BlackKKKlansman!

BlacKKKLansman is the movie you thought was a comedy sketch on the Chappelle's Show, but then he'd have to be blind. (It is a brilliant sketch.) Turns out this shit really happened way back in 1979 when a black cop named Ron Stalworth,  among other things joined the Klu Kux Klan by mail order and phoned up David Duke, then Grand Wizard of the Klan. It's a wacky story of perceptions misunderstanding about race, and it's a story that doesn't really let any of us off the hook.  It's a story that  begged to be made into a movie, but what could've become a mindless crime adventure as developed by some, in the hands of Spike Lee becomes a sensitive and compelling fable about racism in America now and then, but mostly now because while some things might change in these United States, racisim it seems will never ever die.

(Topher Grace as David Duke)

The movie does what movies can do best, squash up time and events and give a dramatic power to things which on their own might have less impact emotionally for the witness or viewer as we're commonly called. We are taken into a oddly realistic world of ignorance and hatred where the most stupid ideas are given credence and form the basis for building the self-esteem of miserable people looking to strike back at something which hurt them. Those people often choose those who are easily identifiable and who are less powerful and so comfortable targets. The Klan has ever been about beating up on the weakest to make the weak feel strong and this movie gets that pitiful aspect of this awful organization fully and shows the world. 

(John David Washington as Ron Stalworth and Laura Harrier as Patrice Dumas)

I'm a white man in America, and so will never know what it's like to be black and always under suspicion for some thing or other by those in this culture who are desperate to look for enemies. The powerful use these games to keep order, if not law so that the profits can keep rolling in. Fear and resentment fuel this country in ways that beggar the imagination of those who confront it. Spike Lee made this movie end with the events of Charllotsville, Virginia where soon after the elevation of the idiot-king Trump protesters found the Civil War monuments in their midst unacceptable. Racism is the story of America, whether it's when we momentarily overcome it raise up a man like Barrack Obama, or when we cave in and hand off power to a demagogue like our current "president".

(Charlottesville, Virginia 2017)

We must do better. We must. 

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