Editorial/Rant: PW, Please Stop It. Seriously.
We’re going to get serious here for a second. It’s going to be hard to gauge exactly how totally fucking annoying today’s Philadelphia Weekly cover story is. But we’ll take a crack, and say: Very. Very Totally Fucking Annoying. We won’t pull punches as to why: It’s endemic of everything that is or has ever been wrong with this underdog paper to which, full disclosure, our esteemed editor gave seven years of his ever-lovin’ life. (And quite happily, actually.) But this is not merely sour grapes we’re spewing here. In fact, it is a kind of love. To the editorial board of the region’s largest weekly: Wake the fuck up. Week after week, you’re peddling the flimsiest of cover stories to your readers, almost always tempered by a decades-out-of-date white liberal guilt (we’re looking at you, Whitaker) that not only insults your audience but also tanks whatever good work you do manage to do. (And there is much of it. But let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks just yet.)
Take today’s cover, “Vanishing North Philadelphia.” You somehow managed to take a story about, honestly, one of the most conscientious gentrification efforts this city has ever seen, and made it into a rote journey into the lives of poor people who are disoriented and perhaps a little cranky that their neighborhoods aren’t complete hell holes anymore. (For the record, we know of which they speak.) This happens all the time, simply because, well, it’s weird to wake up one day and have your neighborhood’s whole vibe change, good or bad. We would have appreciated more insight into that, as opposed to heard-it-a-hundred-times-before grousing from whatever residents who, like you guys, will pretty much stand in the way of any progress they can find.
That wasn’t the most galling thing, though: The racial techiness in the story was palpable from the word go, and all because of the questions the story didn’t ask: Why do white people suddenly think it’s okay to go up there? And why didn’t black or Hispanic developers go into those neighborhoods years ago? If turnover like this is so bad, if history itself is being threatened, why not jump all over the Malaysian communities that have settled in South Philly and are now “ruining” that part of the city’s oh-so-glorious history? Oh, right, because that’s not the g-word. There is a bad tinge inherent in the word “gentrification,” and we know you know it: Indeed, it is that knee-jerk association that propels this story and so many others. As educated readers, we have to say: So fucking what. The fact of the matter is that no one is being displaced by the gentrification efforts in NoLibs, Kensington, Fishtown and points north — or, at any rate, no one who doesn’t want to be. These places have been the asses of the world for decades. The people who are getting out are merely taking advantage of an opportunity in the real estate market. It’s their choice and — black, white, Hispanic, whatever — it is insulting to one and all to act like these residents are members of an indigenous tribe that must never be disturbed by the White Man. We live in a city, and cities change. They have to. The people demand it.
We could go on, but we didn’t start this whole rant to pick on Kia Gregory, who penned the story. What we do want to pick on is the culture at PW that somehow believes that no-brainer stories like this are okay, and even worse, doing a service to what is, at this point, an almost-too-loyal readership. We know this is harsh. We know it sucks. But really, PW, honestly. Stop insulting our intelligence and we will stop insulting you. That’s all.
PW: Somebody Ring The Geator! We’re Doin’ The Guilty Twist!
