A City Parties Against Gentrification: This Week's Winners & Losers

Source: PYMCA / Getty

This week proved once again how people power can change the game. Check out our winners for the week below, then hit the flip for who took an L.

Winners

D.C. go-go music 

Gentrification has been a major issue for Black, Brown and low income residents across the U.S. and this week, native Washingtonians fought back in the most hype way.

According to WTOP, a cherished landmark in the city’s Shaw neighborhood, the Metro PSC store, had come under fire for playing go-go music from their outdoor speakers. This is not some one time occurrence either. The store owned by T-Mobile has been known to play go-go music from their speakers for almost 25 YEARS with rare pushback. The highly percussive, highly energetic music is a pillar in D.C. culture, especially for its native Black residents.

But of course, the bland White gentrifiers who live in the luxury apartments nearby were not here for the music. Someone reportedly complained about the go-go tunes and threatened to sue if the PCS store didn’t cease and desist. This forced T-Mobile to tell the Metro PCS store to cut off the go-go.

Well, the native Washingtonians were not about to let this happen without a fight. Along with a petition started, folks organized a #DontMuteDC hashtag that went viral. The movement culminated in a musical protest on Tuesday night outside of D.C.’s Reeves Center, which involved go-go bands, dancers and concerned residents.

It was turnt.

DMV native Wale even made an appearance.

And the “beat ya feet” dancers were thriving.

Eventually, the “noise” D.C. natives were making paid off.

The CEO of T-Mobile, John Legere, tweeted out:

“I’ve looked into this issue myself and the music should NOT stop in D.C.! @TMobileand @MetroByTMobile are proud to be part of the Shaw community – the music will go on and our dealer will work with the neighbors to compromise volume.”

The activist and entrepreneur behind the petition, Ron Moten, is also trying to continue the movement by addressing the larger issue of gentrification in D.C.

According to WTOP, he held a town hall meeting on Thursday to discuss such issues, along with the loss of black-owned businesses and churches throughout the city.

So in other words, the war isn’t completely won yet. But D.C. residents surely let it be known that they wouldn’t be taking L’s in the battle.

Losers

Waitrose

Another day, another ignorant a$$ brand that dabbles in the racist language.

According to NBC News, the British grocery chain Waitrose released a product called the “Waitrose Trio of Easter Ducklings,” which is composed of milk-, white- and dark-chocolate ducklings.

Harmless right?

Only problem is, the white chocolate was labeled “fluffy,” the milk chocolate was labeled “crispy” and the dark chocolate was labeled “ugly.”

The company eventually got slammed for their anti-dark skinned wording with one Twitter user questioning why the company chose to label the darkest duckling “Ugly.”

“Overheard women saying ‘this is not right,’” the woman Tweeted. “I agree, doesn’t look good at all. Thousands of other options.”

Waitrose eventually heard people’s cries and they apologized for the product description in a statement this week. They said they had temporarily pulled the product in order to redesign the package label.

“We are very sorry for any upset caused by the name of this product, it was absolutely not our intention to cause any offense,” the company explained in the statement. “We removed the product from sale several weeks ago while we changed the labeling and our ducklings are now back on sale.”

Not a good way to start off the Easter season.

These brands never learn.