Who is RantWoman; why was she in the 'hood?

RantWoman has been checking back every now and then to pages on the http://23rdandunion.org/think.htm site. RantWoman notes several new voices that have come and one interesting one that has gone. RantWoman finally figured out what the one that has gone was saying: it's MUCH more innocuous than how it first parses to the rap-impaired. RantWoman can understand if that one went away for privacy reasons; if it went away because of how it sounds to some of the rap-impaired, that would be sad.

On the other hand, RantWoman is going back and forth about 23rd and Union's history. All those craftsman homes build in the 1920's. Wonder what the place was like then, when the trees were young too. How did it go from that to the time in the 40's and 50's when it was the only place African-Americans could buy property? What happened later when prosperity and real estate marketing drew people out of the city where the trees and sidewalks and transit infrastructure are good.


RantWoman remembers introductions at the first session of the SouthEast Seattle Transit Connections Sounding Board last fall: a lot of the white people had traveled a lot and talked about how great Seattle's transit system is; more that one African-American mentioned growing up in the CD and then moving out to Renton and Skyway and those trendy suburbs where a car is practically mandatory partly because there is no transit and partly because other urban amenities are way underdeveloped?

What else contributed to the neighborhood's fearsome reputation by the 1990's? Remember, this was before it got so fashionable to blame all of the US's problems on poor brown people from south of the border, after some flunky in the National Security Advisor's office had been selling arms to one set of Latin American goons in exchange for another set of hostages. To say the least, RantWoman would understand why some people could also think the CIA was importing cocaine to undermine the African American core of the nation's cities.

RantWoman thinks, based on multiracial observation that the forces of addiction are invidious enough to do serious damage with or without the CIA's help. RantWoman still means to rant a bit elsewhere about "the drugs." None of this by itself fully explains why different groups of people come and go from the area around 23rd and Union.

Okay, RantWoman recognizes that these may be dissertation-sized questions and this ain't no dissertation, so let's just leave the questions hanging and move on to things RantWoman is better qualified to talk off-the-cuff about, such as herself.

RantWoman is a sort of terminally well-meaning Tavis Smiley listening white person and she tends to hang out with other people who like diversity, believe in listening, and also ask questions. RantWoman lived a spell in Washington DC and rode the bus as often as the metro. RantWoman has visited New York, Chicago, Newark, Trenton. RantWoman has read a good bit of bell hooks and Cherie Moraga. This means RantWoman both cringed at some of Hillary Clinton's weirder campaign moments and sometimes clutches her bag or moves away uneasily from certain people.

It was fashionable both when RantWoman was in college and when she was getting a master's degree to demand that one's educational institution should divest from companies doing business in South Africa. RantWoman is familiar with several threads of conversation about this topic and shares a friend's view that some from the US liked the S Africa issue because at least it was a country where people are bigger racists than in the US. RantWoman supposes there are as many dissertation-sized questions about gender and disease and resources connected with what South Africa has become since the end of apartheid as about the history of 23rd and Union. RantWoman is barely wondering there either.

At some point before graduate school RantWoman decided she should not just go to lectures where African American students hang out and think about African Americans getting active about some of her pet issues, she should get to know a bigger slice of African American life so she joined the local chapter of the NAACP. Such was the nature of such things even in a supposedly tolerant university town that one year RantWoman, a friend, and the mayor were the only 3 white people at the annual NAACP banquet. On the other hand, this connection got RantWoman her first and only gig so far at a major political party convention.

RantWoman was on the local ballot as a Jesse Jackson delegate and was elected an alternate. Jesse Jackson won so big in the precinct where RantWoman lived that there was no question of the party naming anyone else but a Jackson delegate when someone else could not go. RantWoman has little terribly interesting memory of the actual convention but does remember riding there with one of her NAACP colleagues and feeling quite honored to hear him recount some stories from earlier decades.

Maybe some of this is why RantWoman was less filled with terror than average when looking for apartments and finding the things she could best afford were in the CD. This does not necessarily make RantWoman any less in her own way part of the shock troops of gentrification either.

RantWoman moved into the 'hood in the mid 1990's. RantWoman lived in a wonderful old house that had been split up into 4 apartments. RantWoman had a front porch and a rose bush. RantWoman had huge bay windows that drew glorious light first thing in the morning. RantWoman loved the grassy lawn, the plentiful sidewalks and excellent transit connections, the fact that the Medgar Evers pool was 3 blocks away. RantWoman loved her big kitchen, her combined living/ dining room / office. RantWoman tolerated the walk around the corner to do laundry and the postal workers who drove in noisily at 4 am.

When RantWoman looked at the place and even when she was moving in, what turned out to be a drug house next door was on quite good behavior. RantWoman at least did not register anything from the people hanging out on the front porch that screamed "drug house." RantBrother on the other hand immediately picked up on that drug house and another one down the street. The thing is, the house liked to party sometimes on weekends but that was all that registered with RantWoman. Eventually there was a big bust while RantWoman was out of town. Everyone got evicted and more upgrading work was done on the house, part of a definable wave of new condos and further yuppification.

RantWoman must also have been somewhat protected by a massive cone of cluelessness or her own modest circumstances. One time, a police representative stopped by while RantWoman was at work. He left a business card and an invitation to sign a card authorizing the cops to investigate anyone who appeared to be trespassing. RantWoman sort of thought about calling for more info, but never got around to it.

RantWoman at the time had almost nothing really worth stealing: newspapers in a couple languages people might not even have been able to read, an old surplus computer, the RantWoman wardrobe which is hardly Chanel. Anyone dumb enough to try to carry off the old computer would have deserved to have to carry it around. Plus although RantWoman always added longterm residents to her lease, her one-bedroom apartment quickly housed two or even 3 people on whose behalf RantWoman had no inclination to speak.

Somewhere in here, ferrener husband came in to RantWoman's life. The RantBrother was vacillating about moving to Seattle for medical treatment or lingering in the cultural safety of the old hometown. RantWoman now thinks there are a few reasons she tolerated way too much lousy tenant behavior on RantBrother's part, but at the time RantWoman's job was holding steady. RantWoman was getting an itch to own property, make mortgage payments, be responsible for plumbing matters, and in a way put down roots. RantWoman's household also just needed more space.

RantWoman began making inquiries. Ferrener husband and RantWoman connected with a realtor who helped us identify many housing (and realtor) features we did not want. Memo to realtors everywhere: if no one in your clients' household owns a car, you will NOT make any money by offering to drive them to neighborhoods with peak hour only bus service. RantWoman was also just walking around her neighborhood regularly though she is not at this moment sure how she first found the house she fell in love with on 22nd avenue. True the house was small and less than optimal in some ways. However it had a lovely camelia bush out front, gorgeous fir floors and enough yard to grow both flowers and vegetables.

Perhaps the joys of home ownership deserve their own ramble. There would be the flooded basement, the double-pane window replacements needed when ferrener husband took a hammer to some window frames stuck open when the onset of fall rains swelled everything wooden. There would be the bank doing "drive-by appraisal" when RantWoman responded to their marketing flyer about refinances as the real estate bubble was expanding, but perhaps for now we will close with ferrener husband's move-in gesture.

Ferrener husband was not as charmed with house as RantWoman was. He was right about it being small, try the biggest we could afford. He ultimately liked fine the escalation in price, but the beginning was bumpy. Ferrener husband though is the sort of person who burns off stress with vigorous exercise. After we moved, RantWoman was still trying to get her tablecloths unpacked and ferrener husband was already outside digging up lawn in both the front and back yards, buying roses, indulging RantWoman's love of lilies and eventually tulips, daffodils, dahlias. The back yard slowly also took shape with beets, blueberries, lettuce, peas, exactly the sort of bounty that new supertight crammed in townhouses no longer have any space for, but that is another whole rant.