Re: Editorial / Open Letter
Subject: Re: Editorial / Open Letter
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 6/3/10, 15:01
To: Brian Kraft <500emay@gmail.com>

Your first mistake was going to journalism school. Your second mistake was assuming that going to journalism school gave you special insight into anything at all. It didn't. For instance, you compare my article to Michael Richard's rant in which he repeatedly yells the word "nigger" at several black men, presumably because I noted that certain people think it is "genuine Bushwick" to be from Puerto Rico or the Balkans and somehow silly to be from some place like Ohio. In the same e-mail, you imply that there is something unseemly about being an Asian girl in Bushwick. You have a pecking order of ethnic privilege - the privilege to think of one's self as belonging to a certain American locale - and you don't even realize it.

From the fact that you really believe that I consider the "universe" itself to have conspired against me in some minor affair, it is clear that you don't understand my work, and it's not as if my work is particularly difficult to understand. I suggest that you consider the possibility that I am not what you think I am and that your opinion, based on your reading of a few of my articles, is ludicrous.

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Brian Kraft <500emay@gmail.com> wrote:


On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 2:34 AM, Brian Kraft <500emay@gmail.com> wrote:
greetings,
I e-mailed this to your (associate) editor in hopes that he will publish it in order to sort of balance out the tone of your site. To put it bluntly and hope fully not repeat myself too much, your article was completely insensative and does a good job of representing the exact opposite of the mentality that Bushwick/ Brooklyn/ NYC need in general.



An Open Letter to Barrett Brown


Dear Mr. Brown,

I have to take offense at your recent editorial for BushwickBK.com dealing with the status of transplants and their relation to locals, particularly the ones who find it necessary to vent their anger over the class of recent arrivals usurping their native 'hoods through the power of blog. Speaking as part of the transplanted segment myself (4 year Brooklyn resident from OH), and as someone with a Bachelor's degree in Journalism,  I found certain parts of the piece completely irresponsible and needlessly divisive, not to mention coming from a point of view of someone that repeatedly revealed himself to be shamelessly entitled and intolerant of his immediate surroundings.

Even if no Bushwick native were to ever perchance upon this piece (which judging by the comments you received is definitely not the case), it would still be setting an unbelievably shitty standard for even newer arrivals looking for perspective, and makes us other struggling New York arrivals (most of whom are not the authors of published works and pieces for publications such as Vanity Fair * ) look, well, kind of bad.

 
Then again, you have a right to defend the publication you work for from the scurrilous internet hate that plagues message boards across the globe. Though it is interesting to me that say, a Californian Asian girl with a gold pot leaf on her shirt featured in the recent 'Bushwick Chic' column represents an item of interest for those in "fashion" and possessing an "interest in aesthetics", while neighborhood kids sporting "Bye Hater" T-shirts (perhaps shirts that were purchased at a local business of some sort?) represent some sort of unforgivable form of degeneracy.

Which brings me to your second last paragraph, which brought to mind a slightly more toned down version of Michael Richard's onstage meltdown of a few years back, or maybe just a moderately captivating street corner rant. Since some internet connections take a while and I don't want anyone's screen to get frozen clicking around looking for the link to the original column, allow me to post the offending paragraph below:

"For some reason, the city’s editors, producers, and the like are disinclined to (hire Bushwick natives), although this will certainly change if more outlets end up needing people to honk at parked school buses, throw old televisions out of windows, play shitty Top 40 dance music from parked cars at 600 decibels, scream at bodega clerks, avoid branch libraries, give money to Pentecostal preachers, buy t-shirts that say "Hi Hater" on one side and "Bye Hater" on the other and then wear those t-shirts in public, await the Jewish Messiah, worship the Christian Messiah, and play the lottery."

(This is followed by a jab a Bushwick locals, many of whom are struggling immigrants, for not being able to provide decent culinary literature. Classy.)

Uh, Barrett?  It kind of seems like you really, really, hate this place. Why do you live/ write in Bushwick again? Ah, yes- as you helpfully revealed in your 5/5/10 column for this site, 'A Dead Gangster and a Crappy** Bakery, you moved here... "for some reason".

I am not saying this material doesn't have a place- maybe on your personal blog where you moan about bad service you've received at coffee shops, argue points with other Gen-X bloggers, etc. ("chattering?") - but it doesn't seem like it belongs anywhere near the (usually) thoughful BushwickBK.

 I know a lot of Bushwickians, transplants and natives alike, and your solipsistic*** rant captures the feelings of exactly none of them. Perhaps you should stick to your usual lofty targets, such as creationists and cable TV pundits.

Then again, you did get a lot more comments than usual.

- Brian "Jones" Kraft
                              
                                                                                                Bed-Stuy / Bushwick Resident


*the implications of this particular detail representing such an unbelievably hilarious degree of pretension I can't even address it here. I mean, I can't be expected to hold it together knowing that someone who authors material for a publication representing the hallmark of Manhattan bourgeois pretension is whining prissily about internet haters from Bushwick- I'm trying to compose a letter here, after all.

** A 'Crappy Bakery'?  Is nothing good enough for this guy? Dear God, will crappy fucking Bushwick ever gets its act together and just be good enough for Barrett Brown for five fucking minutes?? Tune in next week. (But probably not.)

*** A point which brings to mind the title of one of your previous articles concerning "the universe" conspiring to steal your laptop. Really, Barrett? The entire universe? Not just one guy or something? Or does the entire universe only gets its shit together to conspire against  True / Slant bloggers?




--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302