Spatial Justice: Resource Site for Gentrification of Highland Park Main Menu Documenting the Gentrification of Highland Park Spatial Justice (Spring/2016) Data Mapping Project Photo-Documentation of Neighborhood Change "Gentrification is Colonization:" A Production of the NELA Alliance Recommendations for Occidental to be accountable to the community Interviews & Surveys Student Reflections Acknowledgements

Rai Haynes-Venerable

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Throughout this course I have learned more about the community surrounding me than I have in the last two and a half years I have lived at Occidental College. In some ways I think that is a failure of my own, but in others I feel that this school, being surrounded by this beautiful community, hasn't treated Highland Park and our neighbors with the respect and adoration it deserves. Spacial Justice has provided me with a better understanding of what is happening to the people around me and potential ways to change or challenge systems of inequality that still exist. While reading theory and writing papers helps us as students learn concepts and shape ideas, experiential learning such as this helps us understand the differences and challenges between theory and practice.

In this course we have gotten to see the actual work being done around issues of gentrification, displacement and inequality. Our conversations with community members and community organizers has allowed us to question ourselves, our institution and our role in these unjust mechanisms of oppression. Opening channels of dialogue with community partners will allow us to fortify these relationships. What has made the strongest impact are the faces and voices of those that speak out about these issues, or those that have been directly effected by them. Reading the stories of displacement already demonstrates the negative aspects of gentrification, but actually hearing it, seeing it happen in front of my eyes make it even more real. This reality that businesses are here one week and gone the next, or that people are left homeless because rent was raised, or that the money Oxy students — including myself — spend in Highland Park isn't being cycled back into helping the people who are the foundation of this community cannot be ignored.

The question of why we are learning always occurs to me while I am sitting in class rooms or reading some obscure theoretical text. What is any of this for if not to apply these things within society and attempt to help transform and create better, more equitable spaces. Experimental learning or community based learning seems like the only realistic way we can truly begin to take steps towards achieving our goals of constructing a better community by working with, as well as acknowledging the work that has already been done by those outside our walls.

My favorite aspect of the course was the play “Gentrification is Colonization.” During the play there was a section done in a spoken word, or monologue, which resonated with me the most. I remember feeling very connected to the speakers during that part of the play. I was in tears because it was so powerful, open and truthful. I think that’s what it really boils down to — truth. When you hear someone speak their truth, tell their story, share their pain, there is such a purity in that. It can never be taken away, can never really be challenged, it is just honesty. If this class has taught me anything I think it is that school and learning is strengthened by and in many ways needs community partnerships to thrive.

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Bio

Raihana Jacqueline Haynes-Venerable is a rising Senior, Critical Theory and Social Justice Major (emphasis in Critical Race Theory) and an Interdisciplinary Writing Minor from Chandler, Arizona. She serves as the Academic Liaison for the Diversity and Equity Board and works as a supervisor in the Green Bean (Oxy's Coffee Shop). Rai loves to write creatively and aspires to be a writer/poet in her future. She hopes to use poetry to challenge and combat systems of oppression locally and globally.