Harlem Unhued?
Hey guys, it’s our favorite time of the year of again…
That’s right, Black History Month… YAYYY!!!
So Tom, when you think 20th Century black history and culture, one place in particular comes to mind…
Harlem…
For the whole of the 20th century, Harlem was representing every step of the way…
Marcus Garvey and the United Negro Improvement Association… Duke Ellington… Madame CJ Walker… the Harlem Renaissance … the Cotton Club… Adam Clayton Powell… Malcolm X… the Apollo Theater…our own Rev. Al Sharpton…
…and, of course, the beloved business mogul, civil rights activist and Harlem icon, Percy Sutton, whose recent passing we marked a few weeks back…
Harlem… what a place, what a history, and what an incredible representation of African American culture…
But wait a minute…
Apparently, here in the 21st Century, things are a changin’…
…and if you believe a recent article in the NY Times that said Harlem has lost its traditional black majority, the new 21st Century representation of Harlem might read something like this:
Bill Clinton… Starbucks Coffee… CAUCASIANS…
Jay, it’s like that Eddie Griffin movie, Undercover Brother, where he spoofs the Sixth Sense with, “I see White people…”
Yep, well that’s what many are saying is happening in Harlem…
It’s Farewell Laquisha and Helloooo Buffy!
But, Sybil, talented journalist and longtime Harlem resident Les Payne recently wrote a piece posted on blackamericaweb that disputes the NY Times article…
Payne argues that the NY Times was being selective in the way it drew Harlem’s disputed boundaries, and that the obvious changes in demographics are more a result of the area’s increasing Latino and Asian populations than its increase in white folks…
Even so, it’s easy to see that Harlem is changing and that the Harlem of the 21st Century already looks much different from the last century…
And Payne also points out such changes in Harlem don’t give the whole story; In the November mayoral election, exit polling showed for the first time in New York City history that white votes tallied less than 50 percent of the count…
So one can interpret these figures in a variety of ways…
But no matter what the numbers may or may not be, the real point of all of this for black folks is that we need to make sure we support and protect the cultural institutions that define and provide for our communities whether we are the majority or the minority…
The Apollo Theater on 125th Street –Percy Sutton’s baby that he saved when he purchased and renovated it in 1981– needs our support to make sure it lives on into the 21st century and beyond…
The Schomburg Library on Malcolm X Blvd –although officially a part of the New York Public Library system—is an institution that has celebrated our culture and history for countless years and we need to make sure we use it and have our children use it regardless of the demographics around it…
…and Sybil, this point is not just relevant to Harlem, because we have African American cultural institutions and black colleges across the country in need of our ongoing support, engagement, and protection…
…so let’s take Percy Sutton’s example and commit ourselves to supporting our cultural institutions…
Now, unlike Percy, most of us can’t afford to buy them… cause Tom, as you know, Percy was rollin’ like that…
BUT, what we can do is go out, find and engage with a relevant institution in our community and become a member of it, support it with a donation, or become a volunteer…
…there are countless black organizations and institutions across the country in need of our help and service…
…and if we don’t give our help and support, the changing demographics in Harlem and everywhere else won’t matter because we’ll have little culture left to protect anyway…
…and then our culture really will be history…we cannot let that happen.
As Octavio Paz, a Nobel Prize Winner in Literature once said:
“ Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life.”
Until next time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope.
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