"THE PLAN" by @DavidHopkins and @SamaxAmen, and a few words about gentrification...

THE PLAN is my page from Mine All Mine, a 16 page collection featuring one-page tales of wanton theft written by indie madman David Hopkins (Karma Incorporated? Antigone? Emily Edison? D Magazine? That David Hopkins) with each page drawn by a different artist.
 
Mine All Mine came out in 2008, and it was pretty dope. Sorry you missed it. Pay close attention from now on, okay? 

[EDIT- I found FOUR copies of Mine All Mine hiding in a drawer this morning! If you want one, click here and order before they're all gone! NOPE! you missed it again!] 

Tell you what! Since we're cool HERE'S A LINK where you can read Mine All Mine and other dope comics written by David for free. 

Yeah, you're welcome.
So anyways, I thought of this because David tagged me in the comments to a link he shared about gentrification yesterday on Facebook (which was previously shared by my other comics dude ZEES, as it turns out). Any resident of a large city has pro'ly heard of gentrification, the practice of revitalizing urban neighborhoods, often at the expense of the people who happen to already live there. Gentrification sounds great if you can lop off the last part of that sentence, but things being what they are, you can't. That's if you're even trying.

"And they're claiming 'Stand Yo Ground'.
When you ain't never had no ground
 To stand on, cause the place you call home
they can come and tear that down.
And quick to put some nice shit
and raise the prices
and make it where you can't afford.
Then wanna make it 
like they 'discovered' your shit, 
ain't that some hoe shit? Boy..."

-7EvenThirty

(from the instant underground classic The Problem)

The people who get hurt by gentrification are generally black, brown, or red... so it is an easy issue for corporate America to sell to the middle class white Americans who think they will benefit with trendy, conveniently-located, crime-free urban neighborhoods. The ugly reality is that gentrification is just one weapon in the arsenal of a thing we like to call housing discrimination.

Remember when everyone was getting up in arms about (now former) Clippers owner Donald Sterling making racist comments in a private conversation with his racially ambiguous young mistress?  Remember how I didn't write about it because it was not all that shocking to me that an 80 year old billionaire might be a racist douchebag? As Bomani Jones pointed out in this video, Sterling was already a well-known practitioner in racist housing discrimination, a practice that destroys lives on a daily damn basis. And everyone had pretty much looked the other way.

My point is "racist" comments between a dude and his mistress fall far below gentrification on my racial-outrage-o-meter. The inevitable trending of this brand of sexy-yet-meaningless racism story just serves to show that America remains addicted to foolishness and scandal, yet reluctant to fight its inner demons in a meaningful way.


So, having said all that, I am really proud of THE PLAN, which cuts through that isht.  I totes appreciate David for writing it and letting me get down with it. Now that he reminded me of it, I might print it as a poster or something. Stay tuned, and let the conversation continue...


Gentrification Song by Gift of Gab



Peace, 
Samax

Samax Amen draws people, places and things for fun and profit. He is the artist of many great comics you never heard of like Herman Heed, Champion of Children, The Brother and The World As You Know It. He even writes and draws his own comics, like Dare: The Adventures of Darius Davidson, Spontaneous, and Manchild when he gets around to it. Because making comics is hard and stuff, he started GhettoManga as a blog in 2006 and as a print magazine in 2008. 
GhettoManga.com 
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