Walking the East Side: street footage from Denver.
In this video? Ask for a change or have it taken down.
Answers How has the place you live changed in your lifetime? · see how other cities answered →
A thirty-nine-year-old who grew up in Montbello describes what happened to it, on a walk along Colfax that ends when he goes for a cigarette. Then the camera stays on and turns into a note to self about why any of this is being filmed.
He goes by Lil J Money and he corrects the street name before he answers anything, which is the right order. Asked how Denver changed over his lifetime: “Denver changed a lot.” Asked how, he gets specific about his own neighbourhood. “Montbello changed a lot from when I was growing up, gang banging and all that. But now it changed a lot. No more gang banging in Montbello.” Whether that counts as better is not a question he answers the way you would expect. “I don’t like it no more. Got white people out there, and rich white folks out there.”
On the east side, where they are standing, his summary is short and he means it as a warning rather than a boast. Then he goes to find a cigarette and does not come back.
What follows is Maceo, alone, talking to the camera on International Women’s Day. He has been walking a friend’s dog, has coached the second day of a communication course, has been checking in on his family from a distance and noticing that the checking in matters more to them than he expected.
And then, thinking out loud, the reason this footage exists: while he is in Denver he wants to document what two friends are building, and he says the quiet part about the whole channel in one line. “I’m just kind of using We Them Media as a vehicle to build in public.”
Short, loose, and honest about being loose. Filed on the same day as the Clearinghouse Bandit piece, a few blocks away.
Language is unfiltered; the transcript is bleeped where the captions were.
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