built before the community fought it down.

[Ken Burch]

7. I think it may be about the way Ike has interacted with the neighborhood on a personal level

as much as it is about what he sells.

[Phlem]

6. Fuck Yes!

In the tech field artists are always the most shit on, and gentrification is impossible to prove. So this is Awesome!

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. Curious that the people who posted these aren't even from Seattle

Just visiting