Crenshaw: The Calm Within the Storm

the calm within the storm

An ode to lived experience in L.A.

STORY BY BETHANY WHITTAKER PHOTOS BY JACK MASKREY DESIGN BY DARIUS JOHARI

hen I was seven years old, my mom moved my two brothers and I into a two-bedroom apartment in Crenshaw, California. If you’ve ever seen the way it’s pictured on Southern California postcards, you’d think Crenshaw was just another beachy Hollywood utopia.

The truth is — being Black in Los Angeles looks like the legacy of Nipsey Hussle on the corner of Crenshaw and Slauson. The mentality of a true leader is instilled in you as soon as you breathe in the air that smells like fried catfish and hush puppies. The moment you open your eyes after being delivered at the nearest Kaiser Permanente, you recognize the palm trees and the familiar feeling of finally having found home.

L.A. is undeniably a sunny sight. The weather is always clear, crisp, and cozy with the beach almost always just 20 minutes away. From the outside looking in, you would think that L.A. has it all together.

The double-edged sword that comes with this beauty is the gentrified lens that eventually steals the focus of the sunny, perfect image. It looks like the Inglewoods that turn into football stadiums, the Black communities that turn into hotel complexes, and the Black-owned businesses that turn into Chipotles and Targets.

Everything around me started to change right before my eyes. Now the air reeks of overpriced salads and overrated murals.

Crenshaw was home for me, but now it feels all too removed — its picture has been repainted by those who do not call it home. The scene is so strange as I walk around and see people drinking pumpkin spice lattes while eating avocado toast one block down from a street lined with poverty and hunger-stricken tent cities.

Gentrification has bulldozed everything I knew into this new foreign land. The culture and identity that was so beautifully enriched by my community is now unrecognizable. The palm trees suddenly feel so unfamiliar, and the smell of fried catfish and hush puppies has all but disappeared.

Although the battles with gentrification continue to sweep through the Southland, the culture I once knew and grew up in made me the woman I am today. Something about growing up in L.A. prior to the age of gentrification makes me appreciate the culture on which gentrification stands.

At the end of the day, L.A. will always be my home.

It will always be the place where I played on the playgrounds and had to be back before the streetlights came on — but that taught me to be vigilant. Where I laid awake drowning out the sound of helicopters policing the night — but that taught me to drown out the noise and focus inward.

L.A. shaped each and every bone in my body, and without it I wouldn’t be who I am today.

Something about the calm within the storm is what L.A. means to me.