Spike Lee has come under fire this week for comments he made in a seven minute rant where he complained about the scourge white mothers pushing their babies in strollers without fear and “mother f*cking hipsters” moving into black neighborhoods in New York City. On MSNBC Saturday, former RNC Chair Michael Steele was part of a panel discussing the controversy and praised Lee’s comments, saying “Bravo!”
As John McWhorter wrote for Time magazine:
But on gentrification Lee doesn’t have time for making sense or trying to, despite the nuance he so brilliantly displays in his films. His comments are instead a tantrum, and an ugly one. What’s really bothering Lee is that he doesn’t like seeing his old neighborhood full of white people.
To that Michael Steele says “it’s about time.”
“It’s a very legitimate argument,” argues Steele. “We owe it to ourselves to invest first in these communities so you don’t have this issue of whites coming in.”
He goes on to say that black people should have “our own level of gentrification of folks who look like us.”