Following an extended screening of Spike Lee's new film "Chiraq" a heated exchange occurs between Spike and Umi Selah during a questions and answer session. The exchange brought the seldom told history of the systematic destruction of working-class and poor African American communities to the forefront of discussion. Ultimate, Umi Selah was looking to halt historical discourse and acceptance of the black ghetto's existence solely becaue of the "cultural behaviors" of black and brown people. Just as I, Umi Selah looks to expose the conscious efforts of our profession to absolve the most powerful shapers of society, architects, urban planners and social scientists from their responsibilities.
Read MoreLecture Video Editing
Its time for me to do my best impersonation of Spike Lee as I begin to edit a few videos captured by my photographer at BMB Graphic of my Hip Hop Inspired Architecture lecture this past week at University of Detroit Mercy.
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Spike Lee rips NYC Gentrification - It's Happening Now, in Detroit.
"I grew up here in New York. It's changed," Lee said at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, an art, design, and architecture school. "And 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 motherfucking 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."
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