Photo: A news crew films a segment about illegally parked churchgoers.
The tension between white “newcomers” and illegally parking black churchgoers is so high in Washington, D.C., that the city abandoned its plan to crackdown on double-parkers to come up with a “solution” to the problem.
In my experience, getting a parking ticket was always enough of a solution for me, but that’s me…
Before I delve into black churchgoers who park illegally, I’ll lay the foundation. There is a lot of racial and class tension in D.C. over “gentrifying” neighborhoods, affluent folks moving in, renovating formerly gutted out houses and opening upscale businesses in formerly blighted and/or low-income neighborhoods, raising property values and rents. People who’ve lived in the neighborhoods for decades can’t afford the high rent or property taxes, and they can’t afford to shop there.
Given what you know about the demographics of most urban areas, it’s not difficult to figure out the race of the “gentrifiers” and the race of the low income, long-time residents, is it?
As a devoted friend of free markets and low crime, I welcome gentrification. It warms my heart to see a “Condominiums Coming†sign on the same street as liquor stores and tacky check cashing store signs. When I see gutted out houses undergoing dramatic renovations in a bad neighborhood, it’s all good. When it comes to real estate, commerce, and improvements, I’m a staunch progressive.
Gentrification is the reason why church parking has become a big issue in the past few years, though quite a few of the illegally parking churchgoers are from different neighborhoods or states.
Back in the day, the cops let it slide. Churchgoers could double-park without worrying about tickets. But now that so many people are moving into improved neighborhoods, new residents and “old”churchgoers are not getting along. This issue has divided race from race, class from class, and churchgoers from non-churchgoers.
So what else is new? 
Paul Butler, a D.C. resident and one of the blogging black law professors at BlackProf.com, wrote a post somewhat sympathetic to illegally parking black churchgoers and hostile to white gentrifiers:
In these neighborhoods, the mainly white, wealthy new residents are often lousy neighbors – unfriendly and snobbish and scared of any person of color not wearing $200 jeans. They mythologize about how bad things were before they “rescued” the area with their $500,000 condos. The parking congestion is inconvenient but these people don’t present a case for sympathy. Forbearing the Sunday parkers would be a way of respecting the fact that they are moving into historic neighborhoods with cultural traditions that date before their wine bars and sidity gyms.
(Translation for people unfamiliar with “sidity†[usually spelled “siddityâ€]. It’s slang mostly used by blacks to describe one who is bourgeois or “stuck up.â€)
A few months later, Butler found himself in the gentrifiers’ shoes. He took his kids to breakfast one Sunday morning and returned to his car, which was blocked in by an illegally parked black churchgoer. Butler noted the tag number and headed to the church to alert the illegally parked driver. He writes:
So I park, enjoy a great breakfast, and when we come out…my car is blocked in by a long row of cars who have double-parked…45 minutes later, after much singing, praying, and praising of God by the congregation, and much complaining to the ushers by me, the announcement is made. The Virginia driver comes out immediately, is very apologetic, but I am empissurated. It should not have taken so long for Pastor to get around to being a good neighbor.
I guess I had it coming.
He had it coming, indeed! And Butler was just having breakfast in the neighborhood. Imagine how people living there and paying taxes feel. Taking the side of “righteous” lawbreakers may feel like a worthy contribution to the cause of social justice…until you become a victim of the lawbreakers. Still, that was a laugh-out-loud post, and I’m glad Butler decided to blog honestly about it.
This is why I blog the way I do and support the policies I support, like ending race preferences, for example. Even though I’m black and skin color preferences are designed to “help†me because my great-great-great-great grandfather may have been a slave or that my grandfather couldn’t work in certain professions because of his skin color, I can see very clearly how condescending they are to me (lowered standards and expectations), how unfair they are to non-blacks, and how pitifully unconscionable they are, given this country’s long fight to end government-mandated treatment based on race.
It’s the same with the church parking situation. Illegal parking is illegal parking. Period. It doesn’t matter who was there first, or that someone’s grandfather was “oppressed,” or that white gentrifiers may be “unfriendly” to long-time black residents and church members. (Whites in my neighborhood are quite friendly.) I can keep my emotions at bay and focus on the facts: churchgoers are not immune to parking laws, nor should they be immune.
Strangely enough, the D.C. Council tried to turn the illegal parking situation into a religious freedom issue! Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? For one thing, since when has a liberal city cared about religious freedom? And how do reasonable parking restrictions infringe on someone’s religious freedom? Ridiculous and embarrassing.
Illegally parked black churchgoers used to be a problem in my neighborhood, but conditions have improved considerably since residents started taking pictures of illegally parked cars and sending them to the police. There was a time I wouldn’t dare park on a certain street near my residence on Sundays because I knew I’d be blocked in.
By the way, if you’re wondering why I keep referring to “black churchgoers,” it’s because there doesn’t seem to be a problem with white churchgoers, who apparently obey parking laws. That’s the most plausible explantion I can think of. I attend a Reformed church in D.C., predominately white (with a good number of Asians and a sprinkling of black members), with a tiny dedicated parking lot for church staff, and surrounded by houses on all sides, and illegal parking is not an issue. Churchgoers don’t block driveways or fire hydrants, and they don’t hold up traffic or double-park. And the church is packed every Sunday! So is it a racial thing?
Christians of any color who break the law and then complain about people who complain ought to be ashamed. And then bringing race into it? Double shame, double-parkers!
For more information, see the relevant archives for the DCist blog, which has been all over this issue.
