Posted on 02/26/2014 12:11:24 PM PST by dennisw
The Brooklyn-raised director launched into an argument about the drawbacks of gentrification Compared Fort Greene Park to the 'motherf*****' Wesminster Dog Show' because it is so clean Lee was raised in Brooklyn but has lived in the Upper East Side since 2000
Spike Lee went on a long-winded rant against gentrification in New York City on Tuesday night when he was asked to argue against the development of poorer neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Harlem.
The director, who has focused on racial issues and gentrification in his films, blasted an audience member at the Pratt Institute who started defending the changes in the neighborhoods.
'Let me just kill you right now,' Lee said to the unidentified questioner.
Lee pointed the finger at white New Yorkers who have moved into historically black neighborhoods and changed the environment, arguing that those changes have caused the areas to evolve into something completely different.
'Here’s the thing: I grew up here in Fort Greene. I grew up here in New York. It’s changed. And why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the south Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better?' he said.
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'The garbage wasn’t picked up every mother*****’ day when I was living in 165 Washington Park. P.S. 20 was not good. P.S. 11. Rothschild 294. The police weren’t around.
'When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o’clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something.'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Pretty much that.
The rent is too d*** high, as the other fellow put it.
There are no "historically black neighborhoods" in NYC - not even Harlem - that weren't previously white neighborhoods.
Spike Lee likes to talk about history a lot, but doesn't like to read it.
I disliked his first movie, and never watched anything else he did.
I’ve never seen a single one, just read about them.
The only thing you’ve missed is being annoyed.
“Boys in the hood”
Spike must think its a comedy movie.
What I got our of his racist rant is that he thinks blacks makes for bad neighborhoods and white make for safer neighborhoods.
White removes blight....
Don’t understand the problem.
No one’s telling em they can’t peddle drugs and practice acts of violence elsewhere....
Poor Spike wants to go back to the Reagan years, he is just to stupid to know it.
Preserve the crime-infested ghettos!
“’When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o’clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something.”
Why, yes it does Mr. Spike but I don’t think you want to know what it is.
So how would the media cover it if some WHITE guy responded to Spike Lee in a public forum by cutting him off and saying “let me just kill you right now”?
Hmmm... lemme think...
Yep. Oh, and brothers cant play “mother*****’ African drums in Mount Morris Park” anymore.
Pity.
My parents fled Brooklyn in 1954 for Long Island. What had been a lovely neighborhood was quickly going down hill. It’s done a complete turn around in the past few years with brownstones selling in the millions.
Any time I miss an opportunity to be annoyed, that’s good. One can only drink so much and still be functional ...
Heh. :)
Yeah, and my father lived there from 1931 on when his father lost everything in the crash and they were forced out of Manhattan into Brooklyn. It’s called a cycle, you stupid man.
He’s just pissed because he has a dogs name.
But seriously, we’re always being told we “have to” see this or that movie for some reason, but I never do. It’s all entertainment, and if I don’t think it’s going to entertain me, I don’t have a dime or minute for it.
Maybe I’ve missed some movies I would have liked, but oh well. I don’t have time to watch all the stuff on my Netflix queue as it is.
“There goes the neighborhood!”
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