who couldn’t live here

WHO COULDN’T LIVE HERE

July 13, 2025

This is still stamped into the sidewalk  
where we live now.  

Not a plaque.  
Not a memorial.  
Just the ground beneath our feet.  

Cracked in half.  
But still there.  

You may never ask  
what this neighborhood was built on.  

But I will tell you anyway.  

Because one day you will run down these blocks  
and your laugh in the air  
and I want you to know  
what was buried beneath the truth.  

Not the houses.  
Not the way the sidewalk curves around the corner.  
Not the silence that passes for peace.  
Not the names carved into concrete  
that most people stop noticing.  

But the people  
who were not allowed to live here.  

Not because they did not want to.  
Not because they could not afford to.  
But because they were told no.  

Because the rules were written that way.  
Because the land was sold with promises  
that it would stay a certain kind of white.  

Even after the university came.  
Even after the war ended.  
Even after the laws changed.  

The message remained the same.  

This was a place built to keep people out.  
And then called itself peaceful.  

Now we live here.  
We walk past the hedges and the driveways and the quiet.  
And the arches and the roses.  
We touch the same steps that once belonged to everyone  
except us.  

And that is the part I want you to know.  
Not to carry it like shame.  
But to hold it like a map.  

So when you ask where you are  
or even if you never do  
you will know what it took  
to get you here.  

And how many were told  
they could not live here.  
With us.  

Explore the documented record — The Janss Investment Company and the architecture of exclusion (Rancho Park / Thousand Oaks / Century City)