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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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1 posted on 02/27/2014 3:55:52 PM PST by Altura Ct.
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To: Altura Ct.
But if white people would do the same and rant about Blacks or Hispanics moving into the neighborhood that would be racist.
2 posted on 02/27/2014 3:58:05 PM PST by Mad Dawgg (If you're going to deny my 1st Amendment rights then I must proceed to the 2nd one...)
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To: Altura Ct.

Only whites can be racists. Everybody knows that. It’s Diversity Studies 101.


3 posted on 02/27/2014 3:59:05 PM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Altura Ct.

You know, it’s not really about Spike Lee, I could care what Spike Lee says or does but it was about the applause and support he had as he was saying it. Just as the stadium full the other night listening to Farrakhan.

It ain’t just a few blacks who think like this.


4 posted on 02/27/2014 4:03:16 PM PST by Altura Ct.
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To: Altura Ct.
"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?"

I think Spike explains things pretty well in his own movie.

Do the Right Thing

5 posted on 02/27/2014 4:07:00 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Altura Ct.
This guy is soooooo last century.
6 posted on 02/27/2014 4:08:35 PM PST by Huskrrrr
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To: Mad Dawgg

America is not the same, but if we pulled that blaming them, they would probably hang us,


7 posted on 02/27/2014 4:09:27 PM PST by easternsky
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To: Travis McGee

[ Only whites can be racists. Everybody knows that. It’s Diversity Studies 101. ]

Try being a black female married to an asian or white male and going to a family function.....

Or just going anywhere with a lot of yutes...

Then you will know how Racists the Angelic folks who are never racist can be....


8 posted on 02/27/2014 4:11:27 PM PST by GraceG
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To: Vince Ferrer

I think Spike explains things pretty well in his own movie.

Do the Right Thing

Mr. Lee sure lacks the same kind of Self-awarness that most all liberals seem to lack, it is like a damned epidemic, maybe there is some sort of brain virus they pick up in collge from other infected professors and teachers.


9 posted on 02/27/2014 4:14:01 PM PST by GraceG
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To: Altura Ct.

Grow up, Spike. Everything changes.


10 posted on 02/27/2014 4:20:30 PM PST by TigersEye (Stupid is a Progressive disease.)
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To: Altura Ct.

Why Spike? Simple. White people do not riot when cops arrest pimps, whores, thiefs, murderers and drug dealers in white ‘hoods’.


11 posted on 02/27/2014 4:25:03 PM PST by Norm Lenhart
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: Altura Ct.

Wait a minute!

I remember former President Bill Clinton bragging that his office was going to be in Harlem.

I guess Bill gets a pass?


13 posted on 02/27/2014 4:29:30 PM PST by hadaclueonce (Because Brawndo's got electrolytes. Because Ethanol has Big Corn Lobby)
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: Altura Ct.

When whites leave Detroit neighborhoods and the neighborhoods go Mugabe, blacks complain.

When whites move into blighted, poor neighborhoods and bring dollars with them, and the living conditions improve, and crime goes down, blacks complain.

I’m confused. Should we just hand over our wallets at some gang banger check point and move on happily in the knowledge we probably have an entire closet full of money-stuffed wallets we are willing to part with back at home.


15 posted on 02/27/2014 4:32:50 PM PST by RinaseaofDs
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To: Altura Ct.

“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?”

Perhaps it is because the have money, they have an education, and for the most part, they don’t have a criminal record the length of your arm.


16 posted on 02/27/2014 4:43:09 PM PST by wetgundog (" Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is no Vice")
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To: Altura Ct.

becuase spike, white people have pride and want to make the places where they live better and safer. they will actually put money into making their neighborhood nicer, instead of blowing it on bling, video games, drugs, going out, and other useless crap.


17 posted on 02/27/2014 4:46:13 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Altura Ct.
Excuuuuse me...allow me to tell you the truth about the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. I went to high school there...Brooklyn Tech. This was a school (and still is) that takes kids from all 5 boroughs of NYC (Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Staten Island and Queens--most kids from Brooklyn and Queens) after they qualify through a test.

Back when I went--'59-'63--it was all boys and 96% white. The neighborhood was 100% black. The subways that ringed Tech brought all of the 4,500 (essentially) white boys to and from the school each day. We had to walk 1/4 to 1/2 a mile to the subways to get to school and come home.

I--like many of my Tech-nite school mates--were involved in after school activities. We often left school after dark. Now please pay attention:

IN FOUR YEARS THERE, I HAD NEVER HEARD OF ONE INCIDENT WHERE A WHITE BOY FROM TECH WAS HARASSED, HELD UP, BEATEN OR WHATEVER BY ANY BLACK KID FROM THE NABE. NOT ONCE.

What I DID see when I left in the spring or fall at 5:30 or so, were dads playing ball with their kids in the street. These were black, working class families with dad there.

So, Spike Lee, EFF YOU. It's the liberal crap for the last 50 years that ruined the black (and white) working class families. You are such an ignorant boor. I was there for 4 years--day in and day out. I know what that neighborhood was...and what it has become. Don't blame white gentrification--blame aid to dependent children, The Great Society and drugs.

Go away, Spike.

18 posted on 02/27/2014 4:59:20 PM PST by Pharmboy (Democrats lie because they must.)
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To: Altura Ct.

Don’t worry — after DeBlasio is through with New York, it’ll look like it once did and how you prefer it — violent, trash filled and covered with graffiti!!

Go take it up with DeBlasio, you racist bastard!!


19 posted on 02/27/2014 5:15:09 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: GraceG

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.


20 posted on 02/27/2014 5:22:03 PM PST by mowowie
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