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Spike Lee explains expletive-filled gentrification rant
CNN ^ | 2//27/2014

Posted on 02/27/2014 3:55:52 PM PST by Altura Ct.

His parents still live there.

He still keeps an office there.

But it's not the same neighborhood he grew up in, and his feelings about newcomers now inhabiting once-blighted parts of America's most-populous city like Fort Greene slapped many people in the face after the famed director went into an expletive-laced rant during an African-American History Month lecture on Tuesday. Spike Lee on gentrification

"I grew up here in New York. It's changed," Lee said at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, an art, design, and architecture school. "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? The garbage wasn't picked up every mother******* day when I was living in 165 Washington Park. ... 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."

Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service, said the city has witnessed an enormous recovery since 2001, and the greatest change has been felt in Brooklyn, which has drawn newcomers because of its housing, access to Manhattan and improved safety.

...The new neighbors complain

"Let me just kill you right now," Lee, the "Do The Right Thing" director, told D.K. Smith, a Brooklyn homeowner and tech start-up director, at the speech when Smith brought up the subject of the "other side" of gentrification.

And then he launched his lengthy tirade.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: New York
KEYWORDS: bedfordstuyvesant; blackkk; brooklyn; crownheights; demagogicparty; gentrification; harlem; limolibs; manhattan; memebuilding; mitchellmoss; newyork; newyorkcity; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; prattinstitute; southbronx; spikelee; wagnerschool; woodyallen
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To: Altura Ct.

It is simple. When the perception is that things are going to suck more in the future, the perceptive people who can see into the future sell their property. When the perception is that things don’t suck so bad, and things are going to get better, the perceptive people buy property.

Spike is not perceptive.


21 posted on 02/27/2014 5:23:22 PM PST by Born to Conserve
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To: Bon of Babble
Forgot to add the graphic!!


22 posted on 02/27/2014 5:24:57 PM PST by Bon of Babble (Don't want to brag...but I can still fit into the earrings I wore in high school!!)
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To: Altura Ct.

This IS the same Spike Lee that encouraged all of his black brotha’s and sista’s to go to Zimmermans parents house and lynch them......and then gave out the wrong address right?


23 posted on 02/27/2014 5:26:30 PM PST by mowowie
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To: Pharmboy

Good post!!


24 posted on 02/27/2014 5:32:54 PM PST by Osage Orange (I have strong feelings about gun control. If there's a gun around, I want to be controlling it.)
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To: Altura Ct.
When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o'clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something."

It's safe?
25 posted on 02/27/2014 5:39:10 PM PST by 98ZJ USMC
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To: mowowie

[ Try being my Black brother-in-law you say?
He doesn’t seem to have those same racist problems with my family or out in public as you describe.
Maybe it’s your family or the place that you live that is the problem. ]

I have two black female friends, one who is married to a white man and another that dated a white guy. Both live in Denver and both have had more problems concerning racial comments from their OWN family concerning this and none had ANY issue with the Family members of their boyfriends/husbands....

And Denver is touted as a progressive city.....

The DNC held their convention there in 2008 for gods sake...


26 posted on 02/27/2014 6:03:15 PM PST by GraceG
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To: GraceG

Didn’t mean to snap at your comment, sorry.
I’m in a bad mood due to a skin rash believe it or not lol.


27 posted on 02/27/2014 6:15:37 PM PST by mowowie
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To: mowowie

[ Didn’t mean to snap at your comment, sorry.
I’m in a bad mood due to a skin rash believe it or not lol. ]

No worries


28 posted on 02/27/2014 6:23:59 PM PST by GraceG
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To: TigersEye

“Grow up, Spike. Everything changes.”

Yep,that’s the way it is.

The family neighborhood in Boston where I grew up is wall-to wall college students now.

Sad,but true.

.


29 posted on 02/27/2014 6:30:08 PM PST by Mears
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To: Osage Orange
Thank you...all true. Here's the school (it has been said that it is the largest high school building in the world). I loved that place.

That's the Williamsburg Bridge going over to Manhattan over the East River.

30 posted on 02/27/2014 7:00:04 PM PST by Pharmboy (Democrats lie because they must.)
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To: Mears

The neighborhood I grew up in went from mostly white to mostly black and then mostly Asian from what I’ve been told. I’m sure that at any given time the neighborhood has been what the residents have made of it. It’s a tract home subdivision of relatively small homes which have served as an entry level to home ownership since they were built in the late ‘50s. I understand there have been many other changes there besides the ethnic makeup. Nothing stands still in a community of people. Spike’s a dork! lol


31 posted on 02/27/2014 7:15:11 PM PST by TigersEye (Stupid is a Progressive disease.)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
...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? ... When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o'clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something."
And that, my friends, is what's known as self-pwned.
32 posted on 02/27/2014 7:20:47 PM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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To: Pharmboy
Cool picture!!

I don't doubt a thing you said......

33 posted on 02/27/2014 7:26:51 PM PST by Osage Orange (I have strong feelings about gun control. If there's a gun around, I want to be controlling it.)
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To: Altura Ct.
But it's not the same neighborhood he grew up in, and his feelings about newcomers now inhabiting once-blighted parts of America's most-populous city like Fort Greene slapped many people in the face after the famed director went into an expletive-laced rant during an African-American History Month lecture on Tuesday. Spike Lee on gentrification "I grew up here in New York. It's changed,...

Bushwick, was initially inhabited by ethnic Dutch. Then ethnic Germans replaced the Dutch. Next ethnic Italians replaced the Germans. Then Blacks moved in in the 50's and 60's. Now the gentry are moving in.

Bushwick changes.

Spike is an idiot.

34 posted on 02/27/2014 7:33:23 PM PST by FreeReign
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To: Mad Dawgg

Only morons believe that history began with their birth. This one seems to forget that whites ESTABLISHED these neighborhoods in the first place.


35 posted on 02/27/2014 10:26:05 PM PST by Amberdawn
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To: Altura Ct.
There's economic realities to life - this one cut both ways...

If enough blacks move into a neighborhood, housing prices and property taxes go DOWN. Blacks benefit by getting well maintained houses at discount rates in lower crime rate areas.

If enough white people move into a neighborhood, housing prices and property taxes go UP. Blacks benefit by being able to sell their homes for more money. They lose by having to pay higher taxes.

Spike Lee's totally wrong about public services. The black community eats up a disproportionally large amount of police departments funding and an excessive amount of other city services.

The solution would be to charge for service. Neighborhoods with high police service would pay for that service. That would also stop the ghetto problem to punishing 'snitchers'...it would save money and be a positive incentive.

36 posted on 02/28/2014 3:54:23 AM PST by GOPJ ({David} "Gregory, usually as alert and twitchy as a squirrel, flat-lined." Richard Cohen NYT)
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To: Altura Ct.
Spike Lee should do the right thing and apologize for his blatant racism. After that, he should just go away.
37 posted on 02/28/2014 4:04:31 AM PST by liberalh8ter (The only difference between flash mob 'urban yutes' and U.S. politicians is the hoodies.)
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To: Altura Ct.; All
>>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?

The Bus Boys (of The Boys are Back in Town fame), black rock-funk group:

"Too many faces that don't look like mine...
There goes the neighborhood
The whites are moving in, they'll bring their next of kin..
I ain't gonna move out because of some Carol and Bob..."

38 posted on 02/28/2014 6:08:12 AM PST by raccoonradio
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To: Amberdawn
Only morons believe that history began with their birth. This one seems to forget that whites ESTABLISHED these neighborhoods in the first place.

Ding ding ding - we have a thread winnah!

39 posted on 02/28/2014 10:22:14 AM PST by GOPJ ({David} "Gregory, usually as alert and twitchy as a squirrel, flat-lined." Richard Cohen NYT)
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To: Altura Ct.

I was in college in Washington DC in the 80’s. One night some of the local kids called my buddies and I beatniks. Because of their poor elocution we thought they called us butt necks. Buttneck became our favored term for white guys until we were called it again and heard it correctly.
I actually liked being called a beatnik!


40 posted on 02/28/2014 3:03:59 PM PST by Ouchthatonehurt ("When you're going through hell, keep going." - Sir Winston Churchill)
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