Unrevealed up until now, Pawtucket’s Red Sox owner Larry Lucchino appealed to the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, proposing a complete refurbishment of the historical communities of colour in the city.

Dwelling beside the enveloping African, Latino and low-income White housing units, the McCoy Stadium will now be gentrified through Lucchino’s efforts of prompting the business community surrounding the stadium to purchase properties in order to attain “urban renewal”, something that might not sit well with the local residents.

John Strausbaugh delineated the term gentrification as a “benign ethnic cleansing”. Pawtucket is not oblivious to this concept as it has been happening in the city for quite a few years now. The sports stadium’s renovation will only be another link to the same chain.

At the time of 1996 Atlanta Olympics as well as the periodic Super Bowls in New Orleans, gentrification of historic cities of colour was carried out.

Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report said, “The capital is eager to reclaim the metropolis and return the communities of colour to a pre-World War II status quo, dispersed and marginalized politically and socially in the hinterlands as they were before the Great Migration was shifted into overdrive by the wartime economy under FDR.”

This proposal has created a fork in the road for the Red Sox fans in Rhode Island as they either have the choice of backing this renovation project, not necessarily to their liking, or lose their favourite baseball team.

The purported refurbishment of the stadium may obliterate all communities of colour it is encompassed by and this can be a societal threat to minorities. The only solution to this predicament appears to be the setting up og land trusts for the existing housing units,

It is much too dubious to confirm if this plan of action will be carried out in the near future.

 

Source : rifuture.org

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