Jessy Delfino's Blog

Did You Know? Giant Nerd Glasses Increase Rent

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I'm Feeling Kinda Racist Against White People

Damn, there are lots more white people in my neighborhood than there were before, and they are fucking shit up for everyone who was here before them.

When I moved to Chinatown 7 years ago, there were not really many white people here. Only the pioneers, hidden away in ratty loft apartments that they'd been squirreled up in for the last 20 years among a hoarding of antiques, since back when the neighborhood was an A+ crack den.

I wrote a song about how Chinese it was here. I had to sneak into renting in the neighborhood, using my Chinese friend as my pretend boyfriend to even get to look at an apartment. They wouldn't let me rent it because I was white, giving me my first taste of racism ever. The real estate agent, a Chinese woman, said, "I know a place" and got me an apartment in a building that was mostly Chinese. The hallways smell weird. People burn paper all the time in the stairwells. Laundry decorates the patios. My landlord doesn't even speak English. I pay him every month in cash. Once he took a giant shit in my bathroom when he came to pick up the rent, and acted like it was a totally normal thing for him to do.

Let's just say, there's a bit of a culture divide.

Last summer, I went to look at a large loft apartment a few blocks away with a friend. I noticed that everyone going to look at it was American. That was the first thing that set off an alarm. Not to mention, the place was a dive, and it was very expensive, and furnished with a state of the art washing machine.

More and more, I've been noticing giant glasses paired with suspenders, new bars popping up, and the local dive bar 169 Bar is so jam packed on the weekends with filmmaking hipsters that I can't even go there anymore on a Saturday night. White people are walking through the neighborhoods screaming and singing at all hours of the night. The price of dumplings has gone up at all the dumpling holes, and my rent has gone up as well. Around the corner from me, that crappy faux self-important mixology bar Apotheke is making people stand in line to pay $15 for a drink, while making themselves look like giant anuses and plain old ruining the neighborhood.

Now, every night when I go out of my building, I see white people walking around. Not just any white people, men with pink vests over ironic tee shirts and long hair, and women with short dresses over swiss dotted Givenchy panty hose atop Manolo Blahniks and their hair in a messy side bun. This wasn't the case even 6 months ago. All these beautiful people are dressed overly hipster-y, like they're on their way to a model convention. I bet they don't even appreciate or frequent our local dollar store, the "99 cent BJ". They're hiking up everyone's rent higher than their witty knee socks.

OK, I'm white too, I know. But I'm not going out of my way to be a trendy fuck wad who's raising everyone's rent with my mere pants.

Basically, the easiest thing we can do to help the city not change any more than it already has is to start wearing mom and dad outfits. It's that simple. Baggy pleated jeans with ugly belts, sweaters with puffy sleeves and Balloons sneakers, and not in an ironic way. Wear them geniunely. And in general, be more genuine. So, yeah. If you want to keep New York City affordable, wear regular clothes.

Either that, or get ready to move to Jersey City when the 4 story walk up you were already paying an outlandish $2500 / month for gets jacked up a grand overnight.