The New York Times published a story last week about the high-fashion makeover of Manhattans Canal Street , the main artery of Chinatown, that more or less gentrified Chinese people out of the narrative. Their voices were displaced with those of a founder of a high-end design firm, an owner of a fine jewelry label and a musician with an event space.

Canal Street Cleans Up Nice, read the original headline, which appeared in the Times Style section above a subheading that referred to the street as a once derided thoroughfare most synonymous with fake designer goods.

After an outcry, the editor of the section expressed contrition and the story received a new headline: The Gentrification of Canal Street. Gone from the subhead were the words once derided.

We can do better! This should have been better. And Im glad people spoke up, Choire Sicha, the Times Styles editor, wrote in an email to HuffPost.

In place of a frank insensitivity, the piece now displays a more genteel kind of racism. But even in its softened form, the story is still a product of the same historical forces behind the gentrification it describes.