By now we all know how much Spike Lee likes to complain about people whose skin looks like his being mistreated or ignored in other directors’ movies. But is he guilty of doing the same thing to other races? It may not surprise you to learn that some people think so.
According to the Guardian:
Bill Dal Cerro, president of the Italic Institute of America based in Rome, has accused Lee of the prejudices he attributes to Clint Eastwood. “Spike Lee is very talented,” he said. “His points about African-Americans are well taken, but, ironically, he does the same thing to Italians in his films.”
The Italic Institute of America has criticised Lee in the past for his portrayal of Italian-Americans in Do The Right Thing and Jungle Fever, and expressed concern about Miracle at St Anna, Lee’s upcoming second world war drama set in Italy.
Is there a Spike Lee movie with Italians in it that doesn’t depict them as a bunch of angry, racist dimwits? There very well could be, I don’t know. Or should the Italic Institute of America shut their faces?
(By the way, I apologize to all Italians everywhere for the headline. Actually, I apologize to anyone and everyone who can read it.)
Well not unless, you have the same color as his and grew up in New York City. Then, you would know that Spike Lee’s depictions of Italian Americans in relation to people who’s skin color is like ours is on point.
I also love how whites are calling “race” Skin color now to make the whole “race thing seem silly? When did this start and why werent you doing that before? It would have saved the sanity of black folks by 400 years.
Well put.
Do The RIght Thing is perhaps the worst piece of crap excuse for a movie I was ever forced to watch for a college class. It was like someone taking a dump directly into my brain. The only thing I learned from that movie was that Rosie Perez has the absolute nastiest nipples on the planet. They were like dinner plates covered in salami.
So as long as the depiction of whites as racist against blacks is historically accurate, than it’s okay? So then whites being portrayed as racists in New York is okay, but a lack of blacks on say Iwo Jima, in a very segregated military in the 1940’s while historically accurate isn’t okay?
Any person who disparages another person based upon race is a racist. A white who disparages a black for black is a racist; a black who disparages a white for being white is a racist.
I an thoroughly sick and tired of non-whites of getting away with making snotty, snide, hateful comments about whites and then screaming racism if a white person in ever so slightly hints at making a race-based comment.
Spike Lee is a racist hypocrite. Pure and simple.
I’m all for realism in movies, and if it means portraying a group or individual as a racist when they actually are, then fine. I don’t know much about New York because I have only been to Rochester on a weekend trip for a wedding, but I do know a lot of Italian Americans from different parts of the country that are not racist. That said, I thought that Do The Right Thing was a horrible movie on several levels, and when I first saw it years ago, I came away thinking that Spike had a huge chip on his shoulder. In fact, that’s about all I remember regarding this piece of crap movie.
I think Pastafarian makes a great point, though. If Spike Lee wants to tread on the toes of other directors and call them out as racist because they do not portray black people in a way that he approves, then he should look to the way he portrays whites in his movies before he opens his mouth. It works both ways, and his depiction of white people is far more blatantly racist than anyone’s depiction of blacks in modern film. His movies are the reverse equivalent to Song of the South as far as I am concerned.
Let me ask a question. Would anybody here know of his upcoming talkie Miracle at St. Anna if Spike Lee hadn’t opened his mouth and talked about Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers?
So someone uses accusations of racism, and unfair treatment at the hands of white Amerikkka to further his own cause, and financial gain? Pretty cynical thinking there Rock.
Maybe the old saying, when life hands you lemons make lemonade, should be changed to when life hands you lemons, cry racism, and people will give you stuff.
“Well not unless, you have the same color as his and grew up in New York City. Then, you would know that Spike Lee’s depictions of Italian Americans in relation to people who’s skin color is like ours is on point.”
Wait… did you actually write that and NOT see how ridiculous it sounds? So, you’re griping that Italian Americans in NY judge all of you based on the color of your skin? At the same time you’re lumping EVERY single Italian American in NY into the same backward, ignorant, racist pile?
You really don’t see the missteps in logic there? Even if 99 out of 100 people was racist, it’s still wrong of you to judge the 100th person before getting to know them personally. If you fail to make a distinction between individuals of ANY ethnic group, then you’re being just as racist as they are.
That’s just like Spike Lee crying about how all blacks are portrayed as criminals and thugs in films, and then turning around and portraying all the whites in his movies as ignorant racists.
Spike Lee will never ever get one dollar of my hard earned money for any of his crappy, over rated, under acted, piece of toilet paper movies.
Everyone just laugh at his stupidity and move on, nothing to see here….
Who can win the race to the finish line about the fact that whites in Amerikka don’t want to take credit for their pioneering role of racism. Now you can say Spike’s movies are crappy and depict Italians wrongly, but you can not deny that during the time when the movie was done, that it was not accurate and it was based off of the past of whites and the racist atmosphere that was brought to life by there own hands.
Well now that the blood of a people cover your white hands, and the spirits of lynched and oppressed bodies swing from the trees that you planted and use to pick fruit from, you have decided to cry reverse racism. If your kind hadn’t been so greedy and sneaky with your practices then you wouldn’t have to wear the label of racist. Every race of people who have settled in these United States that have had a darker skin tone than your kind have been oppressed socially, financially, and yes the black race had it done mentally and physically.
So if the truth hurts it should, but please do take credit for your inspirational role in racism. Do not try to pass the buck to Spike, come from behind the wall of self-ignorance, come out of the house of denial, and face your true reflection in the mirror of truth.
Slavery proves that your kind is Racist, Jim Crow proves it, Reparations not received proves it, and the fight for Civil Rights proves it. But if Italians want to say that they have been wrongly cited for placing legal businesses in black neighborhoods to run illegal businesses, such as gambling spots, drug houses, call girls (pros and cons), and racketerring operations so be it. Whites and Italians who consider themselves to be white would never have the courage to admit that (mulies, niggas, jiggs, and spooks) should ever talk about how the evils of their racism has placed barriers and roadblocks in all aspects of life minorities.
See every race is given an opportunity to exploit blacks in whatever way they see fit, but when we say something about it, then opinions of whites who have reaped the benefits of the ancestors who were prejudice and racist feel like nobody should harp on it, that we should all just move on and get along.
How could you have the gall or the nerve, not to face your racist history and racist truth.
“Your kind.”
“Slavery proves that your kind is Racist, Jim Crow proves it, Reparations not received proves it, and the fight for Civil Rights proves it.”
The problem with that statement is the problem with this whole issue. You’re lumping all white people into the same pile, and well… that’s racist. My family was kicked out of Ireland after a failed rebellion in 1860 - and we fled to the US. To support his family, my ancestor joined the Irish Brigade of the Union Army, and died fighting to end the injustices of the South.
We never owned slaves, we never supported the system it represented. In fact, we were treated as little better than slaves by the British in our own country before we rebelled and were deported. Then, after coming to America, our people were discriminated against, and exploited by gang politicos with a smattering of indentured servitude. You think only blacks have been discriminated against by the US? EVERY major ethnic group that has had a large influx here has been seen as a threat to the status quo. The Irish and Italians at the turn of the century, then Eastern Europeans and the Chinese, then the Germans and the Japanese, followed by Koreans and Vietnamese, ect.
My family, my ancestors, myself, we don’t owe you a damn thing. I’m really sorry that your ancestors were enslaved, but they and the people who enslaved them are long long dead. To insinuate that all white people owe you something is entitlement at it’s very worst.
“So if the truth hurts it should, but please do take credit for your inspirational role in racism. Do not try to pass the buck to Spike, come from behind the wall of self-ignorance, come out of the house of denial, and face your true reflection in the mirror of truth.”
We may have inspired it, but you’re carrying the torch spectacularly bucko.
Okay, I am so completely tired of hearing the term “reverse racism” There is no such thing. Racism is racism.
All white people look alike too, huh swingingfruit? (Look he even used “Amerikka”) It should have three K’s in there swingeroo. HOOO BABY!
Everyone remember, electing Barack Obama isn’t going to fix any of what you have read in these comments.
“Reparations not received” is not proof of racism. What are reparations going to do? That issue is so complex it would take a book to do it justice. Two small problems for instance, where are the funds going to come from? People like Scott F aren’t going to want a portion of his taxes used or have his taxes increased to fund reparations. And I, a first generation immigrant whose ancestors weren’t enslaved by the United States, is going to want some of that free money because walking down the street, no one can tell my ancestors weren’t American slaves.
And Scott F, if 99 out of a 100 dogs bite people, I’m not going to give them all the chance to bite me so I can be “fair” to the one that doesn’t. If you catch my meaning. That’s not being racist, it’s using common sense and previous experience to judge future encounters, otherwise known as learning.
I have never quite understood the reparations debate. How can anyone possibly know who should receive said reparations. Without records to show that any person is a descendant of someone who had been promised something from the government, there cannot be any oversight to make sure that the reparations are doled out correctly.
So, until the so-called recipients can devise a way to ensure honesty in the program, there will be no program.
The whole reparations thing is absolutely criminal, and impossible to dole out fairly. Besides, why should anyone have to pay for the wrongdoings of their ancestors? And why should anyone be entitled to receive anything based on how their ancestors were treated? Furthermore, as a person of decidedly mixed ancestry, how does one work out reparations when they have ancestors who were slaves and slavers? It’s stupid. It’s entitlement at its worst. A person should be judged as an individual, respected as an individual, not as part of a race.
So what color were the people who sold the slaves to us?
Funnily enough, Kurt, they were black and trying to get rid of rival tribes. Are they racist?
“I also love how whites are calling “race” Skin color”
It’s not just whites using that term. Also, I am an Italian, so is my father, who by the way wouldn’t allow us to listin to rap music because the word n*****. My father hates that word, because it was used to oppress an entire group of people. He doesn’t think it’s okay for Afrians to use it, he sees it as degrading to their culture and to their families who were enslaved and had to fight so hard against oppression. I want you to know what you have said is offensive because it is racist. Just because you are not white does not mean you are not racist.
As for Swingingfruit
“Slavery proves that your kind is Racist”
“Amerikka don’t want to take credit for their pioneering role of racism”
“Well now that the blood of a people cover your white hands, and the spirits of lynched and oppressed bodies swing from the trees that you planted and use to pick fruit from,”
“Every race of people who have settled in these United States that have had a darker skin tone than your kind”
“How could you have the gall or the nerve, not to face your racist history and racist truth.”
Most of what you posted was terribly incorrect. I picked out the most offensive ones here, these to me (and I’m sure others) proves that you are no better than the people you are critizing. To start with, not all white people owned slaves. There were people who were poor and those (believe it or not) who just didn’t believe in owning slaves. Another thing is that you group all white people into the same bunch, saying they are all guilty of the same sins. That is racist.
Slavery doesn’t prove “our kind” (by the way, that is a very racist comment) is racist. Considering the fact that slavery was abolished in the states by a WHITE president and WHITE soliders who fought and died so that you could have the right to call them racist. I’m not saying what happened to blacks in American wasn’t (and isn’t) terrible and distructive, but keep in mind that there were white people fighting for blacks in a time when they didn’t have a right to fight for their freedom.
As for someone who comes off as having a problem with racisim, you support one of the most racist program I’ve ever seen. Reparations. If your great grandfather killed someone, never got caught, should you have go to go jail? Would it be fair to ask you to make up for his actions? Of course not, reparations are no different then asking you to pay for something your great grandparents did. Why should someone who never owned a slave pay someone who was never a slave?
Another thing, how about what is going on in Africa? How about the genocide that happens frequently there between neighbouring tribes? Is that not a form of racisim? Or the fact that there is still a major problem with slavery world wide. It’s not white people selling Africans, Asians or other Europeans. They are selling their own people.
Look at it this way, racism has been happening since the dawn of time. It’s like prostituion, it will always be around. I honestly thing it will never leave. However, slamming someone for being racist with racist comments does nothing to improve the situation. What Spike Lee said is wrong, he is trying to use racism to make money on his movies and that is a terrible thing to do. I honestly believe he only made these comments to get into the press so people would know about his movie, exploiting his own people to get asses into seats.
Sweetcandy, you hit the nail on the head with your comments and just about says it all. Should people be held responsible for the sins of their grandfathers? Even though it was a small percentage of whites as a whole who owned slaves, they were the weathy plantation owners. And to call all whites racist is to spit in faces of those who gave their lives and own freedom to help free slaves, whether it was the soldier or whether it was the family helping free the the slaves through the underground railroad. Racism is racism and racism is wrong.