(ThyBlackMan.com) Gentrification can look a whole lot different depending what side of the fence you alive on.
Recently there has been a lot of controversial comments over the remarks made by Spike Lee over the massive amount of gentrification going on these days in Brooklyn, New York, and actor Michael Rapaport has his thoughts on it indeed.
First off, Spike Lee, being his usual outspoken self, compared Caucasians moving into Brooklyn with having the Christopher Columbus Syndrome – meaning – that they act as though they discovered something that was always already there.
Now I guessed this pissed off Mr. Rapaport enough to come back with what he said in a recent Huffington Post interview:
“I mean, Spike lives on the Upper East Side. If the people that donated money to Spike Lee’s last film saw the apartment that he lives in, they’d bug out. So I don’t know what he’s talking about,”
“Brooklyn got better. And he’s making money off the fact that it got better,”
…….are you thinking what I’m thinking? Did the former “Bamboozled” actor really say that?
Brooklyn got better why? Because White people moved there? And why is that?
I believe Spike Lee is 100% CORRECT with EVERYTHING that he said in his passionate expression of what he knows to be the truth, curses and ALL!
Let me add that I’m also a dyed in the wool New Yorker who was born in Manhattan and raised in Queens but spend MANY a day in night in Brooklyn doing the things that young men do.
While I’m 51 years old at the time of this writing, I have 38 FULL years under my belt as a New Yorker and still consider myself that until God calls me home even though I live in this backwoods of a place called Orlando. Yeah I said it!
I said all of that to say this…….in New York City affluent White people get the preferential treatment where ever they go and move about the earth as though they are privileged beyond measure and anyone in their proximity better understand that this is the way it goes or else!
Now am I saying this about all White people in New York?
OF COURSE NOT!
Well how do we make the difference?
M-O-N-E-Y!…….and LOTS of it!
I don’t care how White you are, if you don’t have money – REAL MONEY – not a tax return check that makes you feel rich for a day – but money out of your backside to the point that if you didn’t want to work for the rest of your life you could do just that and still live the same lifestyle that you maintain now.
Now most Whites don’t really have it that way, but if they do have a modicum of wealth above the average blue collar working Joe then they too will consider themselves the Cat’s Meow!
What I’m getting at is that poor or middle income Whites will get the Nigger treatment from their own brothers and sisters who check off the same box of what race they are when filling out their Census Papers.
So the Christopher Columbus Syndrome isn’t ingrained in all Whites, so just let that sink in your head before you e-mail me with some profanity laced hate mail to tell me that I’m wrong.
Now! For the “ass in the air/shit don’t stink” Caucasian who feel that they can leap tall buildings in a single bound and immediately stop an entire street full of Yellow Cabs in midtown Manhattan driving over 60 miles an hour to beg them for their fare when a Brother can’t get one to stop even if he jumped in front of it, I say to them, your mind is definitely delusional.
Seriously, these are some of the same people who will say that Slavery was a good thing for Black people because at least they were taken from the wild jungle swinging from tree to tree and taught how to be civilized by the founding Fathers.
They will never tell you about their history of not having a sewage system and wallowing in their own feces throwing buckets of dung out of their windows in England. They won’t tell you that they DID discover a wealth of knowledge when they came to the Motherland and saw what a truly high civilization was like when compared to their barbaric cave-dwelling existence that made very little progress until they were privy to learning from the Black man in Africa.
Why am I saying this?
Because Michael Rapaport HAD to run his mouth about things getting better in Brooklyn because of Gentrification.
A truer statement from the gut couldn’t have been spoken better because this gives you a peek into the mind of someone who is infected with that same twisted way of thinking that has screwed the world up for the indigenous people of the world who had their lands invaded by a people who felt that things always get better when they come on to the scene.
It doesn’t get better my friend, it gets worse when YOU come on the scene because it is always at the expense of the people who were always there!
But then again, isn’t that the role you’ve played in history where EVER you’ve gone in the world?
But it’s that damn White Savior Complex that so many have bought into…….
“When we arrive we are doing a good thing for these savages because they couldn’t do any better if we never arrived on the scene.” So many of them really seriously believe this in their hearts. Look at the late night commercials painting them as the heroes who go to Africa to feed the hungry Black babies with the ribs poked out and the flies flying all over their faces.
What a production THAT must be! So if anyone should be bugged out Mr. Michael Rapaport it should be you, because if you could see where those cameramen and production crew sleep at night when over in the impoverished areas in Africa, then you will understand how much of a scam that is when they beg for money to really keep them enjoying their stay in those high end hotels and suites with ALL of the luxurious amenities!
…….talk about volunteer work!
Look, if we are all Gods children – with some of us historically being the problem child and hell-raiser – then this entire earth is for us to live in, thrive and get along in as Brothers and Sisters no matter what the race may be.
But there is a thing called respect, respect for what was in place already before you arrived.
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And those who are the so called beneficiaries of Gentrification are licking the sweet sprinkles off the top of the ice cream cone while we as Blacks – suffering from the underside of Gentrification – are licking the dog shit from the underside grooves of the dirty boots.
If you who benefit from moving into a predominantly Black neighborhood were all about peace and love, then you wouldn’t act the way that you do toward the people who have been there long before you had the courage to do so. How quickly you forget, but I won’t, you were scared to DEATH to venture anywhere near Bed-Stuy, Red Hook and Fort Greene, PLEASE!
Do not even try to rewrite history because I was there!
Now to speak on Mr. Michael Rapaport’s comment about the people – who donated money for his last film – being bugged out because of the apartment that he lives in on the Upper East Side…….
Would Michael Rapaport question the zip code that Robert Deniro or Woody Allen lives in because it may be a little distance from the place of their origin and birth? I don’t think so.
So why should it bug the people out who donated to his latest film when these are the same diehard supporters who love the work that Spike Lee creates and understands that he is the uncompromising voice of the people who represent them?
Also let us mention that Spike Lee STILL maintains a home in Brooklyn long before those who’ve invaded it even thought of doing so.
I think Mr. Rapaport is a little pissed that a self made man like Spike Lee can live as he does as a Black man while still speaking his mind in a way that shows that he is a grassroots minded man.
Does Spike have to live in the gutter while others Gentrify the neighborhood where he is rooted? HELL NO! But I believe those who think like Michael Rapaport do and it kills them to see otherwise.
The same thing is happening all over the country and down here in Orlando Florida it is happening BIG TIME in the Parramore Ave. area. Check out my article on it when you have the time.
My very neighborhood in Pine Hills (Orlando, Florida) is targeted next for gentrification but I am going to remain here like a thorn in the side for those who think they can run me away. My Black nationalist flag will fly high until God calls me home and I will continue to upgrade my property to make sure that it is the BEST HOUSE on the block to piss the invaders off.
But if a people really were about moving in to a neighborhood to blend in then they would do so in peace. But you know that those who are the gentrification beneficiaries will never be at ease with those who have been there for long because they really don’t want the Blacks around who were already there.
Just like Spike Lee said, they will begin to call the cops on you for the slightest imagined infraction and once their numbers are up they will give you the cold shoulder even more so because they know that your end there is near.
And that’s the bottom line about Gentrification, they don’t want to blend in like conventional integration, they want the older residents to vanish into thin air and THAT’S what I really have a problem with.
When are we as a people going to wake up to the manipulations of the very ground underfoot from which we live?
Stand your ground, unify, spend your money wisely and collectively to resist the cancer called Gentrification and KEEP your neighborhoods all your own!
Spike Lee did, and it’s 100% TRUTH!
