Oh Where'd the Black Spaces Go?

It’s your typical Friday night at the Orbis Lounge. Bentley Peterson sits at the bar ordering drinks. With a slightly desolate look on his face, he says, “this is cool, but this is why places are still needed for us.”

*Three little Black kids, enjoying summer in the fountain in Clinton Square, located in heart of Syracuse*

*Originally written in 2019 for my year as an AJ; Adapted for TGS*

Everyone wants to be able to enjoy a night out on the town, dancing to music they love, surrounded by people who match their energy. For Syracuse’s black community, this desired nightlife is practically nonexistent.

There are a few businesses nestled in the city that one might not expect to be there, considering how small the city is compared to some of its larger-scaled neighbors, like New York City, Washington, DC, and even Toronto. For example, there are co-working spaces, little açaí bowl shops, and more breweries than one might care to count. There’s a plethora of things to choose from in Syracuse. However, there continues to be a lack of black spaces, specifically clubs, or nightlife curated for and with Black Americans in mind.

Studio 54, the lone Black nightclub in the heart of the city, does its best to serve the community by offering different types of Black music on different nights. From Soca music to Trap music, the club does a good job with providing a place for black people to congregate. Trexx nightclub is the only other option, playing hip hop music on certain nights of the week. However, they are mostly known for being an LGBTQ club, and most times, that’s their audience. There are a few bars in Armory Square that play hip hop music, like Corner Bar on Clinton St., but they come with a very strict dress code, one that often excludes items like durags, headwraps and track pants. Considering the fact that headwraps and durags are two cultural staples in the Black community, and track pants have become fashionable due to the rise in popularity of streetwear, a style of clothing originating in the Black community and made popular by Black Americans, it often feels like Black people are intentionally excluded without being directly told not to enter.

It’s critical to understand the importance of Black spaces in any city. Black spaces make Black people feel like they really belong. These spaces are deemed “safe” for Black people to exist and live freely and unapologetically. They create opportunities to commune with one another and meet people whom they can relate to on a level different from just attending the same school or playing on the same sports team. Most importantly, they provide Black people an outlet to feel protected from the common threats that often haunt the lives of people of color. Black spaces give Black people a place to discuss those threats and receive relief, knowing that, at least, you’re not alone. They do not exist to exclude people of different races, cultures, and ethnicities. All are welcome but must come with the understanding of who the space was crafted for and respect it.

Black spaces typically consist of things pertinent to Black culture. This could be art and/or pop culture memorabilia on the walls, Black literature on the bookshelves, and Black music. Another important aspect of a Black space is who owns and runs the space. Attendance to a space by Black community members does not exclusively make it a Black space. To be a Black space, the place has to be solely crafted and curated for the Black audience, whether that’s offering entertainment, food or community services. Who owns and runs it, how close they are with the black community if they aren’t community members, and their intentions for opening the space, will determine how it functions, ultimately determining the people who frequent the establishment. If it’s truly a Black space, created for the sanctity and enlightenment or advancement of Black people, Black people will know.

La Shaun Jones is a local event coordinator. She says Black people in Syracuse live in a never-ending cycle of isolated incidents, stereotypes and exclusion. A fight happens at a black night club, it gets closed for good because now, Black people are seen as people who just want to fight. She feels like the cycle exists because of the general feeling towards Black people in Syracuse, causing a shutdown of Black clubs and a lack of Black events.

“They stereotype all of us. One fight, that’s it for the community. This is why you find a lot of white establishments that don’t want to hold events catered to Black attendees.” Although La Shaun can understand why certain behavior isn’t acceptable in certain establishments, she still doesn’t think it’s a reason to completely eliminate Black nightclubs or even Black events.

“There are fights among all kinds of people. White people fight. They don’t shut down the bars for good. It’s not reported all over the news, pushing a negative narrative. So why do Black clubs have to be closed after one thing happens,” she asks.

James Austin, a former radio show host in Syracuse doesn’t think the problem is just stereotyping.

“It’s blatant exclusion. They use tactics to police us and keep us out. If we aren’t going out and spending any money, it appears like there isn’t a need for a nightclub catering to that specific audience. It’s an excuse to continue to not open more Black clubs,” he said.

There are other kinds of Black spaces in Syracuse. The Community Folk Arts Center (CFAC) is “a vibrant cultural and artistic hub committed to the promotion and development of artists of the African diaspora.” CFAC gives Black and brown artists a space to create freely and promote their work. The center hosts receptions, galas, camps and exhibitions, all centered around the work of people of color.

Tucked into the South Side neighborhood is Café Sankofa Co-Operative. This community center was created to be a village marketplace for the South Side neighborhood, a traditionally Black community. Every weekend, Sankofa hosts a small farmers market with local Black farmers. Because they focus on the health and wellness of the community, the center hosts yoga sessions for new moms, women, and men, Zumba classes, and specially curated community events. To uphold the mission to educate the Black community, they host workshops for expectant mothers and their families, writing workshops, and free libraries for kids.

There’s not a total exclusion of Black spaces in Syracuse, but they are extremely limited and some teeter on a thin line of existence and fading into the Black safe space abyss. The reasons for this have to be addressed, especially since with the rise of another ice cream shop, luxury apartment building or organic brewery with beer made from the purest, untouched grains grown in the most sacred barley fields in the country, comes the destruction of a Black space or even a Black community. Not too far from the South Side and CFAC is the 15th Ward neighborhood, a community rattled and torn apart by the construction of I-81, and the viaduct itself that segregated the city and destroyed the black community back in 1964, a community of thriving businesses, local grocery stores and people who would walk down the block to see one another, trading goods grown in their backyards. Now that the city wants to take the viaduct down, that same community is facing the same issue decades later and fearing that what they’ve managed to rebuild will be wiped away again, forcing them out of the neighborhood their parents and grandparents grew up in, for the sake apartments they can’t afford and stores they won’t be welcome into.

Syracuse has to examine itself and ask some questions. Like why is it they only allow a certain number of a certain kind of Black event? Or why is there such a small number of Black spaces in the city and why is the lifespan of a Black space so short? One last really good one is why does the erection of white spaces come at the cost of Black ones? Just like the rest of the country, it’s time for some change in Syracuse, a city that prides itself on its role in the Underground Railroad or the lives of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Show Black people you actually value Black history by valuing Black lives and creating space for Black spaces, to operate without scrutiny and unapologetically.

Gray DoctorJune 12, 2020Black Spaces, The Gray SpaceComment