Thank you for your response Evan. I appreciate the time and consideration you gave to my work. I first want to say, this is to date the only significant argument I’ve seen in support of the decision to date — however, I believe your response further strengthens the argument I presented and the events that came with it. I think you’re choosing to interpret these events in a more positive light, which is your prerogative, but that does not make what I wrote “false” or “made up” or in any way unusual. You are free to disagree with my position, but I’ll explain why, with further evidence, that I came to my conclusion.
First, here’s the simple facts:
— The Barclays Center displaced people from their rightful homes. Even if it bought the area more money (it didn’t), it was immoral and a dismal example of gentrification, even by American standards.
— The NFL is mostly ran by racists and Trump supporters. Of his own free mind and will, Jay reiterated many of their stances on Colin Kaepernick.
— He ignored the work, words, and actions of Kaepernick in addition to Eric Reid, Kenny Stills, and several others within and outside of football.
— His support of Promise directly supports and allows him to benefit from the system of police brutality and misconduct in the criminal justice system that these protests are designed to work against.
— Jay Z has helped others — financially, mostly people he personally knows or works with. That is not the same as being an activist or being for social justice.
Replying to your own words, I’ll explain further.
One of your sentences really stuck out for me: “I think you get lost in how badly it sounds rather than intention.”
I think this says it all. Neither you nor I can know Jay’s intentions, but he chose to make multiple statements to both the WSJ that I cited and an extended press conference with Roger Goodell where he reiterated the sentiments over and over I addressed in what I wrote. That’s at minimum two opportunities to state what his intentions were, so that’s what I worked with. His actions so far in regards to this? Cashing in on another business deal, claiming that he can’t do anything about working with racists (an argument that cops and district attorneys make), and undermining another black person and the NFL’s most notable black opponent, who he once promoted. Sounds like a sell out to me.
“I concede that his phrasing has a “shut up and play” sound to it, but I maintain that it is misinterpreted.”
Again, you are free to that interpretation. I, along with the cited Charles Robinson, and additionally Jemele Hill and Nessa Diab, among others, have explained how the rhetoric he chose here contradicts Hov’s own past statements, and are a reiteration of the NFL’s words. I can’t make you see that, but that’s not of my imagination. Multiple times, Jay Z called out or appeared to call out the NFL, and he has since gone back on those sentiments. For example, he only now clarifies that his suggestion to Travis Scott not to play the Super Bowl had nothing to do with Kaepernick — but he was okay with that ‘misinterpretation’ being perpetuated for over 6 months, and only now he clarifies it? He also allowed the perception that he turned down the Super Bowl in support of Kaepernick to be publicized without clarifying it until now. Jay benefits from ‘misinterpretations’ when it suits him, and he knows how to clarify things when he wants.
“ Your first hypothesis…is weak because it implies that Kaepernick is the only face in social justice/activism.”
Kaepernick is not the only social activist, correct. In fact, I stated this in a statement that you in part, highlighted: “This movement did not begin nor will it end with Kaepernick, he is simply considered its largest public figure.” This is in part due to the awareness bought to him by Jay-Z, as you pointed out yourself. If Jay plans to make direct change by being in “a position to directly communicate” with the NFL, he could have done that WITHOUT specifically saying that “we’re” “past kneeling” and suggesting ‘it’s time’ to ‘maybe move his activism off the field’. Hov’s words suggest he is to speak for activists or victims of police brutality, and again ignores that Kaepernick has been doing this work off the field — as well as on it — since 2016 with the #10For10 and Know Your Rights camp.
“The Barclays Center, though displaced Brooklyn residents, will bring the city far more money than the housing developments could have… you brought up a project that brought millions and millions of dollars to Brooklyn”
- This is false. The money it cost to tear down several buildings, clear them out, build several new structures including a 9 figure arena, and moving thousands of people out of the area has cost Brooklyn several million dollars.
- Bringing more money to the area (which you’ll see below, the Barclays didn’t) does not make up or justify the displacement of those that lived in the area for decades. This is a common misnomer that is shared by other proponents of eminent domain and gentrification.
First, The Atlantic Yards Project which led to the building of the Barclays is widely viewed as a failure — by many, best put in this example from The Village Voice. By 2016, the Barclays Center had bought in so much of a deficit that they basically paid the Islanders to move to Brooklyn so the Arena could meet its desired minimum amount of booked events, and now The Post reports that the Barclays/Nets will not gain revenue from the team after 2019, 3+ years after paying them $53 Mil and shelling out much more to manage their logistics as an incentive to play in Brooklyn. After losing somewhere between $5 and $9 mil in profits in 2015, the Atlantic Yards is no more, “rebranded” as the Pacific Park project — and they have yet to even begin building the promised skyscrapers, affordable housing, and public spaces they committed to, all made possible due to the free money in tax incentives and backdoor sales (north of $200 Million) the City of New York under Bloomberg gave them. They’ve yet to pay off most of their original partners — in fact, the group bought on 3 more investing firms in 2018, despite owing money to pretty much everyone else they’ve gone into business with already. Originally claiming most of the work could be done by 2020, they now claim their new ‘projection’ date of completion will be 2035.
Much of the surrounding area is still vacant and new businesses are just as likely, if not more, to move in around any other part of Brooklyn than in the Barclays’ zip code —meanwhile, the housing that is still around the area has increased its rent more than any other area in the city, with less than 20% rent controlled, meaning they’ll likely continue to go up, and almost none of it is under the city’s affordable housing project. All of this is what encouraged the current owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, to sell the rest of his stake in the Nets and the stadium just this week; the basketball team (which was dismal compared to the rest of the league in 2012) turned out to be the only profitable part of the business deal he got from Jay Z and Bruce Ratner, who bailed ship almost immediately after the deal. The firm that brokered the Barclays deal? Just got bought out and their debts redistributed to more investors. Harper’s called it a “ scam … bankrolled with hundreds of millions in public funding”. Fansided called the arena “ The Factory of Sadness. The Pit of Misery. Sports Jail….” among other things. Even Gov. Cuomo is distancing himself and encouraging the Islanders to move back to Long Island. Amazon was offered plots in the area for HQ2 before Long Island City, Queens, and they turned away from it. The building is literally rusting the rest of the block. This entire project is considered a how-not-to in business, development, and public architecture.
At the end of the day, the arena hasn’t brought in more money to the area, hasn’t improved the culture of Brooklyn in any way, isn’t bigger, better or more booked than the other venues in town, and just was not necessary. Trust this Brooklynite: its only major accomplishment was kicking several people out the area and driving up the rent — a median $3,000/month for downtown, free to rise as much as it pleases there and in of the surrounding residences. It was in no way a win for anybody other than the rich.
“Promise is an incarceration alternative that keeps parolees who cannot afford bail out of jail….an investment that will allow people to return home from incarceration sooner as reasons why Jay does not truly care about social justice and reform.”
For starters, “Promise is a technology/software design company that sells apps that help government agencies track people who are released from jail under the First Step Act” — the very law Trump, Kanye and Kim K have been championing. This technologyaids law enforcement in the surveillance and restriction of rights of anybody that go through the criminal justice system, regardless of their innocence or criminal status. This is merely a surveillance rendition of the crime bills championed in the 90s — the government can instead track every activity of any person released from jail (even those exonerated, not convicted of felonies, or even on parole) as much as they please — as the Kalief Browder Story explained, numerous people go through the jail system and are stuck in the recurring cycle of regardless of innocence. You can be exonerated, pardoned, or even granted clemency, in Cyntonia Brown’s case — and still placed on parole, meaning you are restricted and forced to subject to police questioning, search and arrest, at any time, among other infringements that parolees face. As Jay himself said, “$9 billion is wasted incarcerating people who have not been convicted” — so instead of working to dismantle the seriously flawed justice system and the disproportionate sentencing of people (not just incarceration), he moved himself in position to earn some of that “wasted” money. People, especially those exonerated or not convicted, should not be subjected to surveillance available on devices operated by the government and available on private sector servers
Furthermore, helping to provide the tools and technology to police, especially in the current age where thousands are dying at the hands of corrupt systems — 570 so far this year at the hand of the police alone — is not in any way ‘reforming’ the system. In fact, nothing the app offers does anything to lower recidivism. It just offers parolees a public list of already available programs that are limited in resources and poorly managed, but offers everything to law enforcement — As written at SandraRose.com: “…instead of a county paying to incarcerate someone simply because they can’t afford to post bail, the government can pay Promise to ‘monitor compliance with court orders and better keep tabs on people…’ In other words, [PROMISE] and Jay-Z advocate for releasing … criminals back onto the streets so Promise can profit by monitoring them.”
Jay has the resources to provide to bail funds, lawyers, other causes actually working to reduce and end the injustices within the system instead, he gives directly to the perpetrators of police brutality and mass incarceration. That’s no better than Amazon’s support of ICE with its technology. He hired Meek Mill and 21 Savage additional lawyers, to his credit, but those are two of his associates who already had resources and representation, plus credit should also be given to organizers gave with days of consistent protesting and in 21’s case, disruption of ICE operations. In fact, if Jay and his app had his way, the police would be tracking every picture and text 21 and Meek would have on their phones at this moment, even though they were “released”. This letter from Andrea Armstrong in The Appeal can further to explain why the PROMISE investment is contradictory.
“Kaepernick’s protest is in every way politically motivated because it seeks a change in legislation related to the governance of this country.”
It’s important to recognize: just because something has political implications does not mean it is politically motivated. Kaepernick has not gone to Congress, lobbied for a specific bill, or endorsed a specific candidate for office once. As I wrote, the issues of police brutality do not side with any specific side or member in the political arena. Change can occur within it, but that’s unlikely to happen under America’s current structure — they did just past the previously mentioned, flawed FIRST Act. Instead, Kaepernick has created and funded the Your Rights Camps — working to educate youth and teach them how to protect themselves from corrupt law enforcement, rather than depending on the legislature or courts to do anything. Law enforcement have (and continue to break the law in defiance of) judicial and executive rulings —for example, the NYPD banning the chokehold that was performed on Eric Garner did not help hold those officers accountable to any form of discipline — so changes in those areas alone do not solve the issues. Police brutality and misconduct is a human rights issue, happening around the world but especially to black and brown youth in this country and disproportionately causing their death or imprisonment. If you find a ‘political motivation’ in fighting that like the NFL does, I have to question if you truly understand the severity of the issue here.
You say that Jay couldn’t have sold black people out before because he “has been working to keep money in the black community for years…jumpstarting the careers of dozens of producers and artists, to creating businesses and jobs to spread wealth…”
These two things are not mutually exclusive. You can help people at one time, and still have sold them out before or at a later time. Also, funding the careers of other musicians and their ventures is nice, but it is very different from “keep[ing] money in the black community” — the corporations that most music business goes through are still predominantly white — even for black artists or black labels. Specifically highlighting his giving to Meek Mill, who is worth $14 million, continues to employ my point that much of Jay’s work is in benefit to himself and/or his already well-off associates.
“It seems unfair to insinuate Jay does not care about the racial injustices and employs ‘woke capitalism ’— which I should point out is another made up term without definition.”
Woke capitalism definitely is a real term, no matter how much you don’t like it. Just because a term is new to you does not mean it’s made up. The New York Times, among others, has written on it. Here’s a further explanation of what it is. Even if a term is not in a dictionary yet, it doesn’t mean it’s just ‘made up’, every word has to be ‘made up’ at some point. I’ll define it here in layman’s terms:
Woke — v. “being aware of and attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)” / Basically, accessing lesser known knowledge of something. Being derived from African American vernacular, this was considered made up for a long time, too.
Capitalism — n. “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods” / Basically, a free market where the business owners reign. Most times, those ‘owners’ are a conglomerate of rich people.
Woke Capitalism — n. Private or corporate ownership of capital goods, bring awareness and attention to important facts and issues (especially of racial and social justice) / Basically, brands and businesses (and their wealthy owners) use social issues plaguing the majority to market their goods in an effort to be woke.
Furthermore, my main point with the sentence in which I mention woke capitalism is that brands like the NFL, (and to be fair, Nike too…and Pepsi…and Gillette…and on and on) are co-opting the work done by real activism by taking credit or misrepresenting the actual mission of these campaigns. Jay Z stating that he “thinks we’re past kneeling” is not his assertion to make, as it is not the NFL, and as police brutality continues to plague this country, we are evidently not ‘past’ the issue that the kneeling bought awareness to. Also, as his employer, the NFL should not have promoted restrictions on Kaepernick’s right to self-expression by telling him how to protest, and their continual to do so even after settling their collusion lawsuit makes it more evident that they are still trying to restrict that right. Kaep can protest however he sees fit, and there’s no business deal, live show, statement, or advertising campaign or any other action that Hov (or anyone else) can make that will suddenly make it okay for the NFL to punish him for exercising that right.
You further claim that Jay has helped to bring “generational wealth” for several people. In the course of making money for himself, he has made money for other people, but that’s far from the same thing — as Forbes has explained before, generational wealth is far from a sure thing even in his own family: “ there is a 90% change that Jay-Z’s “wealth” will be gone by the time Blue Ivy’s kids are adults.” Besides, generational wealth depends on one thing: wealth. Meaning, the people involved already have to have wealth, and helping other rich people further accumulate their wealth is not inherently a positive thing for all black people as a society, no matter how often he champions it in a rap song. “Achieving true “black excellency” should mean not only achieving what other ultra-high-net-worth families have achieved, but also succeeding where they have failed.” If this was supposed to be proof that he has done so much for black people, it falls spectacularly short, especially if you compare to other rich black people who could make that argument — Robert F. Smith paying off Morehouse students’ college debts and launching 1,000 paid internships for students in demographics underrepresented in STEM fields, or Akon who provides solar energy to millions of people across the African continent — giving some friends some money for investments and more albums is just not the same. Jay has made some significant charitable contributions as of late, mostly in conjuction with his wife — but that came in the last 3–5 years, after he was criticized by Harry Belafonte and then claimed “my prescence is charity” on “Nickels & Dimes”.
You close by stating that you “find it immature to judge so harshly this early. Especially when you leave out all the good things the man has done for our community” — in review, I understand the position you have. I don’t think Jay Z is a bad person, but again, the facts and his actions to date make it clear for me that 99% of the time, he solely has his own interests in heart. I mean, he shot his own brother. I don’t know how much clearer it can be.
Jay’s now gotten an NFL check, power from them to pick and choose who performs for the NFL, and more direct influence over their brand — and so far, used that to undermine Kaepernick and claim his work need to be moved on from. He happily took money from an all-white owned business filled with racist owners and Trump supporters — Bob McNair, Jerry Richardson, Jerry Jones, Trump’s current ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson, Shahid Khan, Dan Snyder (who runs a damn team still using Indigenous caricatures!), the aforementioned Stephen Ross, on and on, all unsurprisingly at the top of all Trump donation lists. I don’t know how often you walk into an organization run by open racists and share their same stances on another black person, but that’s what happened here. Remember, this is the same brand that since her controversial performance in 2016, they intentionally left Beyoncé off their list of notable Super Bowl performers, even though she’s been part of it4 times. All of this further proves that he has, and will continue to, push their rhetoric for his benefit.
“ Most of your points seem to ignore major aspects like…his history using platform and position to spread wealth so others can join him at the top…”
Again, this is the problem. You, too, look at this as an opportunity for Jay to help him and other people get rich, but wealth isn’t going to stop police brutality, is not going to save our youth, and him getting more money for himself will not help his reputation. You’re right — I don’t see many positives or benefits of a rich black man openly taking money to help out racists. If that’s not a problem for you, then I don’t think my article was the problem. I hope I addressed those major aspects I apparently missed, and best in your writing career.
