50 Cent Cancels Queens Street Fair

NEW YORK — The rapper 50 Cent has canceled a "Family Day" fair he had planned in his old Queens neighborhood amid police concerns about security for the event.

The fair had been planned for Sunday at a school yard in the borough's Jamaica section, blocks from a spot where the rapper was shot and wounded in 2000.

The musician's manager, Chris Lighty, says the event is being postponed while organizers work out new arrangements with police.

Authorities had been worried about whether they would have enough officers on hand to deal with crowds and keep the peace, especially if the rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, performed.

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Information from: New York Post, http://www.nypost.com

Comments

[EmeraldWorld]

08:44 PM on 08/30/2009

What this article fails to state (intentionally, I'm sure) is that the permit for the fair was pulled by the city/police at the last moment. I'm no big fan of 50 Cent, but he clearly wanted to do some good and the city officials/police are playing politics by revoking the permit.

[WasteNJ]

07:19 PM on 08/30/2009

NYC police at it again. They just don't want to deal with it, but meanwhile in Manhattan there's 5 cops on every corner. BS. God forbid somebody wants to do something positive in a poor neighborhood. Think this would happen on east 70th?

[BrotherOrchid]

10:34 PM on 08/29/2009

Black kids deserve better . .. than chump change.

[ksjohnso]

02:56 AM on 08/30/2009

Well said!

[binarystar]

10:04 AM on 08/30/2009

If you're implying that 50 cent is the "chump change" that black kids deserve better than let me put it to you like this - at one point 50 cent was a kid in that neighborhood and he deserved better as well. Unfortunately a lot of times no one is there to give anything better. Now that 50 cent is trying to give back with a harmless family day event for these kids that no one gives a crap about, the city decides to do everything it can to shut it down.

It was a family day event taking place during the day on Sunday that got canceled for no good reason.

So I guess in that sense we do agree - the kids do deserve better.

[indiethink]

04:10 PM on 08/30/2009

Sure ... a "Family Day", made possible by a guy who is the very antithesis of family values. People such as 50 Cent get rich BREAKING UP families, and then gullible people with no standards or pride want to put him on a pedestal when he dangles some feel-good B.S. in front of them. I guess to some people, the end justifies the means. Count me as one black man who doesn't think like that.

There is a political element to all of this as well. Have you noticed that black folks have become "the third rail" of politics, much the way Social Security used to be? What I mean by that is no political figure wants to be seen as doing anything to help black folks because it is a very unpopular thing to do today. Why? I say it's largely because of what we blacks embrace. When we blacks are seen as embracing gangsta rap and the culture that goes with it, it creates the impression that we don't respect ourselves or anyone else -- we only respect the almighty dollar ... er, in this case 50 Cent(s). Then we wonder why we don't get more respect.

The political ramifications to what we have done to ourselves (and allowed to be done to ourselves) over the last 20-30 years are huge, and are only just beginning to come home to roost.

[WasteNJ]

07:25 PM on 08/30/2009

Co-sign, thank you.
Posters, ever been to Queens? People throw festivals, fairs, parades and community events all the time, same in Brooklyn, Harlem, Newark, Jersey City, etc, etc..

Nothing is bad about throwing a family event, doesn't matter who throws it to the kid who gets to win the damn teddy bear. The cops just have to stand there.

Please jump off you high horses.