Spike Lee rants about gentrification - New York's black culture being erased by white residents

dailymail. ^ | 26 February 2014 | By Daily Mail Reporter

[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.'

[trisham]

LOL! I guess that definitely makes it not my kind of movie, then. :)

[Teacher317]

'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.

Maybe because white culture isn't about destroying and taking, but about building and improving?

Nah, that can't be it. It must be that governments only give money and benefits to white people and white areas. We talk about that all the time in our top-secret all-the-white-folks-only meetings. No money ever gets assigned to improving black areas. Ahem.