March 31 | BOOK TALK | The Black Side of the River: Race, Language, and Belonging in DC
Thursday, March 31 | 6:30 – 7:30pm
Join us for a book talk with author Jessica Grieser as she discusses her book The Black Side of the River. Across the United States, cities are changing. Gentrification is transforming urban landscapes, often pushing local Black populations to the margins. As a result, communities with rich histories and strong identities grapple with essential questions. What does it mean to be from a place in flux? What does it mean to be a specific kind of person from that place? And what does gentrification mean for the fabric of a community?
A sociolinguist, Ms. Grieser draws on ten years of interviews with dozens of residents of Anacostia, a historically Black neighborhood in Washington, D.C., to explore these ideas through the lens of language use. She finds that residents use certain speech features to create connections among race, place, and class identities; reject negative characterizations of place from those outside the community; and negotiate ideas of belonging. In a neighborhood undergoing substantial class gentrification while remaining decisively Black, Grieser finds that Anacostians use language to assert a positive, hopeful place identity that is inextricably intertwined with their racial one. Ultimately, her work is a call to center Black lived experiences when conducting urban research. It confronts the racial effects of urban change and preserves the rich culture and community in historic Black neighborhoods, in Washington, DC, and beyond.
Jessi Grieser is an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
This program is in collaboration with the Anacostia Coordinating Council and Mahogany Books.