Spike Lee Says, Harlem is No Longer the Black Capital. Brooklyn is.

Director Spike Lee, a backer of Barack Obama, called Harlem leaders "fuddy duddies" for supporting Hillary Clinton.

"We're not having it no more!" he said, in comments reported by NPR.

The legend-in-his-own-time filmmaker - and native Brooklynite - said that "these old fuddy duddies" may have endorsed Clinton, but Harlem is no longer the capital of black power that it once was.

Brooklyn, which has more blacks than any other place in New York - or the country, for that matter - is increasingly important, he said.

Among the Harlem leaders pushing Hillary Clinton are Congressman Charlie Rangel and former Mayor David Dinkins, though one of the biggest Obama boosters and campaign leaders has been Harlemite State Sen. Bill Perkins.

Apparently accepting, in theory at least, Lee's notion that Brooklyn is replacing Harlem as the Black capital, NPR pointed out that Central Brooklyn is made up of hundreds of thousands of Black people from the Caribbean and Africa; and they are among the strongest of Obama's supporters.

NPR quotes Brookklyn State Asseblyman Hakeemn Jeffries, who says Obama represents a new way of being and thinking that reflects what is happening in Brooklyn.

"When I first ran for office, some people suggested that someone with the name 'Hakeem Jeffries' could never get elected and when I saw someone with the name 'Barack Obama' get elected to the U.S. Senate, it certainly inspired me."

[Click here to hear Lee dicussing race and politics with NPR.] 

Comments

[Ron]

i saw that elinor tatum of the amsterdam also made that same point recently. very relevant. i wonder if he consciously stayed away. maybe there was some tacit agreement.

then again, he understandaby has been focusing on widening his appeal, to other groups that have some open-mindedness toward him.

Ron

[harlem B]

Obama did not make a significant presence in Harlem. Maybe he would have pulled stronger here if he did more campaigning here.

[Ron]

There are many undocumented in Brooklyn, for certain, but there are also many, many longtime first generation Black immigrants and they are transforming Central Brooklyn. The civil servants with mta, in municipal offices, etc.
--Ron

[ONEREADER]

Brooklyn may have more Black, but how many are documented? if they are not, it erodes the political power because the can't vote and make their voices heard.