Gentrification's latest target ... the fashion industry

[jade3000]

Why do so many gentrifiers dismiss the legitimacy of those they're displacing? It happens in all spheres, even fashion, as seen in Brooklyn.

"The New Face of the ‘Brooklyn Look?’ A White Woman"
http://www.dominionofnewyork.com/2012/12/27/the-brooklyn-look-is-now-white

Not only has Brooklyn’s black style been upstaged. It has been rebuked.

“Bird was one of the first to bring fashion that wasn’t dumbed down to Brooklyn,” said Mary Alice Stephenson, a stylist and fashion commentator who has lived in Brooklyn for some 20 years, according to the Times. “Dumbed down” is how she described Brooklyn fashion before Mankins. Wow. That is so offensive.

... The failure of the newcomers to acknowledge the creativity and style that preceded them is the modern day equivalent of landing in the Caribbean and saying you discovered it. I hear the same thing about Harlem all the time. ...

I’m really tired of seeing us and our contributions erased, belittled and rendered invisible. It’s good that we all voted for Obama, but if we want to be one nation, we really need to sit down and talk about a lot of things, including what it means to acknowledge and respect the existence and culture of other people.

Well said.

[robinlynne]

1. how funny describing Brooklyn as black. how odd. brooklyn is black, and latino, extremely Italian,

and Jewish.... And I have not been there for 20 years, so I'm probably missing 10 or 20 ethnicities.

[jade3000]

2. I don't think other races were excluded.

I don't think other races were excluded in the article. Blacks are one group that are getting displaced & dismissed. But others are getting the shaft as well.