Safe in East Knoxville: My response to Jamal
Image courtesy of the author
I got a DM on Instagram the other day from a guy who was getting ready to move to Knoxville, Tennessee. I didn't hesitate to respond to this guy, like I usually do with IG DMs; because I knew him. We’ll call him “Jamal”.
I had never actually met Jamal before; but I knew him. Not only did I know him, but I was waiting for him. Jamal said he was a young Black professional and that he was relocating to Knoxville for work. He DMed me to inquire about where to live. If there was an experience that I knew, it was this one. Just seven years prior, I was in the same position as Jamal, and that experience has changed the trajectory of my life. Like Jamal, I was a young Black “professional” (although that's probably not how I would have described myself) who was moving to Knoxville from a larger city and who, at the time, knew nothing about this place. Also, like Jamal, I found myself searching the web for clues. I was searching for clues on what life was like in Knoxville, clues on where I should live, and most importantly clues on how I would fare as a Black person in Knoxville. During my own search very little seemed clear; but what was clear was abundantly clear. While browsing the web from so many miles away, I very quickly learned that, when it comes to the best place to live in Knoxville, anywhere was fine except East Knoxville. This sentiment was reinforced when I finally visited Knoxville, after months of searching, and started asking people on the campus of the University where I was coming to attend graduate school. There was a consensus that I, and for that matter anyone else searching, should steer clear of East Knoxville.
Jamal’s message was not sent to my personal DM, although I would not have been surprised if it had been, given my frequent use of hashtags such as #Blackknoxville. It was sent to the IG account for The Bottom, a Black space I'm curating in Knoxville, with the mission of building community, celebrating culture, and engaging the creativity of Black people of Knoxville. Jamal had been following The Bottom’s IG account for about a month or two. He told me that it's the type of place that he could see himself hanging out at once he moves to Knoxville. This of course was exciting to me, given the work I had been putting into the space to make it a cultural hub for Black Knoxville. Moreover, I wanted people like Jamal -- people like myself, people like many of the Black people I met at the University and beyond, Black people who were moving to Knoxville, -- to find the Bottom. I wanted the insight they were seeking for their transition to Knoxville to come from Black people and therefore reflect Black experiences. Because I knew Jamal, and I was waiting for Jamal’s inquiry, I was prepared to offer my guidance.
I had been expecting such a moment from the time I realized why everywhere in Knoxville was fine to live, except East Knoxville. It didn't take me very long after moving to Knoxville to realize that what made East Knoxville “East Knoxville” was Black people. Since then, I had been dying to offer a counter-narrative to the one I had been given. And Jamal was finally going to be my opportunity to do this. He had not known it, but my interest in Black Knoxville, the one that had gotten me through what had seemed like a never ending struggle to a dissertation and the establishment of The Bottom, despite little to no funding, was sparked from my own internet search seven years before. It was with this eagerness that I breezed through Jamal’s message, ready to start typing my response. Yet, as I began formulating sentences, my fervor came to a halt. It dawned on me that in addition to telling me who he was -- “a young black professional man” -- and why he was messaging me about Knoxville -- “he was relocating here for a job” -- Jamal had also asked: “what area do you recommend as a safe place?” Just like that, I felt a lump in my throat. That word “safe” made me almost not respond to Jamal's message. After all, I was about to tell him to move to East Knoxville with the quickness; but for that word “safe”. It was that exact word that had been used to stigmatize East Knoxville. East Knoxville had been described to me as an “unsafe place”, the most unsafe place in Knoxville.
I decided that, rather than deleting my initial sentences and ignoring Jamal’s DM(which I was so tempted to do), I’d ask him what he meant by “Safe”? Though it takes on a neutral connotation, “Safety” is used as a proxy for race. “Safe” people and places are white; and Black people and places somehow have a monopoly on the unsafe. While in the minds of mainstream American (read: white people) Black people are demonized and criminalized, and seen as people from whom others must be kept safe white people use safety as some sort of secret weapon that justifies their racist actions, manipulates the justice system, and keeps Black people out of places they don't want them. Neither neutral nor objective, “safety” is racialized and often weaponized against Black people and their communities. Knowing this, I decided not to beat around the bush and to be direct with Jamal. I didn't care to play games or use code words. Since I wasn't sure where Jamal was on the ‘respectable, uppity-negro ladder’, I plainly said, “it depends on whether you want to live with Black folks or with white folks.” After getting this out of the way, I could proceed with my recommendation. I could tell Jamal that East Knoxville was where I feel most safe. But not in that weird gentrified way that “white settlers” to the area do, with their patronizing, essentialist saviorism. Further, I'm not delusional in thinking that, because I'm not afraid of Black folks, I'm bulletproof. I feel safe in East Knoxville because I feel seen. I feel comfortable, I feel validated, I feel insulated, I feel familiar. I don’t ignore the ridiculously high poverty rate or pretend that I don't see only a handful of Black businesses. I'm not oblivious to the fact that more and more “settler whites” are putting sticks in the ground and claiming space and changing the names and faces of neighborhoods. Nevertheless, I know the story of the schools that have been in these communities for generations. I know the fried fish at the Stop and Go is good with a medley of BBQ sauces. I know the old churches and the new churches, and I know that I don’t fuck with the churches. I know that East Knoxville is not a monolith. This is what I told Jamal: if safety is to him what it is to me, “Black safety,” then he could find a safe place in one of the neighborhoods of East Knoxville.
Dr. Enkeshi El-Amin is a researcher, cultural worker & lecturer at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned a PhD in sociology. Her work explores the link between race, place and Black practices in the defining contesting & re-imagining of place.
https://www.blackinappalachia.org/
(c) 2020 Enkeshi El-Amin