Who Are You To Say Those Things About Us? -- The Loud Cries Of Visible Black Communities

“And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true".... (John 19:35 KJV)

They ascend into ivy towers to 'tank-think' and weave tall tales that become a kaleidoscopic patchwork of outside narrations about visible but unheard communities that know not what they mean. -- Dr. Johnnie C. Larrie (Esq.,)

---

Oftentimes, researchers write about Black 'living communities' in the abstract, without having real proximity to these same communities. They arrive into the research and depart, leaving outside narrations next to community truths that make strange bedfellows. They clap hands in academic, policy, and philanthropic circles for the good they think they do. But I am left wondering, "good for whom?" Research narrations about Black communities should never be about the desired prominence of research for the sake of research -- because people are on the other end of those narrations. And if research is designed to inform social policy or philanthropic goals, the act of simply getting it right and not writing about Black communities in the abstract takes on special meaning.

Last year I attended a large gathering, in which the key-note speaker gave a talk about academic research in 'disadvantaged' Black communities. The more specific discussion centered on whether low-economic-mobility neighborhoods could be transformed by federal housing programs (policy). This discussion came at a critical time -- some of us in that gathering space were on the ground advocating directly for housing stability and land liberation in our local Black communities. The gathering was well attended and situated at a respected educational institution that abuts urban geographies experiencing layered housing crises. Evident from the gathering, was that the philanthropic community had come to participate in the clear articulation of key social problems plaguing various North Carolina rural and urban geographies and the proposed solutions to those problems.

During the presentation, the keynote speaker remarked on the 'successes' of the HUD HOPE VI housing program in Happy Hill Garden -- an East Winston community served by my organization as well as other organizations engaged in housing & land liberation work. As soon as the statement was made, I heard the audible gasps from the back of the room where I was sitting, and I can certainly understand why....That program was no success by any stretch of the most generous imagination -- at least, not for the Happy Hill Garden community.

To be clear, the keynote speaker's statement made the Happy Hill Garden community only a momentary topic of discussion -- as he was addressing economic mobility in broader contexts. But that moment had several implications. Anybody who has intimate knowledge of the history of Happy Hill Garden and has proximity to its ongoing housing-stability challenges would likely never count that community as one of the successes of the HOPE VI program. My organization's co-founder grew up in that same community and laments today the tragic outcome of that program: the loss of over 500 homes and the permanent displacement of over 3,000 Happy Hill Garden residents from their historical community moorings.

The Happy Hill Garden community is fighting now to recover from the harm done by the HOPE VI program. Just as importantly, grassrooted nonprofit organizations serving that same community are scrapping for philanthropic and other funding sources to engage housing preservation and stability initiatives as part of a broader groundbreaking environmental justice focus on the East Winston community. Those efforts must not be smothered by gleefully spun research narratives that lack proximity to lived experiences of communities rising to overcome real problems. Proximity is required in research that may have practical implications in Black communities enduring housing problems but also witnessing the promise of real solutions to those same problems.

I was involved in the early stages of the HOPE VI program in Fayetteville NC, when I was employed with a statewide nonprofit organization concerned about housing stability in urban-facing geographies. Those of us who worked with vulnerable housing populations made repeated pleas to local government officials to give us assurances that existing residents of the targeted urban communities were not going to be permanently displaced. What we got was “crickets.” 

I attended a small Baptist church in Southeast Raleigh -- in a small Black community targeted by the HOPE VI program. My church moved from that small community to another part of Southeast Raleigh -- perhaps as a part of the initial displacement of old Black community culture. Today, I walk these same areas in Raleigh targeted by HOPE VI. I see mostly white people walking their dogs amongst neatly-rowed townhomes and apartments - not Black communities that once existed in that geography. Moreover, the level of ongoing commercial development in that geography is enough to make you wonder: Were those ancient Black housing communities ever meant to benefit from such economic development largesse?!

In these various scenarios, the force of HOPE VI programmatic efforts diminished or otherwise erased Black communities. That is called displacement, and that truly was the permanent result for many Black community residents impacted negatively by HOPE VI program initiatives that took place in North Carolina. HUD imagined a lot of good out of that program that was not real - despite the data-informed tales it narrated.

Later, I reached out to the keynote speaker by email. Without remarking on the whole of his presentation, I offered to walk the Happy Hill Garden community with him as a visual testament to the damage done by housing policy (informed by data) that simply missed the mark in terms of lived experiences. I was clear in my intent, because I am appreciative always of research when it places some focus on issues plaguing economically disinvested communities where Black history is under threat. So in that sense, I do not offer broad criticisms of this type of research because the focus and work can be admirable and have useful implications for muted communities finding their way.

I also invited the keynote speaker to review a report titled, False HOPE.[1] It was only one perspective about the failings of a federally-supported housing program that had national reach. But that report was certainly no less telling in its allegations and conclusions about the dangers of data manipulation and false interpretations of the same data. Many things in that report stood out to me, but perhaps these three statements from the Executive Summary of that report rest most with me today:

"HUD’s failure to provide comprehensive and accurate information about HOPE VI has created an environment in which misimpressions about the program and its basic purposes and outcomes have flourished .

HUD has promoted HOPE VI a “highly effective program,” but has not published the data necessary to support this claim....Audit reports by the General Accounting Office and the HUD Office of Inspector General....have neither provided a comprehensive picture of the program nor were intended to do so.

A site profile database maintained by the Housing Research Foundation, an affiliate of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, provides only very basic information about HOPE VI sites, much of it drawn from HUD summaries and fact sheets....HUD now collects a large amount of information about the HOPE VI program [but]....[w]ithout better access to the information contained in these documents, it is impossible to have a complete picture of what outcomes the program is producing." (p. iv)

Although the False HOPE report predated the HOPE VI program efforts that took place in North Carolina, it was part of an ongoing clear demarcation of program critiques, pitting housing advocates and lived community experiences against HUD's own data reporting. Anyone reading HUD's many reports about HOPE VI would necessarily believe it was an unmatched success. But anybody who touched the actual fabric of these impacted communities would know: that program was in a long line of historic and repeated programmatic failings of housing policy that had negative implications for Black communities struggling to achieve housing stability.

What should researchers do in such instances?? It's hard to assess data robustness on which federal housing policy is judged, particularly when governmental arms hide the truth of programmatic effectiveness as a survival and legitimacy tactic. But that does not matter. Data should never be manipulated to provide false community narrations, and research should resist the inclination to cull data that contains hints of that manipulation. Thus, the importance (and evidence) of "problem proximity" in research narrations. It gives researchers a closer view of the ugly that -- at a distance -- seems to be a pretty thing. 

So the questions must be asked of researchers: "Who are you to narrate those things about Black communities without required proximation to those same communities?" What if your narrations distort the lived experiences of these same Black communities that exist outside of your experiences?  What if your narrations ring hollow for the lives lived in Black spaces that have no proximity to the theories, hypotheses and mental models on which you house your academic writings? What if your narrations actually harm Black communities on the other side of your stated assumptions and conclusions about them?

Indeed, harm ensues when indigenous and cultural community narratives differ from those told in the context of institutionally acceptable research that reaches information clearinghouses and gains momentum on academic podiums, in panel discussions and even the institutional minds of philanthropic endeavors. How can research avoid harming Black communities that become the subject of their narrations? The answer lies in the practice of 'meaningful community proximation.’ Diagnoses and resulting prognoses without community proximation ring hollow to the lives of those most influenced. But, perhaps a preceding question to all of this is, "Why is research both focused on and distant from Black communities?"

Black communities are not inhabited by ghosts existing in invisible faraway spaces. These communities do not need ghostbusting, nor is there a need to abstract the seeming paranormal at a distance. Black communities are inhabited by people living long histories in moments of experiential nowness. Research must not extract those histories and moments by discarding their truths in favor of narrations that lack community meaning. Research must become proximate enough to respect histories that shape community nowness. That means research must narrate in ways that protect community voice.  And the ultimate integrity of community-focused research is (and will be) in the "richness of its rightness regarding its narrations about those communities that have lacked voice in describing and favorably mediating their own life circumstances." 

Those of us on the ground, with and in Black communities, want research to get proximate and narrate community problems and successes for what they really are, not for what they are imagined to be. Because, whoever you are, you are not right to say those things about us -- at a distance. Truth-telling is what gives Black communities and our ensuing work legitimacy. It is what strengthens the credibility of our philanthropic requests. But most importantly, it is what gives Black communities visibility, and that visibility removes the need to “ghostbust.” Truth-telling -- even in research -- simply challenges others to get down into community soils and toil over the things that actually champion meaningful and lasting change. (working blog subject to edits)

---

[1] National Housing Law Project, et al. False HOPE: A Critical Assessment of the HOPE VI Public Housing Redevelopment Program. June 2002, https://www.nhlp.org/files/FalseHOPE.pdf. Accessed 12, May 2026 

© 2026 Dr. Johnnie C. Larrie (Esq.)/Legacy Bridge NC. All rights reserved.

No part of this document or the document series may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. Please send permission requests to jlarrie@legacybridgenc.org.