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    MwatuangiNatelegé Whaley
    2/28/19 12:48pm

    Practically grew up in BK on South 1st since my abuela lived there and my bro and I went to spend time with her every year. The BK now is getting so heavily gentrified and #FFFFFF-washed I have a problem finding all of the shyt I loved as a kid. Even the one C-Town my fam depended on whenever we finally did get a decent amount of money is now a Whole Foods. You got so many gringos moving into our communities and literally calling the cops whenever we had any festivals or celebrations on the weekend.

    Neighborhoods are halting drumming sessions because some wypipo thought the music was too “disruptive” so they’d say drugdealers were out and about when they called 12. People care more about Beckies crying over their failing artisanal mayo businesses than the skyrocketing rent costs with poor treatment from landowners or those infamous moments of mass voter disenfranchisement. I still love Brooklyn. I still celebrate it. But I mourn it now.

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      hntergrenMwatuangi
      2/28/19 1:56pm

      Same man, same.

      The reality though is that the City is perpetually in a state of transition. I think every generation of New Yorkers laments the death of the “New York they knew” in some way. The difference now though, at least to me, is that before, every generation of new comers, regardless of where it is they came from, added something new to the cultural mix of this city.  The midwesterners don’t really bring anything to the table. We don’t need more fucking coffee shops and yoga studios and whole foods...

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      Ms.MoonMwatuangi
      2/28/19 2:14pm

      No lie here. My mom’s uncle lives in a rent controlled apartment, he was sick and in the hospital/rehab and they wanted to evict him because they can get six times the rent for his place in Brooklyn.  He’s been in that apartment since the mid 70's when he moved there from Red Hook (another place that working folks cannot afford now) and the neighborhood where he lives is changing so fast.  

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    whatamithinkingNatelegé Whaley
    2/28/19 6:22pm

    So, we finally get to The People’s Republic of Brooklyn, on the last day of this wicked Black History Month. I guess there’s honor in Brooklyn closing out February, but i’m sensing a conspiracy among some at TheRoot who suffer from Brooklyn envy. lol

    Once you go Brooklyn, you never....Great article, I can almost smell bullfoot soup & johnnycake off the screen. Late 80s thru early 2000s Brooklyn was bubbling with Afrocentrism. I got ‘woke’ in Brooklyn, starting at Medgar Evers (why no props?). Greats like Dr Ben, Dr Clarke, Ivan Van Sertima, Dr Len Jeffries, Prof Smalls, Dr Betty Shabazz, Marimba Ani etc., use to trod thru Caribbean Brooklyn and drop science on us. They brought shifts in consciousness from West Indian to Caribbean to Pan-Africanists to Black Nationalists - they taught us the art of Black self love. So yea, Brooklyn was all that. I swear to God at one time the West Indian Day parade/carnival attracted the largest gathering of black folk in the US, but then that might just be my Brooklyn pride showing itself.

    I do think Mike Tyson merited a mention with his pigeons all over Brownsville. Curtis Mayfield never forgot us - always visiting & performing - given how huge his influence was/is on our music. Then that tragic night at Wingate, Flatbush - still heartbroken over it.

    Shout out to Brooklyn, the People’s Republic, the diaspora’s capital, blackitty black, always in da house no matter where your house is.

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      Kinjawhatamithinking
      3/03/19 12:08am

      I feel the love...nice review of how it used to be, back in the day, I remember when...

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    HowlongwillthisburnerlastNatelegé Whaley
    2/28/19 10:24am

    Caribbeans(?)

    Oh right, now I get it.

    proud of the Caribbean side of my heritage

    You’re one of those people whose uncle’s aunt’s cousin’s grandmother hails from the Caribbean and magically claim you’re one of them. You should be ashamed of yourself. There is no such thing as Caribbeans and people from the Caribbean don’t refer to themselves as that. West Indian is far more appropriate (for the English speaking folk from Jamaica to Trinidad). Those from the French islands generally refer to themselves as Francais and identify more as French than West Indian. I’m sure none of your people from your long Caribbean lineage ever referred to themselves as Caribbeans.

    And unless you pelt stones/fallen mangoes to pick a fresh mango from a tree; jump over neighbour fence to pick an orange or two; go exploring under the bush from morning till sundown; break off a piece of pallet to play cricket in the middle of the road; run all over the neighbourhood with your mother/grandmother in chase with a whip; or go to the beach just because can, you really have no clue about Caribbean life.

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      schneidzHowlongwillthisburnerlast
      2/28/19 10:28am

      pou qui ça ?  haitians dont refer to ourselves as french.

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      MwatuangiHowlongwillthisburnerlast
      2/28/19 6:30pm

      Pretty sure I say I’m Carib all the time. My bond-brother is from Ayiti and never calls himself French. You tried it tho.

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    Goodyear BlackNatelegé Whaley
    2/28/19 9:42am

    You brought back so many memories for me! From going to the African festival at Boys and Girls every year with my mom, to the Fort Greene Day block party every summer, to the Caribbean parade, to just living and breathing all things BROOKLYN. I miss that.

    I also miss fine ass Brooklyn men because there aren’t any men on earth like them.

    I haven’t lived there since ‘93 when I graduated HS but it’s nothing like I remember it now.

    Fuck you, gentrification.

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      KinjaGoodyear Black
      3/03/19 12:14am

      I kno that’s right...gimme 5! Now on the Black hand side! (Insert raised fist here)

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    SparkleGlitterDeathNatelegé Whaley
    2/28/19 12:58pm

    Brooklyn is my favorite Black city. Hand down. 

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      Goodyear BlackSparkleGlitterDeath
      3/04/19 10:41am

      You’d beter know it!

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      Goodyear BlackGoodyear Black
      3/04/19 10:41am

      *better

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