On August 11, 2004, Jay-Z became minority-owner of the New Jersey Nets. With a measly 1.47% to his name, it made no sense why more successful, majority-owners like real estate developer Bruce Ratner included Jay-Z in the dream team that acquired the Nets. Then, as with everything else, truth crushed to earth began to rise. The reason(s) why this famous Brooklynite was chosen started surfacing. Shortly after, Ratner presented his plan to relocate the Nets from East Rutherford, New Jersey, to Brooklyn, New York. And who better to use as the public face for this transaction than the Brooklyn-born Jigga man himself. (Plus, he, and only he, could help put King James in a Nets Jersey!)
So, when Jay-Z took Oprah on a tour around his old neighborhood a couple months back, and some Hip-Hop observers couldn’t keep from salivating over, as they saw it, how far Hip-Hop had come, a few of us were forced to admire from a distance—and with a sense of suspicion. One or two questions had to be answered, we figured:
Why would Oprah want to tour Brooklyn?
What’s in it for Oprah?
What’s in it for Jay-Z?
Who really orchestrated this event? What connection does this ostensibly spontaneous, Hallmark moment have with the ongoing public relations campaign, geared in full-throttle mode, to convince Brooklyn residents that the demolition of sacred, public property is, in fact, in their interest (!), and that protesting the ambitious, $4 billion, 8-million square feet Atlantic Yards Project (AYP) would cause more harm than good?
With the recent onslaught of lawsuits filed against Forest City Ratner Companies, the developing firm at the helm of AYP (most expensive in history), it’s no more secret what role Jay-Z would be asked to play—even as the community pushes back harder and further on what it considers grotesque misuse of eminent domain laws, to serve the indifferent interests of capricious corporations.
Among the many groups against this proposal stands Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), a coalition consisting of 21 community organizations. One of the reasons DDDB is firmly against Ratner’s plans is that at least $1.6 million of the anticipated (though likely to be much higher) $4 billion would be plunged from the public’s purse.
Of the few promises made to Brooklyn residents, most important seemed to be the thousands of units in public housing—to compensate those who would be modestly asked (stick-up fashion) to give up their homes for a sports complex. But, according to BrooklynSpeaks, an advocacy group wary of the proposal, “two thirds of the units in the development will be sold or rented at market rate, and 60% of the affordable units would only be affordable to families making in excess of the Brooklyn median income, which is $35,000.” So, rather than help assuage the crisis of affordable housing, it could “actually accelerate the gentrification and displacement that is already in progress.”
Residents also fear that the plan, expected to include a basketball arena (Barclays Center) with 16 office and residential towers, would only bring more congestion to an already-congested town, clogging up what’s left of Brooklyn’s arteries.
The issue of public housing, however, seems to envelope all other concerns. In 2008, when Bruce Ratner revealed new designs for the Atlantic Yards Project, he again underscored the guarantee of “over 2,250 affordable housing units among the total 6,400 residences at full build-out.” At the time, protesters feared that “given the credit crunch, increased construction costs and the downturn in the real estate market, Forest City will not retain certain key aspects of the project it has promised to deliver.” That was May last year.
Well, a few days ago, The Brooklyn Paper, a community journal, fully corroborated their concerns: “State development officials are drafting a new deal with Bruce Ratner that will give the Atlantic Yards developer a loophole out of the project’s main selling point: thousands of units of affordable housing.” It revealed that new clauses were clandestinely inserted into a Sept. 17 lease proposal which frees Forest City from providing the 2,250 units of affordable housing promised. The provision essentially absolved Ratner from independently, as once agreed, including the housing plans, subjecting it, instead, “to governmental authorities making available … affordable housing subsidies.”
As one who lives in a city where the local library board promised community members last year that the only branch the Black community could call its own was safe from any budget-balancing plans—come what may!—and then proceeded to close it in June this year, I understand wholeheartedly the sense of shock and betrayal Brooklyn folks are starting to feel.
In response to these attempts of everyday folks lifting their voice in courageous chorus against highway robbery, ACORN’s chief organizer said in a statement: “We are, of course, disappointed by the delays brought about by endless litigation, [but] we remain confident that, at the end of the day, Atlantic Yards will mean thousands of new units of affordable rent regulated housing and new home ownership opportunities for working families.”
ACORN, which has partnered with Forest City to ensure the building of affordable living arrangements (thus barring it “from saying anything negative about the project”), is not the only lackey stored in Bruce Ratner’s basement—only to be let out when protesters, especially the Black ones, refuse to lie down, hands tied, and be molested by private firms. Rev. Al Sharpton, Roberta Flack, Jason Kidd and Vince Carter all reside in the basement.
The tragic reality of unkept promises concerning provision of substitute living accommodations in matters of athletic exhibitions is nothing new. Just ask South Africans, or Vancouverians, or Chicagoans. And now: Brooklynites.
On July 28, 2009, BrooklynSpeaks sent a letter to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the agency responsible for approval of property development, expressing concern that the ESDC was prepared to give AYP the go-ahead “without further environmental review… that would allow the public to fully evaluate the new design and phasing of the project.” The letter, which was signed by 17 elected officials, also worried about 7 major “adverse environmental impacts” a project of such magnitude might, and is most likely to, cause.
Two months later, the ESDC gave Forest City the green light, in the name of “thousands of jobs and opportunities for economic growth to downtown Brooklyn”—the same farcical excuse Chicago, a city in the Red, used to sell its unsuccessful bid to bring the Olympics home. Community groups promised, and accordingly delivered, more lawsuits appealing the decision.
Since announcing four years ago, Bruce Ratner’s proposals haven’t escaped enormous setbacks. At every junction, it seems, something seemingly serendipitous has emerged to validate even further the beliefs many residents share that the ground is shifting underneath them—that the wool is being pulled over their eyes. The opposition has grown rapidly, leaving even supporters like New York’s 57th District Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries “highly critical” of its handling—and, more importantly, the hubristic stance taken by Ratner and co. toward those most likely to be affected by it: poor folk. And now, it appears all but inevitable that the Nets would be moving to Newark in preparation for its 2011-2012 Brooklyn debut.
Make no mistake: This is “Negro Removal,” to borrow James Baldwin’s term, presented as “Urban Renewal.” This is nothing but a rehearsal of that classic show avaricious corporations put on whenever resident groups begin taking a stand against gentrification and graft.
But what influence would Jay-Z have on the protesters who refuse to eat the bread crumbs being provided them by Forest City. Would Jay-Z be a shill for Ratner? Would he be asked to restrain his people from raising hell? And what consequences would his participation in this land grab bear on Hip-Hop—itself a product of resistance and grassroots struggle?
Judging from past confessions, Jay-Z believes, to quote Canibus, “the movement in any direction is progression.”
“When I have [a] conversation with Oprah or Bill Maher, 
represent the culture,” he said recently, referring to TV appearances with both well-known media moguls.
But is he really representing the culture of Hip-Hop, or himself—alongside his corporate interests?
There’s a reason A Tribe Called Quest legend Q-Tip recently blasted New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg in a series of “Tweets.” He wrote, one after the other:
NYC Don’t let Bloomberg turn the city into the office for rich folk and kick out the middle class/poor folk.
How [B]loomberg deals with homeless in nyc http://bit.ly/ht6TL
Don’t vote for [B]loomberg if 
love your quality of life
Don’t vote for [B]loomberg if u are a humanitarian.
Referring to the Mayor’s constitution-bending bid for a third-term, he opined: “[Bloomberg’s] manipulation of the law to enable him to run for a 3rd term is an act of Tyranny!”
Q-Tip couldn’t have been more precise in his excoriation of the billionaire Mayor, whose many policies have undermined the lives of poor people—especially Black and Brown ones. The money-minded, cash-centered approaches Mayor Bloomberg addresses his city’s problems with have at their core a universal blight: The humiliation and dehumanization of poor folk. From paying indigent adults to behave mannerly, to rewarding their kids financially for good grades (Commodifying Education), the good Mayor seems to think involvement of money in any matter turns water into wine.
And this is with whom Jay–Z can be seen pallin’ around.
It explains the shameless contempt for young, admiring fans.
It also explains why the Jay-z-endorsed Ace of Spades liquor brand was recently ranked no. 1—worldwide. He wasn’t wrong back in 2001: “I am a hustler, baby; I’ll sell water to a well.” And he isn’t wrong now: “World can’t hold me; too much ambition.”
This ambition, while admirable, can also account for the smugness and sheer egocentrism his last record had no shortage of.
So, we know not all headway into the mainstream means well for Hip-Hop. But that’s the price of the ticket. And as KRS-One put it recently, “you gotta decide which god you’re going to serve. Are you going to serve the Corporate God, or the Cultural God?”
That applies to Jay-Z.
It also applies to Brooklyn natives like Talib Kweli, Mos Def, The GZA, and Papoose, who’ve all managed to maintain a unique musical sound equipped with socially constructive undertones. Until now, the silence has been deafening.
There has been little to no noise—not even a mumbling word!—from any of these esteemed MCs. Perhaps that’s the Jay-Z effect already at work.
Well, how ironic is it that Hip-Hop came to be out of a struggle against land-exploitation, and now, Hip-Hop artists are being advised to remain silent, even as their former neighborhoods are torn apart, leveled, and ravaged, to make room for commercial complexes?
For what does it profit a culture to gain mainstream legitimacy but lose every sector of its soul?
Tolu Olorunda is a social commentator and a columnist for BlackCommentator.com. He can be reached at: Tolu.Olorunda@gmail.com.
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