"BlackKklansman": valuable resource for the conversation

11/21

Spike Lee's "BlackKklansman"

As BlackKklansman makes it's way from the theaters  to various platforms, it's valuable to take a look at what is a most valuable resource  in our struggle with white privilege and its ongoing power in our national life. As always, Spike Lee knows how to entertain  us even as he seeks to educate, irritate and hopefully instigate.

Based on the true story of Ron Stallworth, the first African American police officer in  Colorado Springs who actually joined the  Klan and developed a relationship with David Duke, there's a number of points worth looking at:

* Set in 1972, it's shocking how the events depicted could just as well be from today.
* Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael)'s description of the wantonness of police violence against black people continues to be tragically accurate.
* The racism Stallworth confronts within the police department continues. Perhaps the most disturbing moment is when Stallworth, as an undercover  officer, is making an arrest of a white female terrorist planting  a bomb, he's taken down and beaten by police who assume he's black criminal until his partner arrives. 
* The Ku Klux Klan included active duty members of the US military
* Stallworth has to wrestle with the feelings of his own community about police.
* Stallworth's Jewish partner, who becomes the physical embodiment of the character Stallworth has created, slowly comes to an awareness that as a Jew, he has "skin in this game" too. 
* Watching the flames of a KKK cross burning fade into the tiki torches of Charlottesville was chilling.
* Equally chilling is after seeing the semi-comical David Duke of the movie, we see today's real David Duke praising President Donald Trump for "speaking the truth" and moving the country in the right direction."

Although some dramatic license has been employed, Lee let's us know that the film is based on some "shonuff fo real shit." There predictably have been numerous ideologically based critiques of this film,  mainly related to presenting a hero who is a police officer and variations of that theme. I'm not really interested in engaging those arguments. Any particular story is its own story and not the whole story. And this story, on it's own, is valuable in giving us rich...and entertaining...material fro reflection and conversation. It's a long road.