A review by moonyreadsbystarlight
The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Sarah Schulman

emotional informative reflective

4.25

 In this memoir/analysis, Sarah Schulman is discussing what has come after the AIDS epidemic in the US, specifically exploring the role of gentrification -- both physically and mentally. She shares her memories of those she knew and discusses the ways that remembering these losses on a large scale has been suppressed, delving into the idea of gentrification and assimilationist politics. 

This was a very interesting read. I learned a fair amount about that time period and I appreciate the ways in which she describes the people she knew -- not sugar coated, but as they were to her. I liked the idea of using gentrification as a framework for understanding how people have been denied the room to mourn and I thought she did provide a lot of insight on it. I think it really fits in looking at queer vs assimilationist politics. She then goes on to also discuss art and how it has changed and become gentrified as well. She discusses the issue of not allowing art that makes people uncomfortable and also how art is being used as a medium to gentrify (such as placing palatable gays in the mainstream while refusing to fund queer creators in the margins). 

While I really liked the framework she brings to all of this, don't think it was explored enough (which I understand may be because this was intended to be more memoir than analysis, as she states in the intro). I would have loved to see colonialization being brought to into the conversation (especially since gentrification was bred from colonization and those impacted by gentrification -- both physical and ideological -- are those who have historically been colonized). I would like to see this idea explored with other groups because we can clearly see this same issue of not allowing people to mourn large scale events in other marginalized communities as well. Even within the AIDS epidemic, communities of color were heavily impacted. While she does mention people of color throughout the book, she does not look at the communities in the same way. Again, I know this is more memoir but because I really like the ideas she presented, I really would have liked to see them fleshed out more.