Why is it that when it comes to hip hop, many people choose to judge it solely on what they see on TV, read in the newspapers and hear on the radio? How many art forms can someone truly understand only by these three mediums? NONE! Art, just like life, is full of different cultures, experiences, viewpoints and opinions. People like you, Tiger and Joe don’t seem to have any desire to understand this.

Racism comes from 3 things: ignorance, fear, and a lack of desire to understand someone else’s experience as valid and human. The three of you have shown all these parts in your statements. That’s why you all were labled racist. Not because your opinions were different.

If you or anyone wants to learn more about hip hop, start with some reading material. There is a huge body of literature on hip hop culture, written by academics who have taught at many major universities. One of my favorites is -Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, by Jeff Chang. If you’re really sincere about learning something new, start there.

Our only complaint was, why did the 84th precinct suddenly have enough police officers to spare to put three cops on every corner in DUMBO during the Hip-Hop festival but can’t seem to spare the police man power dollars in the budget to give us enough police presence everyday when our cars are getting their windows smashed, there are a series of muggings in the area and our businesses are getting robbed? This seemed to be a racist statement on the part of the precinct that the festival would invariably cause trouble. I understand that large outdoor events require extra protection, but we did not even see this much police presence during the 4th of July holiday and we live right near the park. The next time there are reports of muggings, etc., in the area I hope we don’t get the excuse that the 84th precinct is stretched too thin to patrol DUMBO and we get that ridiculous police tower instead of the show of force of police presence that was here in the area during the Hip-Hop festival.

I would place hip-hop in contention with Elizabethan theater for offering the greatest evolution in English since William the Conqueror. The Bard and his ilk were considered low art at their time but posterity honored their creative use and invention of language. Hip-hop may or may not speak to universal humanity, but it is crafts with language like no music form has before. And that is art: creating, evolving, infusing. And DUMBO is Brooklyn’s nexus of art. Q.E.D.

There are a few very important points to be made here:

1) The festival is the BROOKLYN Hip-Hop festival. Not the all of Brooklyn but Dumbo hip-hop festival so when people make statements like “I suggest holding it in a neighborhood that is perhaps more Hip Hop friendly” that really does smack of a racist comment. How do you determine if a neighborhood is “more Hip Hop friendly”?

2) the park is called Empire Fulton Ferry STATE PARK. It’s not your backyard.

3) “I don’t know anyone (of my circle of neighbors and friends) in the neighborhood who is planning to attend.”

That statement is pretty indicative of your state of mind. Thankfully, the world doesn’t revolve around you and your friends and neighbors. Incidentally, do you sound off on the internet about every event you and your friends will not be attending? I’m guessing that answer is no so in that case you really should ask yourself why this is such a big deal for you.

I know people that lived in DUMBO 15 years ago that didn’t want a bunch of elitist snob douchebags moving in and trying to dictate what belongs in DUMBO and what doesn’t.