[Daniel Vega]

After reading an excerpt for Sarah Schulman’s “Gentrification of the Mind” I noticed she says “Eviction of the weak has always been a force in the development of New York City.” She continues to give examples of weaker groups of people who have been displaced and their land taken over. She points out the Native Americans were the first group of people to be removed from their lands. The way I interpreted the weakness she talks about doesn’t necessarily have to be a physical or numerical weakness but it also could be a weakness of the mind due to the lack of knowledge, but nonetheless weakness at the end of the day. We can actually see some of that happen in Kelly Anderson’s documentary “My Brooklyn” when plans were being made to get rid of the Fulton Mall area in downtown Brooklyn a lot of the people only knew what they heard on the news but never really went and tried to make an actual change and also a lot of people didn’t have a voice to get their say with the people in charge. The African American community and the Caribbean community didn’t have enough people to represent and defends their wants and needs, due to this a lot of public housing and place where they had their businesses was removed and resulted in a loss for their community. One possible solution and very obvious to me for people who take over lands, housing apartments and other properties who have a owner who is part of a weaker group of people is to compensate them but either giving them space in the renovated buildings at affordable prices or by finding them a place to live that is affordable because moving them from their home and then not trying to help them out by helping them relocate is detrimental to the community. It affects them greatly and giving them a place to live would be be a way to avoid the problem that they cause from taking their homes.