yeah, i'm sorry but there is a HUGE difference between malcolm and martin, and the rappers BIG and tupac. they dont even belong in the same sentence together. (and the rumour has always been BIG was partially responsible for the death of tupac. neither lived to be older than 25 years of age.)
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Tupac & Biggie were both gangster rappers that bragged about & advocated the killing of black people. Comparing them to Malcolm & Dr. King is a massive insult, & they definitely don’t deserve to have streets named after them. I am in no way discounting Biggie’s artistic abilities as an MC, but he did not use his powers & talent for the greater good.
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When you want to seem bigger in a "sketchy" neighborhood, you don't walk with your "head down."
You hunch up your shoulders to look taller, stare straight ahead (but letting your eyes travel), and occasionally ball your hand into a fist.
Walking with your head down means you might bump into somebody -- as in fact the diarist did. He was lucky to have found a kindred soul.
But then, maybe there are more kindred souls out there than we think.
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Remind me, where are the streets named for Irving Berlin, Roger's and Hammerstein, and the Gershwin Brothers, New York people with genuine talent who didn't freely bandy about obscenities and that most-denigrated "n" word?
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@MIKEinNYC
And celebrate misogyny? Particularly of African-American women?
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I am hoping that that little stretch of street where people used to sing beneath Irving Berlin's window is named for Mr. Berlin. Richard Rodgers does have a theater named after him.
But you're right: If Tupac and Biggie are our "greatest thinkers," that, along with Donald Trump's presidency, confirms the worst. We are in trouble.
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@MIKEinNYC
You probably haven't noticed what years of segregation has done to form separate cultures in America, and the fact that for years people of color were kept outside of mainstream entertainment and not included in the pool of "New York people with genuine talent" -- like Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hammerstein and the Gershwin Brothers, who yes, are all very talented ...and white.
And that's why Brooklyn is now claiming some of its own.
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