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by Asé Mora
The Bayview community, which has suffered under historical redlining and communal apathy, leaves Black business owners with a lack of support and vulnerable to gentrification.
The Radio Africa Kitchen located at 4800 Third St., at Oakdale, is owned by Eskender Aseged, who hosts free cooking classes for single mothers every Tuesday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Collaborating with the University of California San Francisco’s Black Centering Midwifery-Led Group Care program, chef Aseged teaches basic culinary skills, knowledge and healthy recipes inspired by Ethiopian cuisine.
After 20 years of working for pop-up restaurants around the Bay, Aseged was approached by the then mayor of San Francisco to bring his community oriented and fresh produce practices to Bayview.
“A gift towards Bayview – Black centering, Black moms – this is purely education, giving back to the community, the vice versa of what gentrification would be,” said Aseged.
Bayview suffers similar afflictions, attributable to redlining, faced by many other Black communities in America. Aseged saw Radio Africa Kitchen as a chance to provide resources and address issues within the community that otherwise would go ignored by the city at large.
“Especially in the Black community, here where we are in Bayview, there aren’t a lot of healthy, beautiful gathering places. In fact, for Radio Africa Kitchen, the first intention was trying to create a space that people could come and read and intermingle, have coffee, have a meal, and that’s how the original idea was,” said Aseged.
The cultural exchange the class facilitates and the skills Aseged teaches have impacted participants such as 21-year-old De’Ari Hall. “It’s like you’re connecting with other people of color as well as you’re learning because he teaches you,” Hall said. “At my job, [on] the farm, we have potlucks, and it [the cooking class] gave me encouragement to try to make my own food as well as using the food I get from the farm.”
“I’ve learned [about] using the knives, cutting your food so that it looks really good, [and] everything’s the same size,” said 71-year-old class participant Mrs. Patricia Mitchell. ”What types of lettuce and different combinations of things, different sauces – it’s just amazing, the things I’ve learned just in the three classes so far.”
According to Aseged, the cooking class began during COVID-19 as a way to relieve excess hardship young Black American mothers faced due to a lack of community. Women of other diasporas and cultures didn’t face many of the same obstacles.
“Traditionally, the rest of the world have their moms to be supported, but in America I think there was a missing link,” said Aseged. “Postpartum [depression] that’s [due to] a lack of community, not having [access to] your immediate family – moms, aunties, uncles, grandmothers.”
After COVID-19, Aseged was forced to cut a lot of the free community events previously hosted by Radio Africa Kitchen. He attributed financial hardship and a change in demographics as the biggest contributors to the cuts.
“I see a lot of progress in terms of businesses and things but not in terms of Black businesses,” said Mrs. Mitchell.
Just a block away from Radio Africa Kitchen, on 4732 Third St., Tallio’s Coffee and Tea closed its doors after five years. Owner Olton Rensch said the lack of community in Bayview and the fatigue from that lack of support eventually led to the closing of the cafe.
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“When you bring things up, how to do things different, the way that they do it in other neighborhoods, you don’t get much support from folks who are taking the lead in that demographic area,” said Rensch. “And you know you start taking things into your own hands. And after a while you just get tired. You just give up, or at least in my situation.”
Attributing much of the gentrification in the neighborhood to apparent apathy from younger generations, Bayview local Mr. Ronald Mitchell said the youth seem uninterested in preserving Bayview.
“A lot of our youth are not willing to sit and learn what we had and why we don’t have it anymore, so maybe they could get inspired on trying to bring back some things. They’re not interested. So, here we sit,” said Mr. Mitchell.
District 10’s relationship with the city for the last decade is tattered with unfulfilled promises of development and cleanup jobs at the Hunters Point Shipyard, to development plans for Double Rock and Sunnydale. The city continues to drag its feet.
“So when you see things like that, it brings down your neighborhood, because you want your neighborhood to be as vibrant as [other parts of] San Francisco – as North Beach or as the Marina or Cow Hollow or the Outer Sunset,” said Mr. Mitchell. “These districts are thriving, doing well, but the Bayview is dying. And it’s dying from being made to die, so eventually takeover [gentrification] is assured.”
According to Hall, Bayview’s inability to preserve itself, in part due to a lack of exchange between neighbors, left it vulnerable to gentrification. Changes in the community go undisputed and information is not being shared amongst locals.
“When there’s no community within a minority community, it’s harder to notice certain things, and also to communicate with each other to plan certain things,” said Hall.
When wisdom is not being shared, ignorance and apathy take over.
Warning about the dangers of ignorance and apathy, Mr. Mitchell said this, “There’s a big gap from my days to what’s happening now that they [the youth] don’t want to hear about it; they’d rather not and if you don’t want to hear about history, you’re doomed to repeat it.”
“There’s not even an uprising [by the] Black youth about what’s happening in the Bayview. When Pat and I were coming up and something was happening, we had an uprising. We fought. We marched. We went to City Hall legitimately saying that we don’t want this in our neighborhood. But the youth are not willing to do that,” he continued. “They throw out crumbs and you’re willing to take crumbs and be selfish and continue [to allow] the Black culture to die.”
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Asé Mora is an aspiring journalist, studying at San Francisco State University, and an intern for the SF BayView National Black Newspaper. She can be reached at asemora81@gmail.com.
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