Spike Lee’s Amazing Rant Against Gentrification: ‘We Been Here!’

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/spike-lee-amazing-rant-against-gentrification.html



Speaking Tuesday night in Brooklyn, blocks away from his company headquarters and his father’s apartment, Spike Lee went off on how the neighborhood has changed. The filmmaker, wearing a Knicks beanie, orange socks, blue Nikes, and "Defend Brooklyn" hoodie, was at Pratt Institute for a lecture in honor of African American History Month, surrounded by locals, when he was nearly asked a question about “the other side” of the gentrification debate. “Let me just kill you right now,” Lee interrupted, “because there was some bullshit article in the New York Times saying ‘the good of gentrification.’” (See: “Argument Over a Brownstone Neighborhood” and New York’s “Is Gentrification All Bad?”)

“I don’t believe that,” said Lee. And for the next seven minutes he explained, with passion, humor, and a fair amount of f-words.

 

Illegali immigration is more damaging to our community than gentrification...but since they're not white...Spike won't touch that...nor will any other negro with a mic.

 

how is illegal immigration more detrimental than gentrification?

 

Someone Thinks Spike Lee's 'Racist' For Pointing Out Basic Facts Of Gentrification

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kia-m...cation_b_4875545.html?utm_hp_ref=black-voices

First, a lengthy article with the wonderfully accessible title "Is Gentrification All Bad?" runs in New York magazine. And this week, we're blessed with a writer calling Spike Lee racist for pointing out basic gentrification facts. Writing on "Time Ideas," Columbia linguistics and literature professor John McWhorter takes Lee to task for his use of the term "hipsters" (well, since it's Spike Lee: "motherfucking hipsters").

At the level, defending gentrification is an inefficient use of editorial space. Gentrification doesn't need a PR team, because a likely majority of those who are troubled by it as a principle are actually gentrifiers in practice. Whether it's Columbia University itself or a writer like myself landing in an already gentrified New York neighborhood, the fact remains that most New Yorkers are gentrifiers -- whether they're first wave or latter-day arrivals.

But though McWhorter presents his article as an interrogation of Lee's language, he begins by casually dismissing the idea that gentrification is a problem at all.

Of course, it's true that some black people are profiting from gentrification. But McWhorter's presentation of Lee's argument is a convenient perversion. Lee's entire point isn't simply about the presence of white people, but about a government response that doesn't exist until white people move in.

McWhorter ignores all of this and fails to address the fact that Lee wasn't casually referring to "white people" or "motherfucking hipsters" as a lazy pejorative. This is an important distinction: Time and time again, those accurately using the word "white" to refer to a group of white people are deemed "aggressive" or, as McWhorter calls Lee, "racist." It's not racist to identify white people, but it remains a political act in today's America, one predicated on whiteness being an invisible norm against which people of color are contrasted. (McWhorter, for example, freely uses the word "blacks.")

"Just as 'thug' is a new way of saying the N-word in polite society, Lee's 'm---f--- hipster' epithet for the new whites of Fort Greene is a sneaky way of saying 'honkey,'" McWhorter writes. Behold the false equivalency. Calling people "hipsters" or "white" is not the same as referring to black people with a word that's a stand-in for the N-word. Is the NYPD brutalizing "white hipsters"? This reads like a sequel to "Accidental Racist," where LL Cool J tells Brad Paisley, "if you don't judge my gold chains, I'll forgive your iron chains." Hey, Spike, if you forgive the hipsters' beard transplants, they'll forgive you for being a -- as McWhorter calls you -- "grouchy bigot."

Referring to white people isn't even something controversial in McWhorter's other pieces for TIME. When the writer commented on the murder of Jordan Davis with a gesture at respectability politics ("surely, if we could roll back time, we would make Davis turn down the music") and argued for ignoring the racism of well-compensated "Duck Dynasty" stars, he regularly employed the words "white" and "white America." It's even more unclear, then, why Lee's use of a common term for "young white people in Brooklyn" is so offensive.

Let's return again to McWhorter's unsupported argument that "this is not the old story of poor blacks being pushed out of neighborhoods razed down for highway construction." Fort Greene, where Lee was speaking, experienced a 29.6-percent increase in white residents from 2000 to 2010. Consider also the fact that my "South Village" neighborhood is a historic district because rock bands performed there, while Harlem lags behind in preservation. Perhaps there are fewer highways to be constructed, but the "razing" and reconstructing of cultural history is alive and well in New York.

Lee also spoke at length on the absurd rebranding the real estate industry visits upon longstanding neighborhoods (Stuyvestant Heights becomes "SpaHa," Bushwick becomes "East Williamsburg"), another example of where gentrification erases history. McWhorter, again, skips over this in favor of taking Lee to task for his "hipster" word choice.

McWhorter knows that phrases like "razed down" and "Lee growled" support his argument that the only cultural violence that's occurring is Lee's "expletive-laced" invective. What his argument has in style, however, it utterly lacks in substance.

A few days after after Lee's speech, someone spray-painted "Do The Right Thing" onto the house next to his old Fort Greene home. The vandals also smashed windows in the door. Lee's father still lives in the neighboring home.

 

hmmm..

Our schools and job market are turning illegal mexican....not upper-class white.

History proves Black people suffer in times of high immigration

If you can't see how allowing tens of millions of unemployed....uneducated...uninsured..illegals from one of the wealthiest countries in the world(mexico)hurts our Job market...standard of living...educational system....health care system..ect ect.... then you are on the wrong side of the border.

They can loot our social security system with as little effort as buying a fake one on the streets...while illegals are deported from their own country.

They can ride the coattails off the 14th amendment even though they aren't the offspring of freed slaves.

Everything that is our is now theirs..even .our Black leaders can't say the word black without adding hispanic or latino.

Black leaders from the past spoke out against all the immigration in their time but today these negroes are quiet as the roaches they let in the country.

Catch and release programs....sanctuary cities...the media droning on and on about how hard they work and love their kids..both parties kissing their asses.

All aid this all out invasion.

 

John McWhorter is one of the most disgusting coons who gets play in the mainstream media.

http://newsone.com/2030244/john-mcwhorter-white-power-music/

It's baffling what some black people will say about the rest of the race for a paycheck.

 

he was asked about gentrification, stop deflecting.

 

nice bait and switch...with or w/o illegals blacks would suffer.

 

stop whining. they work in the agricultural fields because all americans are too pussy to do it. a republican biutched bout in GA . he owned a peach farm and the americans dont last 1/2 a day.

 

as far as spike i 1/2 agree with him. i saw interview on this and him on cnn. he needs to focus his bitching. black peoples assets went up.
as far as schools thats parent driven.
get it 2Gether BP. not good look

 

No sense making things worse by turning the country into a latino bangladesh.

The man asked me how illegal immigration hurt Black people more than gentrification and I told him.

Maybe you have another country to call home once this one is turned into a sweatshop.

Black people suffer during times of increased immigration...the last thing we need is millions of ILLEGAL immigrants.

I bet if all those illegals were white you'd agree with me.......lol


Ask the average mexican illegal if he'd be OK if mexico allowed MILLIONS of non-spanish illegals into his homeland with all the perks the US gives him.

He'd tell you hell no.

 

In South Florida in the old days, black people used to live on the beach and white people stayed inland. On the beach side there were few whites living on the beach. But, to capitalize on development and tourist profits, white real estate brokers slowly brought the white community to the beaches and moved the black community inland. A few years ago, an historically all-black beach was cleaned up and reopened. It was the only one in South Florida. The condominium complex I lived in had been around since the late-50's or early 60's. It sits around two man-made lakes. Real estate developers had been trying to get at it for years. They used just about every tactic to get everyone to sell their units and move out. The buildings were old and slowly falling apart. Everyone knew it, but they also knew that if they sold, they were not going to get the price they originally paid when they bought their unit. For these developers, anyplace near water is gold. That was the first time I had ever heard the word gentrification. No one knows who wins in this case. Is this program an improvement on existing buildings, or a total change altogether?
I am sure that this would produce some jobs for the duration. But, I have another question; if Spike Lee is this upset over gentrification, then what would he, or other community leaders would have done to preserve this area if they cared that much? An area in a state of decay is just that until it is either modified, or destroyed.

 

Frederick,you hit it on the head. McWhorther is one house slave who wants to coddle the conservatives and bash Black people.

 

the point is if black ppl had a community support mindset where we only frequented our own businesses instead of giving it away we wouldn't be scared of latinos. jews and indians don't have this problem.

 

How can Blacks frequent their mostly own businesses when most lucrative businesses are being sold to, and bought by, the very Jews and Indians you say don't have 'this' problem.

There's a whole Indian/Korean/Jewish banking network that takes care of their own, and it's financially subsidized by the Govt in order to stimulate business investment to foreigners. Huge tax breaks for starters. I wish I could find this great article pertaining similar to this topic I just mentioned. I will try to find it...

 

And one more thing... It's not a fear or being scared, IMO. It's about a struggle that was fought so damn hard to be recognized as a human instead of maligned because of a pigment.

Then for 20 million illegals to be so blatantly disrespectful of the laws of this land that ASK them to get in line and EARN YOUR TURN, for them to come here and hoist themselves on the shoulders of the Black people of this country who lets face it, are losing many of their jobs to...the black community doesn't have to accommodate another 'oppressed' community who is riding their coattails of paved roads. The illegals made their own persecuted bed (of problems), the Black people did not, yet have ended up getting the shit end of the stick.

 

If latinos showed the aspects you mentioned they would not have to be SCABS in the 21 century.

They outta' stick together in MEXICO.

They would have everything they want or need....being that it is one of the RICHEST countries on earth.

Indians LOL....negro please.

They are the mexicans of the white-collar market...they make everything cheaper for the corporations.

Ever hear of the law of SUPPLY and DEMAND?????????????????

 

Not surprised the only person to agree with me was not Black.

Negroes think this invasion is cute.

"We go' have a brown/black majority"

As if that's a good thing or some shit.
If you wanna' see what that looks like...look no further than Colombia...lol

THAT is our future...Cuba and Columbia....yippeeeeee

 

:smt038:smt038:smt038

It's ashamed you have to tell a Black person that......but I'm glad you did.

We can spot game on a street level...other than that..we are blind as dead bats.

 

back to grown folk talk....
i agree w/ spike in that public service should have been proper prior to the influx.
i disagree with the statement bout people being run out. that applies to renters...due to rent increase,.,bad side. bf that owned..then good their investment grew.
part of life of economics spike get over it on that part . blacks been wanting that....their sense of value in some way.