Spike Lee Needs to Do The Right Thing & Shut the Fuck Up

Recently Director Spike Lee said he returned to his Brooklyn neighborhood and was upset that it was “gentrified”.

Here’s a question for Spike: Why didn’t you buy property in your own neighborhood and put businesses there 25 years ago with the money from all your movies?

I find it funny how Spike has no problem spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Season tickets for the New York Knicks but won’t spend a dime to invest in building businesses in his own neighborhood.

Black people like Spike Lee love to complain about how White people spend money buying up their inner-city neighborhoods but never have a plan for building them themselves. Spike Lee can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with White billionaires like the Dolans, buying tickets for New York Knicks basketball games but won’t put a dime in his own neighborhood.

Over twenty-five years ago when Spike was making money from all his movies like Do The Right Thing, Jungle Fever, and Crooklyn he had an opportunity to buy property in his Brooklyn neighborhood for CHEAP with his own money. It was the height of the crack epidemic and there was abandoned property everywhere. What did Spike spend his money on?

Front row Season tickets for the New York Knicks.

During the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s money began flowing through the Black community. Money from City Jobs. Money Money from factory Jobs. Money from the Phone company. Money from the NBA. Money from Hollywood. Money from the Rap game. Money from Food Stamps. Money from Welfare. And money from the drug game.

But instead of spending those billions of dollars on building up the Black community, Black people spent their money partying and having a good time. Black folks had the money to buy their own buildings. To buy their own homes. And they had the money to open their own businesses.

But instead of doing the hard work Black folks from Spike’s generation whined and complained about Redlining and Reganomics. The truth is they just didn’t want to do the WORK of building a ghetto into a Black community. Building a community required patience, hard, work and most of all SACRIFICE. And too many baby boomers like Spike were just too DAMN SELFISH to make the SACRIFICES to turn places like Fort Greene and Harlem into Black communities for Black people to live and work in.

While Jews, Arabs and Italians were buying the buildings and the property in the neighborhoods Black folks lived in, Guys from Spike Lee’s generation were too busy buying big screen TVs, rack stereos, VCRs, leather jackets gold chains, cars, sneakers, 2-piece Chicken dinners and trying to impress light skinned and Puerto Rican big butt women at the club. Too busy showing off and living ghetto fabulous to think about participating in group economics and investing in building their own communities.

Ever since I was a 10-year-old kid in 1983 I wanted to buy the apartment building I lived in. Why? Because I understood OWNING THE PROPERTY meant I had a SAY over what went into it. That’s why I made a promise to myself that one day I would own 3430 Park Avenue in the Bronx. I still haven’t achieved that goal yet, but I’d love to do it one day.

Why? Because at that young age I knew that PROPERTY OWNERSHIP meant CONTROL over a community from watching various TV shows and reading articles in the newspaper.

I find it sad a 10-year-old kid can figure this out but Spike Lee can’t. You want to stop Gentrification OWN THE PROPERTY. Then Participate in Group Economics with the other property owners to keep money in the community.

Here’s how Jews on the Upper East Side stop Gentrification on the Upper East Side of Manhattan: THEY OWN THE PROPERTY. Here’s how WASPS stop Gentrification on the Upper West Side of Manhattan: THEY OWN THE PROPERTY. Here’s how Italians in Little Italy stopped Gentrification in the Bronx: THEY OWN THE PROPERTY. Here’s how Koreans in Flushing Queens stop Gentrification: THEY OWN THE PROPERTY. Here’s how Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights Brooklyn stop Gentrification in their neighborhoods: THEY OWN THE PROPERTY.

Most of the owners of the property in those communities have wealth from the property they own. That wealth gives them political power to buy seats at local community boards. It gives them the ear of City Councilmen who make zoning laws. They use the economic power of the wealth they amass from group economics to get political power.

People who own property have a say over what goes in their community. If they want to rent to high-end businesses to make REVENUE from the property they OWN they can. If they want to rent to local businesses they can. They own the property. They have a say over what is BUILT in those communities.

Spike Lee could have followed the model that every other community owner has to stop gentrification by OWNING THE PROPERTY in HIS BROOKLYN NEIGHBORHOOD.

But he’d rather spend his money on Knicks Tickets.

Seriously, Do any Black people own any property in Harlem? Fort Greene? Bed Stuy? Harlem? NO.  But Black people like Spike Lee want a say over what goes in those neighborhoods.


 I’m sorry it doesn’t work that way in the business world. And Black people need to understand this. You can’t tell a business owner what to do with their property. You can’t tell a business owner to NOT MAKE MONEY because YOU ARE TOO STUPID to MAKE YOUR OWN.


The Renter does not have a say over what happens to a property. No, the OWNER has a say over what happens to it. And because Black people don’t own property in the neighborhoods they RENT in, they can only watch as the neighborhoods they live in gets gentrified by property owners looking to maximize their revenue.


If Spike Lee wanted to keep the White Hipsters and artsy typed White folks out of Fort Greene, he should have been buying the buildings in his neighborhood in 1988 when it was a wasteland and renting them out to Black people. He should have been buying franchises like McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts and KFC and hiring and training Black people to work in his neighborhood and laying the foundation for a Group Economic mindset. Establishing a community that had the economic and political power to build a Black community, not just a neighborhood where Black people live.


But People like Spike Lee would rather spend money on Season tickets for the New York Knicks than BUILD a Black community. It’s more of a priority to him to give a White billionaire like James Dolan money he could have invested in his own community, then go on a public forum and complain about the state of his pathetic community.

I’m sorry but this shuck and jive Blame and Shame game is PLAYED OUT. There is no such thing as gentrification. BLACK FOLKS FUCKED UP ON THE JOB. And they keep FUCKING UP ON THE JOB.


Black folks over the lat 40 years BLEW ALL their money on consumer bullshit like cars, shoes, and 2-piece chicken dinners instead of investing their money in building a Black community. Who’s fault is it that they don’t own anything but the Troop Jacket on their backs?


Every American ethnic group except modern day Black people has worked towards saving its money towards buying homes and property. Using the equity in those homes as the capital towards building businesses and participating in group economics to keep money flowing into their businesses. Understanding Economic power is the only way to get political power. And political power is how you keep a neighborhood a strong community.


I find it sad that a Mexican, African an Indian or an Arab who has only been in America for less than five years gets this, but dumbass Negroes like Spike Lee born and raised here STILL don’t. They still play the old co-dependent Liberal Blame & Shame game hoping to get some crumbs from the Master’s table instead of taking the resources in their communities and making their own cakes and selling them to the people in their own communities.


Black people are the only people in the world who spend 97% of their money with nonblack businesses and expect to have a say at the table when those businesses make decisions regarding the communities they live in.


Instead of Complaining Spike Lee needs to Do the Right Thing and Shut the fuck up. He had an opportunity to help build a strong Black community back in the 1980s and the 1990s but instead sat on his ass and waited for someone else to do it. If he wants to be mad at someone about the state of his “gentrified” Brooklyn neighborhood he needs to take a look in the mirror at the person who fucked up on the job.