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As a Brooklyn Native, who grew up in the heart of Bed-Stuy, I have seen first hand the drastic changes that have happened in my neighborhood. Filmmaker Spike Lee, who is arguably the most known Brooklynite, spoke Tuesday night at Pratt Institute about gentrification in the borough.
Lee’s rant was spurred by an audience member who tried to ask about the other side of the gentrification debate notes New York Magazine. Lee instantly interrupted the audience member saying, “Let me kill you right now,” reports the New York Daily News.
Lee continued on passionately arguing that white gentrification is disrupting the long established Brooklyn culture.
“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 motherfuckin’ 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,” said Lee.
The Do the Right Thing director also discussed what he called “Christopher Columbus Syndrome,” of wealthy gentrifiers and “hipsters” renaming neighborhoods in Brooklyn reports New York Magazine.
Lee is currently working on a sequel to his classic School Daze.