Gentrifuckation at 24 Hour Fitness

So this morning at 6:25 a.m. as I am checking into 24 hour fitness, Dominique, the young bright University student who has the morning shift and who I kid unmercifully about her straightened hair, says to me "Hey can I talk to you about something?" I'm being me concerned that somehow I have pissed her off without realizing it, but I say 'Sure." After everyone else is done checking in she says "Let me tell you what just happened"  "O.K."

"This lady came in Last week early in the morning. Rap music was playing on the speaker system"
"OK"
"She asked me to please stop playing that "Ghetto Music" The Black guy checking in looked like he wanted to kill her and I shot him a quick "be cool brother" look."

'Lol does she know where she is?"

"Yeah like RIGHT?
So she came in right before the group you came in with this morning and rap was playing again on the music system. She was like "Who do I have to talk to so you will stop playing this Ghetto Music?"

(Laughs) "No Really? "

I thought about it the whole time I worked out on the treadmill. My heart rate was about 25 beats per minute higher than normal and I was working hard to stay calm and not get pissed. It really is no laughing matter.

The fact that a middle aged white woman can walk into a gym staffed about 40% by Black people, in a neighborhood populated by about 40% Black people, in a redevelopment allegedly built to employ black people, In a gym used by 40% Black people and demand an end to the playing of the current music enjoyed by most Black people under fifty, can only mean one thing: GENTRIFUCKATION has hit its second wave.

In the first wave the gentrifuckers are kind of hiding, sort of keeping their heads down low attempting to buy up the neighborhood with their friend and not arouse any ire of the local population. In the second wave, the gentrifuckers begin to feel their oats. they know they have reached CRITICAL MASS and now they will begin the direct assault on everything in the community they believe is not all white, uptight and in their groove. Rap is not to them all white. They don't want it in their world view. It must go.

That's where we are in West Altadena today.

While I have no love for Rap music (Or any music, actually, while I am working out), I think I am going to call the manager and tell him how much I love the early morning rap music. Maybe they can play some more later into the morning......Yes there are things worse than a music form that objectifies women and stereotypes men as criminals- The people who would if they could, remove e very black person from our community and every trace of Black culture, achievement and invention with them.

Since a Black man invented cardiac bypass surgery and I owe that my existence, I'm not down with that perspective.

So at 24 hour fitness at least, M N M and Jay Zee are my main men......