Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood 2019 – SNL
ONN – Mr. Robinson returns to explain how a lot has changed since the last visit to his neighborhood.
Famed comedian and former Saturday Night Live Star Eddie Murphy came back to host the show after an absence that spanned 30 years. The result was the funniest Saturday Night Live Show many have seen in a long, long time, and drew back people who, as one put it on Facebook, “had not watched a full 90 minutes of the broadcast since he left.” (And the Christmas SNL episode, which featured Murphy with Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin, Larry David, Maya Rudolph, Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen and Rachel Dratch, gave Saturday Night Live its best ratings in two years, or since May 13th, 2017, when Melissa McCarthy was the SNL host.)
Eddie Murphy brought back many of the famous characters he created while on SNL, including “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood”.
“Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” was originally a take on “Mr. Roogers’ Neighborhood” except that Mr. Robinson was black and talked about many of the activities that someone poor and African American had to do just to get by in their own neighborhood.
Well, this new version of “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” repeated that pattern and in doing so, focused on gentrification. What Murphy said in “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” could easily apply to Oakland: ‘Word of the Day: Squatters Rights’, points to an active story involving Moms4Housing.
In the Saturday Night Live sketch, Eddie Murphy as Mr. Robinson explained that his neighborhood has changed in recent years.
“So much has changed since we last spent some time together,” Murphy said in the sketch. “My neighborhood has gone through so much. It has gone through something called gentrification. Can you say that? It’s like a magic trick. White people pay a lot of money and then poof! All the black people are gone. But where do they go, boys and girls? Back to where they come from, of course: Atlanta. Now it’s just me by myself. You’re all probably wondering how Mr. Robinson can afford to live in this neighborhood. That’s the word of the day: squatters rights. It’s like finders keepers but for other people’s houses.”
That exactly applies to the Oakland Moms4Housing story. There, Moms4Housing had Oakland-based black homeless mothers take over a home that was purchased by Wedgewood Properties. The organization recently won a stay of eviction in court, but Wedgewood Properties says they’re delaying the inevitable. (Update: Oakland “Moms For Housing” Squatters Urged to Leave Voluntarily By Non-Profit Shelter 37, Wedgewood Properties)
Maybe Eddie Murphy can step in and buy the homes for Moms4Housing? Why not? After all, the City of Oakland’s not doing anything to help.
Stay tuned.
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