In a recent article on The Root, a “Black” resident of D.C.-area says there are 11 Signs that your ‘hood is being gentrified.

Those signs are, in order: Extreme Urban Makeovers, like condos and coffeehouses where there were none before; City Lighting where there was “Apocalyptic darkness” shrouding the streets prior to; Liquor Stores that are now called “Wine and Spirit Shops”; Cop Patrols in places where cops are accustomed to being seen instigating or committing crimes; Outdated properties like the one you’re living in being torn down and called “un-current”; Stores that aren’t closed by 6 pm; Bike racks and bike lanes; Speed bumps in places where people used to speed like crazy and hit anything that got in their way; Exclusive parking spots with all kinds of rules and regulations for arrests and fines that even killer cops don’t get; Wal-Mart Urban, with plenty of low-waged workers who probably don’t live in your neighborhood and just need movie money while in college; and last but not least, the understated OBVIOUS: White people showing up in urban areas where you’ve never seen them before. The “New Urban Elite,” so to speak.

So, really, what is there to complain about? It’s all good, right? But is anyone asking the question “So where the hell are all the poor people who used to live here going?” Or “Where will the poor people who live here now go?”

Considering the strides that Black people have made in real estate these days, it’s highly doubtful that anybody cares where they are going, or where they end up. The only answer you are likely to get is … why don’t they try doing what we did and come up in the world? (Yes, the old “bootstrap” philosophy for people born to people without boots.)

After all, it isn’t that hard to do. Or is it?

Let’s sit and chat now about 11 “Black” corporate moguls who might possibly potentially have their hands strategically dipped in those gentrifying real estate pots:

1.  R. Donahue Peebles of The Peebles Corporation. How’d did he get so rich?
2. Quintin Primo III of Capri. How’d he get so rich?
3. Herman J. Russell of H.J. Russell & Co. How’d he get so rich?
4. Thomas J. Baltimore, Jr. of RLJ Development, LLC. How’d he get so rich? (by forming alliances with Robert L “Bob” Johnson?)
5. Victor MacFarlane of MacFarlane Partners. How’d he get so rich?
6. Devean J. George, a former NBA player who parlayed his money into real estate: George Group North. How’d he get so rich? (Note: Tate George, formerly of the New Jersey Nets, and shown in the linked “Madame Noire” article, was convicted in 2013 of running a real estate ponzi scheme through the use of bank wire fraud.)
7. Mo Vaughn, of Omni New York LLC. How’d he get so rich?
8. Emmitt Smith of Emmitt Smith Enterprises, LLC. How’d he get so rich? Oh yeah. He used to play football.
9. Stacie Turner, (Real Housewives of D.C.) and listed in the 2010 Madame Noire article, it appears, was not doing so well in the real estate industry two years after this article was published.
10. Kenneth H. Fearn of Integrated Capital. How’d he get so rich?
11. Robert L. “Bob” Johnson, of RLJ Development LLC and the RLJ COMPANIES. We all KNOW how HE got so rich. (Give me a “B,” give me an “E,” give me a “T,” what’s that spell?; B.E.T – Black Entertainment Television.)
    Note: Looks like Bob Johnson did what Asians and other races and ultra-ethnicities do. Sold Black people a bunch of sneakers, chitlins, and hot dogs on TV, cashed out and went and got REALLY rich doing what most rich folks do with their money: REAL ESTATE.

The End. Almost…

***30***

But you can’t watch B.E.T. or buy into any of these other black propaganda and degradation machines and mechanisms in society that are financed by whites, and then ask them why they don’t come back and contribute to the “Black” community. There is a certain unsophisticated “d’uh” factor associated with giving your money to anyone who will screw you to the nth degree, and then trying to tell them what to do with the money AFTER you give it to them.

So… for those who like playing “connect the dots” — Tell us how it is that so many Black people got subjected to predatory lending in the 1990s and foreclosed on and made homeless left and right by the end of President Obama’s first term of office?

We all should be well aware by now that more than 80-percent of Black people in America are not Farmer John dirt-poor any more; and that there are boatloads of whites who are poorer than many of our poor.

Next questions: (a) Why isn’t someone telling all of these Black folks in those gentrified areas WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE, and (b) how THOSE Black men and women got so DANGED rich? And (c) how much they really really CARE about poor Blacks who are being gentrified to death?