The Year 2005: “I have a great idea! There’s a lot of available cheap land and housing in Buffalo right now. The gentrification pipeline is coming –, it’s being built now as we speak. Let’s get out ahead of it and make some money!. We know that gentrification is expected to happen in communities of color first. If we get into the affordable real estate development game right now while there is really no competition (they’re even giving out some lots for free!), we can make a lot of money, and put our people into politics to create laws or legislation to perpetuate our scheme. There’s one big problem though – we’re white! If we PUSH forward with this ingenious money making- scheme as we are, we’ll stick out like sore white thumbs. Let’s get some ‘people of color’ or POC’s to stand out in front for the photos! We’ll stand behind in the background, control and develop the strategy, make all the decisions, and enrich ourselves in the process. If anything goes south, we can blame the problems on the POC ‘leaders’ we have ‘empowered’ to take the blame and even the fall. Does anyone know any good, black, Latino, or Indigenous people that live in the neighborhood that we can recruit as “leaders” to stand out front while we make all this cash and build all this political power for ourselves? PUSH Buffalo is now hiring! Aminah, do you want a job?”

This sounds like a dark Saturday Night Live skit, but it is a genuine description of the organizational philosophy and money-making strategy on which PUSH Buffalo was founded and has been operating under this entire time. Don’t believe us? Ask the residents of Buffalo’s West Side how PUSH has been as a neighbor. Ask former employees of PUSH Buffalo what kind of working conditions they have endured. Ask former board members of PUSH Buffalo how they were treated after questioning PUSH’s Executive Director or asking questions about the budget.

 

This philosophy of turning the inevitable gentrification of Buffalo into money while using People of Color as the public faces and targets, concocted from the beginning, set the stage for the toxic work environment that still exists at PUSH Buffalo today. Many former employees have experienced PUSH Buffalo as being a front for a money and power-making agenda that is antithetical to its stated mission. PUSH Buffalo’s problem in recent years is that the Executive staff have not been very good at keeping their front up, and the truth of their selfish hustle is seeping through the cracks.

 

What is a front or frontin (fronting)? The Urban Dictionary describes frontin as: “putting up a facade or make appearances, typically to impress or in some way deceive to maintain image.” To bring out the definition of frontin in this case a little bit more, let’s talk about another term. It’s called “poverty pimping” or “poverty pimp”. What is a poverty pimp? Once again, let’s refer to the Urban Dictionary. According to this dictionary a poverty pimp is “any self appointed minority leader, who extols the perpetual poorness of their ethnicity, yet is quite well off stemming from their efforts. Usually a Reverend of some unknown church. Marches at the drop of a hat to mug for the cameras. Uses White guilt to gain credibility, money, and influence. Are usually racists themselves.” We would add that a poverty pimp doesn’t necessarily have to be a member of the minority community. In today’s more equitable and sustainable world, a poverty pimp can be a member of any community. In order for the goal of poverty pimping to work, that is to say to be more powerfully effective as to not have the bad optics of white people overtly leading the poverty pimping, PUSH needs to have front people in the form of POC’s to lead the way. This strategy makes the scheme more powerfully effective for the goal of building finances and political power for the people at the top.

 

The front that PUSH Buffalo is for it’s goal of poverty pimping greatly contributes to the toxic work culture that has existed for many former (and current) employees, and it’s a big reason why more than 70 people have come and gone from the organization throughout its 15-year existence (we have been keeping a list). And, we know that this culture has not gone away, so this is still happening to current and future employees.

 

Who are the front people and back people at PUSH Buffalo today? You decide, but one suggestion is to examine PUSH Buffalo’s actions and what they have actually done in the West Side community and in their office spaces, not what they say at a funder presentation, energy workforce solutions conference, or ribbon-cutting ceremony. Lol! Their front is working so badly today, that they don’t have many community or neighborhood residents of color left to try to exploit to gain power and money through the non-profit industrial complex. We’ll explore more as we move on.