Spike Lee Kickstarts Gentrification Debate

Jessica Burtch
Fri, 28 Feb 2014 17:42:54 -0800
Lifestyle

Last year, "Do the Right Thing" director Spike Lee set out to raise some money via Kickstarter for a new film project. Realizing he controls a prime piece of New York City real estate, he decided to lease it to sweeten the pot and settled on $10,000 as his asking price for a courtside seat alongside his to watch the Knicks play at Madison Square Garden.

Thirty-one deep-pocketed people, including fellow filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, bit.
Updated: Fri Feb 28, 2014

Last year, "Do the Right Thing" director Spike Lee set out to raise some money via Kickstarter for a new film project. Realizing he controls a prime piece of New York City real estate, he decided to lease it to sweeten the pot and settled on $10,000 as his asking price for a courtside seat alongside his to watch the Knicks play at Madison Square Garden.

Thirty-one deep-pocketed people, including fellow filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, bit.

But a lot of shallow-pocketed people were unhappy about Spike's turning to Kickstarter for funding. After all, his Upper East Side home is listed at $32 million. Isn't crowdfunding for people who don't have millions of dollars in the bank — or in home equity? People were irked that a famous director was setting up shop on Kickstarter, luring finite dollars with promises of producer credits, premium Knicks tickets and the privilege of his company, when the average creative hopeful can offer only a DVD and a smile in return for a fiver.

Sounds like crowdfunding gentrification to me.

Gentrification is a bad word in some circles — and ironically, in Spike's circle. It represents a shift in an area toward the more affluent and the corresponding increases in property values. Homeowners are winners; renters are losers. But gentrification as a phenomenon is colorblind. And this is where Spike starts to sound a little Archie Bunker.

On Tuesday, while giving a lecture for African American History Month at Pratt Institute, Spike said, "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."

I won't even walk my dogs at three o'clock in the morning, so it tells me those women must feel pretty mother******* safe in their neighborhood. Isn't that a good thing? After all, it's not just white mothers who feel safe. It's also black mothers and Puerto Rican mothers and Hispanic mothers and Asian mothers.

I get his point. Why wasn't it safer sooner? Why weren't the schools good when he was a kid growing up in 1960s Brooklyn? But the answer isn't black or white. It's green.

Spike's old Fort Greene neighborhood would be just as clean and safe and ridden with gourmet coffee if it had experienced an influx of young professional purple people. Gentrification isn't about color; it's about tax base. Anyone who can secure a mortgage is free to invest in a bit of real estate that is as likely to be a boon for them as it was for the Brooklyn homeowners who came before them — the African American, the Jewish, the Irish, the Italian.

The point Spike conveniently fails to see is that Brooklyn residents should feel as free to use their homes to fund their dreams as he feels to use his Knicks tickets to fund his. Spike surpassed his Kickstarter goal of $1.25 million; the money will fund his next movie — about "people who are addicted to blood." I imagine that kind of money could kickstart an affordable housing project in Fort Greene. But, hey, Spike's money, Spike's priorities.

It's sad when a chapter ends — the loss of culture, "mother******* Christopher Columbus Syndrome." Maybe that's how Willie Nelson feels every time he finds himself in the South Congress neighborhood of Austin, Texas — SoCo, as it's now called. Once all hippies and cowboys, it's now hipsters and steampunks. But while there's a T-shirt and bumper-sticker movement to Keep Austin Weird, no one's ranting to keep it white, braless and two-stepping.

Follow Jessica on Twitter @sicaleigh. To find out more about Jessica Leigh, and to read features by other Creators writers and comics, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE