EMontWrites

In a city full of 1,626,078 people only 108,846 are Black or African American.

In the county, Maricopa, where all major cities including Phoenix settle in there’s 4.24 million people and only 221,266 are Black or African American.

I spent 30 years of my life growing up in Atlanta, a city that’s full of 486,290 people and 243,285 are Black or African American.

These 2017 Census predictions tell me that there are more black people in Atlanta than there is in the city of Phoenix and in the entire county.

Talk about a CULTURE SHOCK AF.

Did I research this before I moved? Yea of course! Did I think it was going to be noticeable? Sure did NOT!

The shock hit me HARD.

I thought I was at least going to be able to hit up a part of town where people looked like me. Where I was potentially going to hang out and meet people like I did in North Carolina where I lived for 2 years.

In Wilmington, NC that are was “the Northside” and there’s a clear line of division. Soon as you cross over Market Street the scenery changes, you are in… College Park, Cascade, Decatur, Union City, Riverdale….HOME.

Now, NC was a culture shock too but that’s a whole other story.

My plan to find the College Park of Phoenix, the area where I felt I belonged, was quickly halted.

There isn’t one.

Phoenix is so spread out there is no one area where I can see the 6% of people who look like me. Some say that area is the South Side of Phoenix, I’m still exploring that suggestion.

But when I casually go to the grocery store near my house I’m lucky if I see someone who looks like me. If I did I would surely fall to the floor a beg them to show me their ways of survival.

Back home I’d go to U-Bar off Camp Creek, aka a smorgasbord of single black men. I went to Kroger in Clayco a dude asked for my number while his girl was down the canned food isle.

You can’t walk down the street, eat, shop, sit in a dive thru without some fine specimen of a black man trying to holler.

Phoenix is a desert in many ways…

But if you go to the Martin Luther King Jr. parade or the Juneteenth celebration you can get taste of home. Hit up Poetic Soul on Wednesdays you might see a lil something, no smorgasbord though.

It wasn’t until I went to the Buy Black Marketplace, a monthly farmers market of black owned businesses that I finally felt like I was HOME.

Rows of black women and men at tables selling t-shirts, dresses, soaps, oils, makeup, handmade jewelry, food. It was like one big family got together to show off their brands.

At that moment I didn’t feel like I was in a city that’s only 6% black because everyone around me was black, like me!

Moving to Phoenix made me realize how much I love my culture. It took me being unable to find it, to appreciate it once I did. I had to look for it.

I had to realize I couldn’t expect Phoenix to be just like my hometown. Phoenix is Phoenix and I had to learn to adjust to it. I found that sense of my community and now I’m adding to the growing culture.

So, go to Get Sassy or Mane de Jour beauty supply stores for hair products, Stacy’s off da Hook has the best soul food and when the Basement Tapes DJs are at Valley Bar go dance the night away.