Discovered via Google Alerts, and added to my Brooklyn blogroll a few minutes ago: The Real Flatbush, a blog “for Non-pretentious people who live in Flatbush.”
From yesterday’s opening post:
It seems that there has been a number of blogs pertaining to my neck of the woods lately. There is a disturbing trend with all these blogs. … They all seem to want to “change” Flatbush.
– Chief Joseph, Dan, The Real Flatbush
Dan identifies race-baiting in the Ditmas Park Blog in “a number of Micro-aggressive messages pertaining to Blacks living in the area.” Dan has more to say about white folk moving to Flatbush:
So I saw this chinese restaurent on Cortelyou road and Rugby Road called New Neighbor. They had a new neighbor special and a brand new cheesy OPEN sign. New furniture. I’ve been to this take out place before our fair skin brethen started to move in. … I’ve never seen cheap chinese food take out places going out of there way to look presentable. I guess all you need are a few lighter skin priviledge people to be treated like a human being. … You gotta love this brand of racism.
– New Neighbor
That would be New Neighbor Kitchen at 1404 Cortelyou Road.
A New York times story about a women from New Orleans who had a great career. She is now living on hard times. I wonder if something like that could ever happen to our new neighbors of lighter persuation at Flatbush.
– Sad Story
As one of Dan’s new, melanin-challenged neighbors I’m curious to see how this develops.
It does not require many words to speak the truth. – Chief Joseph
With only nine posts on his blog he has used half of them to comment on the color of newcomers to the neighborhood.
Certainly Ditmas Park Blog has caused some controversy by some of the topics they have posted but the disturbing posts are from commentators not the bloggers themselves.
We live in the most diverse neighborhood in America seeing a blog that purports to be the “Real Flatbush” that immediately uses the race card is not a good sign.
This really saddens me. I am about to move to West Midwood after several years living harmoniously with my neighbors in Fort Greene, and I really hope this blogger is just a freak and not representative of Flatbush residents overall. Also it’s worth noting that the owner of the home I’m buying is African American and she is going to make a lot of money selling her house to me. Good for her. Can’t we all just get along?
anon 8:14: I’m ambivalent. The intent of the blog is ambiguous. I’m not taking any of it at face value. “Dan” chose to launch this blog anonymously. It’s plausible to me that Dan is white, and the blog is itself, with its fractured spelling, an attempt at race-baiting. I decided to highlight the blog to bring attention to it, in the hope that we’ll learn more in time.
bklyngirl: I’ve only lived in Flatbush three years, so I’m still getting to know neighbors near and far. I haven’t found my neighbors to share the sentiments expressed in the blog. The issues raised, such as access to housing and services and economic displacement, are real and present. We need to find ways to address them.
As an impartial, non-New Yorker, it sounds to me like “Dan” jus’ don’t like strangers around “these parts”…suddenly I want to drink whiskey…chewin’ tobacco, anyone?