NVN Saturday: BROWN STONED BITCHIN
by Danielle Cowan
Top 5 Stories on Brownstoner This Week: A Bed Stuy Church Faces Demo for Apartments
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Yo, bro can I codeswitch And just bitch bout the comparatively rich Cuz I high-key think this piece in the Brownstoner utter bullshit Tell me why it cost the community a whole ass church for a Bedstuy block of expensive ass apartments Maybe these canceled fried fish feasts where coconut cake recipes written in cramped handwriting come through as a gentler form of generational wealth ain’t mine to count But this bum ass journalist out here jacking the space’s Jeopardized pre-Civil War story Like she finna bless the block With some of that good grant-funded participatory placemaking glory Like a revolting remix with alternate universe anything NOT for the culture Kendrick Her bars broken up by Compelling add copy, counting clout as Antique crown molding, and picture rails which I never peeped And probably wouldn’t know how to work Pulls me back to my own crib with the claw-foot bathtub that could be beautiful Them thick ass prewar walls whose spackles put sharp ends to 10 year old skipping and 20 something Pilates pumping We got a goofy ass Zillow page gassing up original gas fixtures They been tryna buy us out For some bread we would’ve bled In two years of local living Wising up with Newly rent unstabilized doubt Shit started around the same time Someone sued cause they seen That unnecessary ass door knocking for landlords instead of Power tight knocking out kingpin antics Got Breonna Taylor dead. Rest in peace Breonna and come back bro My bad if you thought it was all bad See they built these breakfast bars in the apartments upstairs and now they be going for 5000 a pop So I swear it was a scene straight up from one of them papers with positive statistics Paying respect to that low-income colored social capital Legacies of beastie bachelors degree and first car funds lack Sis who stay holding 5K for them rent checks But can’t hold doors Switched up damn quick When she needed the Super’s number
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Danielle Cowan is an NYC born and based, blind, queer and Blackarican native New Yorker dabbling in organizing, poetry and performance. Her work is fascinated with what it means for bodies and places to hold multiple, sometimes culturally conflicting identities and playing with ways to write and perform within shared histories and trauma. She has had poems published in Causeway Lit’s revolution issue, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and elsewhere. She has read in The Rally Reading Series and received fellowships from More Art and Office Hours Poetry Workshop.