"Station 40 is a collectively run, anti-capitalist community events space by and for anarchists, heretics, queers, and many others who are looking to smash the state, destroy capitalism, burn the prisons..." and ignore the gentrification of the working class neighborhood in which we indulge in our adolescent narcissist Harry Potter fan fantasies...
What happened to those vague plans to have a public meeting at Station 40 about the rampant gentrification of the working class neighborhood in which Station 40 is located?
A self-styled "anti-capitalist" social center, with a heroic-looking black flag fluttering in an azure sky on its all-important Facebook page, Station 40 is located in the virtual ground zero of the gentrification of San Francisco's Mission District. During the entire recent phase of Mission gentrification Station 40 has hosted numerous subjectively spiky public events while real-world developments outside their front gate go ignored.
I am pretending to be ingenuous. One of Station 40's subcultural scenesters told me some weeks ago that the landlord had in effect put the kabosh on such an event. Presumably being a full-fledged adult, who functions in the real world, this landlord has for obvious reasons taken no notice of the usual stuff on the bill of fare at Station 40. But an actual public meeting drawing in neighborhood people outside of the anti-authoritarian Harry Potter fan scene would get our fiery and implacable subculturalists in major hot water with The Man.
At this point it appears that the subcultural scensters have unanimously voted with their presumably Doc Marten-clad feet on the question of Mission gentrification. It might have gotten in the way of more pressing commitments, like standing around with their hands in their pockets while they wait for their adult personalities to gel. If the people at Station 40 have a better explanation for their timorousness, passivity and abject disengagement from the actually-existing working class reality outside of their subcultural vortex it might be nice to hear it. One more step, adolescent narcissists, if you wish to be taken seriously!
Kevin Keating
San Francisco read more