CUMU Conference 2018

On the morning of November 22, 2017 ink!, a Colorado coffee chain, displayed a sign in Five Points one of Denver's historically black neighborhoods. The sign read, "Happily gentrifying the neighborhood since 2014." Ru Johnson a community organizer tweeted a photograph of the sign. An outpouring of community outrage quickly ensued.

ink! responded at 4:45 p.m. by issuing a tweet, "We sincerely apologize for our street sign. Our (bad) joke was never meant to offend our vibrant and diverse community." It followed with a Facebook post at 5:00 p.m., "Hmmm. We clearly drank too much of our own product and lost sight of what makes our community great. We sincerely apologize for our street sign. Our (bad) joke was never meant to offend our vibrant and diverse community. We should know better. We hope you will forgive us.”

ink's! apology felt like a joke with a jab, to a community that will never find gentrification funny. Whether examining the "repatriation" of up to 2 million Mexican Americans taken from their homes or workplace and forcibly deported across the border to Mexico during the 1930s and 1940s or the 6 million African Americans who made the mass exodus from the indentured servitude of the share cropping south to the institutional racism of the industrialized north; members of the black and brown communities have historically bared the brunt of dislocation and forced relocation.

ink's! celebration of gentrification shifted its position from community partner to community colonizer overnight. Let's examine this case together.