‘Flavor’: The Most Outrageous Euphemism
Some of Bushwick’s “flavor”: Chinese food dumped in the same spot on Central Avenue for years until a black slick of filth forms. The rats especially love this. — photo by Jeremy Sapienza
A common theme in the gentrification debate is how the newcomers are bland and white-bread suburban stripmall refugees. Some of the older inhabitants who resent the “invaders” complain that their neighborhood is being “sanitized” and “sterilized” and most of all, it’s losing it’s “flavor.”
What exactly is flavor, though? When we talk about diversity, are we talking about how many different ways you can get rice and beans plopped on a paper plate? Are we talking about the dizzying variety of cockroach-infested bodegas from which we may purchase our forties? Certainly we can’t be talking about ethnicity, can we? After all, Bushwick’s newcomers are both natives and descendants of more European and Asian and Latin American countries than you could count on your hands and toes three times over, while it’s extant communities are mostly from, what, two Caribbean countries and the Southern US, whose cultures have been New Yorkized and blended?
It seems to me that upon examination, “flavor” always turns out to be some combination of poverty, rudeness, theft, murder, vandalization, dilapidation, and awful food. I can’t think of anything more bland than the relentless desperation of being stuck in a gray shithole your whole life, looking at the same crummy buildings and filthy streets and aimless people and eating the same shit food until your death of heart disease which the New York Times will blame on “our broken health care system.”
So go ahead, make fun of hipsters and whatnot. They may dress funny, but at least they’re not wearing the same five basketball jerseys every motherfucking week. They may like bizarre music, but at least it’s not their grandparents‘ music or the same recycled crap about some bitch’s bootie. They may not understand what it’s like to be poor, but at least they don’t glorify it. That’s about all you have on them — Bushwick’s newcomers are steeped in diverse and cutting-edge culture, fashion, and gastronomy. They are manifestly NOT “remaking Nebraska” in New York — they are the next generation of talented and creative people that have made New York the amazing place it is.
There is something nice to be said about ethnic enclaves — I have fond memories of celebrating my family’s cultural traditions and feel a connection to the collective experiences of “my people.” This is only natural and we’re hardwired for it. But when someone is so desperate to prove his “otherness” that he incorporates peripheral things, even if they’re terrible, into how he defines his culture, he’s doing himself and his people a disservice. I wouldn’t think people in Puerto Rico are too thrilled with the idea of their culture being synonymous with poverty and trash.
Enough with the glorification of everything bad and wrong in New York by euphemistically calling it “flavor.” You open yourself to questions like, what flavor is that? Ass?
John D, great post.
SG, you just right here sang a paean to the inability to enjoy a life above subsistence means. People like at least the option to eat good food and wear nice clothes — it’s no point of pride to say you “eat what’s given” to you like it’s gruel at a refugee camp.
bushwickgirl, the people tossing trash on the street will not hold onto it one more second than they already do, cans or no cans. Plenty of people walking by my house lift my can lids through the fence and put their trash inside. There’s a trash can every 10 feet in Bushwick — it’s not like anyone would be upset if you used their cans instead of dropping it. Some of them don’t even just drop it when they’re done — they make a big show out of how little they think of their street and their neighbors by tossing the trash up over their shoulder, I guess to show how “cool” they are. They especially like to smash bottles in the gutter. The point is, those who would use city cans already use other cans, or hold their trash until they find a can. Those who don’t, won’t.
Congratulations on being a racist fuck :)
Most of this nonsense is really about class, but it always seems to devolve into racial tension. The things that are annoying to pretty much anyone – littering, loitering, noise – seem to follow poverty, whether you’re white, black or purple, live in the city or in the sticks.
It’s not just about the residents, it’s about the landlords, the business owners, the city’s resource allocation, the schools etc. The issue of gentrification and displacement is so old and so unhelpful – I hope that in my lifetime the conversation can move onto something actually productive. It’s so freaking depressing.
Everyone has a big mouth, but no ideas.
Walking around Bushwick yesterday I saw a woman take her half finished coffee and toss it on the side of building. She then walked to a trash can and threw away the empty cup.
Now there’s a nice coffee-stained building and until it rains it will be there.
She was an idiot does it matter if she was a hipster or not?
No.
Having FLAVOR doesn’t necessarily mean having GOOD TASTE.
Hi. You are a racist. Just thought I’d inform you.
Have a nice day!
I cannot believe this is seriously up here. I am going to hope that this is satire. If it is not, unfortunately the only options left are “so ridiculously ignorant and therefore blind to their racist undertones” or “actually racist, but trying to ‘hide’ it under another issue so it doesn’t seem ‘that bad’”
They may dress funny, but at least they’re not wearing the same five basketball jerseys every motherfucking week.
Like WHAT?! are you fucking kidding me??? That sentence (amongst others) just makes me PRAY that you are joking.
Haha yeah, I’m racist against basketball jerseys and rice and beans, too — their black skins offend me!
I’m racist against no one. It’s always the individual. You always take the individual on their individual basis.
And in all my life, throughout all of it, there are those who want to cry race at me because I have the perception that people should take responsibility for how they act, what they wear, and how they do in life.
How is it racist if I judge people on their actions, words and perceptions outside of their skin color or culture? Because I think gangbanging, crack, loud ipods, not picking up dog shit, having children at 15, and a slew of other behavior is negative for our society?
If that’s racist, I might as well join the klan.
here’s the memo that apparently didn’t reach you, Dresden.
you’re not a racist if you think people of other races are so inferior that they need you as their foster parent. if you refuse to coddle them, however, then and only then you are a racist.
i’m not sure if that’s in the OED yet.
someone posted earlier about the newcomers not being that clean also. I completely agree. Especially when they walk their fancy dogs. Sure they collect the shit in a bag but not all of them toss it in the trash – I’ve seen it – and the ones that do toss it in the trash, god bless them, don’t realize how weak those plastic bags are and usually rip open oozing out its chocolatey contents. And besides, does anyone notice the smell of a block after it rains? It smells like pure dog piss.
It didn’t smell like that before the crusade moved in, though we did have other unpleasant smells roaming around
I should admit that I am an advocate for the “flavor” argument. The definition of flavor does not refer to glorifying destruction, machismo, crime, poverty, violence, etc.
Flavor is an attitude, a style, an intoxicating and radiant charisma that has been birthed in the same streets Jeremy and Co. bad mouth. The newcomers do not have any of the above adjectives when it comes to their style, it’s just plain weird and ugly and on the verge of flaming homo-erotica.
I know I sound ethnocentric and there are characteristics of my culture that aren’t so great. I can’t be entirely upset with the opinions and observations of Jeremy and Co. b/c they have truth in them but what I am upset about are their lack of understanding and one-dimensional perspectives. I can’t blame them, they weren’t bred here so they can see only as much as they can comprehend. I’d probably sound just as ignorant if I moved into their hometowns and started ranting about my observations.
Overall,
Bushwick is losing some of its flava and gaining flavor, its swagga is dilluted to swagger… You gettin my drift?
And those who are strongly against the “flava” argument, in my opinion, do not know the first thing about style. If you did, you’d completely understand why we argue that Bushwick is losing it’s flavor.