Gentrification has negatively affected all the historically Black and Latino neighborhoods such as Harlem or Bedford Stuyvesant in New York City.
In this essay I will talk about the authors bias attitude about the neighborhoods he discusses by pointing out his negative comments about what Spike Lee has said about gentrification and who suffers from it and why. I will compare this against what the author believes is positive about the displacement of people who have inhabited a place for good amount of time. I will also assess a response made by Spike Lee via Twitter to correct the author about his comments of Mr. Lee. If it is possible I will include my own experience as a member of the Harlem community. To culminate I will talk about who was targeted to read these two responses and how it was successful in doing so.
Karia Hill
Your plan for the essay is really narrowed and focused and I think you can have a very good analysis especially if you have personal on hand experience pertaining to this topic. The only thing of concern is your thesis statement. You should make your thesis more specific like when did the gentrification start and how has it negatively impacted these neighborhoods. In your thesis, you didn’t mention that there was an author that had a bias on this subject, so you could probably mention that in a more narrowed version of your statement.
-Sumaiyah Ali
Karia,
It sounds like you have an interesting article and secondary source, and it looks like you’ve done some important thinking about this, but you need to hone your thesis a bit. Remember, you are to analyze the article’s effectiveness in reaching a specific demographic, and that should actually be your thesis. Perhaps, for example, the writer is successful (or not, this is your decision) in part because he or she uses fallacies that appeal to the audience (specific demographic).
This sounds like a really intriguing paper that touches upon a controversial issue especially relevant to us as New York City residents where gentrification is transpiring everyday. I like how you will be addressing both the positive and negative effects of gentrification and how your personal experience as a resident may shed light on how effective or valid the points the author made in his opinion are. If you are able to develop this portion of your paper effectively and can show how the target demographic is affected by his opinions you are going to have a really strong paper!
-Matthew Epstein