John McWhorter wrote an essay published in Time Magazine. McWhorter wrote it in response to Spike Lee's statements in this expletive-filled
interview at Pratt Institute.
There are those who think recreational contrarianism is the soul of blackness — surely, if we aren’t mad, we aren’t truly black.
But history records no human group whose core essence was eternal
indignation. Lee’s films, ironically, teach much about what black is and
what it will be. Odd that in real life he thinks hearkening back to the
social politics of Fred Sanford is moving on up.
Spike Lee in his interview railed against the gentrification of traditionally black neighborhoods in Harlem and Bedford-Styvesant and Fort Greene. He doesn't like seeing his old neighborhood filling up with what he calls "hipster honkeys". Note that these are Lee's old neighborhoods - Lee now lives in Manhattan, apparently without concern for the racial mixture of his neighborhood.
When racial barriers come down, people mingle, cohabitate, and mate.
People grumbling on the sidelines about the losses and appropriations
and whatnot that this involves are historical detritus. That becomes
ringingly clear in how impossible it is to scorn the multiracial
children who grow from processes like this, who grow up to be perfectly
normal adults — and life goes on.
And life goes on.
McWhorter's excellent essay here.
15 comments:
Spike never got past "Jungle Fever", it would seem.
explicative-filled
Do you mean expletive-filled?
And explicative-filled interview would be an interview filled with logical explanations for stuff.
Multi-racial people become either demagogues or easy prey for demagogues. The reason is simple: they lack the anchor of identity, which acts as a counter weight to the pull of whichever utopian madness sweeps the era they live in. Like a ship unmoored.
Thanks Rev.
Thanks for the image of Spike Lee giving logical explanations! :)
Here's the thing. Spike Lee is a neighborhood guy. Even if he moved up to George Jefferson's apartment. He just hates the hipster douchebags. Every neighborhood guy does. No matter what neighborhood you live in.
Spike is not wrong. You should stay in your own neighborhood.
I think he probably sold his brownstone before the neighborhood became hip and overpriced. There's the rub.
If you banned douchebags from living in NYC the city's population would drop to like 75 people.
I discovered McWhorter about a decade ago and really like him.
The spectacular irony of a very successful guy who has moved "on up to the East Side" lamenting the loss of the eden of his youth appears to have been lost on Lee. I call it selective memory and I daresay nostalgia, literally homesickness. Lee's had a very good life so perhaps his memories need not be all that selective. Still, if his lamentations are real perhaps there is a way he could help restore some of that old time magic by investing some of his dough in the old neighborhood.
Only we all know you can never go home again. All things must pass. You can never stand in the same river twice. Blah blah blah. Only it's true.
As for nostalgia of course I suffer from it too. Only, at least in my case, a lot of it is pure fantasy. And the same is probably true of Lee.
Otherwise, why leave?
Now for a more speculative take.
My guess is that some oldster in the hood reached out to Lee to walk the walk instead of just talkin' the talk. So Spike the conquering hero returns, talks some vulgar trash, makes a jackass of himself, then returns by limo to the UES. It's good for the self-esteem and his rep in the hood. And fuck whitey. Win-win-win.
Lee's never been anything but an intelligent upper middle-class runt leeching off black culture in order to live the honkey high life. Fucking poseur.
Listen to Rev. He knows from douchebags. He sees one in the mirror every morning.
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