Black History Month in the United States is not simply a month-long exposition of historical tales highlighting the contributions and achievements of African Americans. In many ways our lives as black Americans have been shaped by striving against those who want us to remain forever subordinate—or even dead. However, this February 2019 has seemed more like “White Supremacy Month” instead of a celebration of blackness.
Spike Lee’s film BlacKkKlansman is up for six Academy Awards at tonight’s ceremony. The categories are Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures; Best Motion Picture of the Year; Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Achievement in Directing; Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role; and Best Achievement in Film Editing.
The New York Times’ film critic and reviewer A.O. Scott closed his critique of the film with this pungent remark: “Maybe not everyone who is white is a racist, but racism is what makes us white. Don’t sleep on this movie.” Film critic Manohla Dargis points out that the film is “very much about the American present — a direct, furious protest against the Trump era.”
Meanwhile, in the real world, our headlines have been filled with controversy over yearbook photos featuring blackface or Klan costumes, and pro-KKK editorials.
Ashley M. Jones wrote “KKK editorial is America's problem, not just Alabama's”:
On Valentine's Day, Howard "Goodloe" Sutton, editor and publisher of the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Alabama, published an editorial calling for the KKK to ride again, to clean up Washington and to clean up Democrats who are raising Alabama taxes, starting war and stopping the draft.
It is not fair to Marengo County -- where Linden is located -- to say that Sutton is their problem, that they should have stopped him, should have silenced him when he called President Barack Obama a Kenyan orphan, when he commented on first lady Michelle Obama's backside, when he called Hillary Clinton a "little fat oinker," when he said black football players were doing what they'd learned 200 years ago (kneeling before white men) when they kneeled during the National Anthem.
Goodloe Sutton and those like him are not Marengo County's problem. Not Alabama's problem. Not the South's problem. He is part of an American problem which has festered and bubbled since before 1776. Since 1526, when the first Africans were stolen and taken to the hell of slavery. The very Constitution Sutton claims "the ignorant" don't understand was originally written to allow men like him to belittle and dehumanize all who weren't white, landowning and male.
Response was quick (thank you, Alabama Sen. Doug Jones):
How many more spewing-off-at-the-mouth, drunken Beckys and Bobs do we have to see reported?
And lest we forget, the KKK isn’t threatening just us black folks.
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Hate Watch tracks the data.
While I was writing this story on Wednesday, I glanced over at my Twitter feed and there was a news story about a white supremacist domestic terrorist arrest:
Of course, the racist right and Trump supporters are now attempting to use their own sick ideological progeny to flip the dialogue and attack us. But it’s not just black folks—Democratic women and the LBGT community have also been targeted:
I think it is time for a refresher course on hate groups, starting with the Ku Klux Klan. So for Black History month, I suggest you read Linda Gordon’s The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition.
An urgent examination into the revived Klan of the 1920s becomes “required reading” for our time (New York Times Book Review).
Extraordinary national acclaim accompanied the publication of award-winning historian Linda Gordon’s disturbing and markedly timely history of the reassembled Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Dramatically challenging our preconceptions of the hooded Klansmen responsible for establishing a Jim Crow racial hierarchy in the 1870s South, this “second Klan” spread in states principally above the Mason-Dixon line by courting xenophobic fears surrounding the flood of immigrant “hordes” landing on American shores. “Part cautionary tale, part expose” (Washington Post), The Second Coming of the KKK “illuminates the surprising scope of the movement” (The New Yorker); the Klan attracted four-to-six-million members through secret rituals, manufactured news stories, and mass “Klonvocations” prior to its collapse in 1926 but not before its potent ideology of intolerance became part and parcel of the American tradition. A “must-read” (Salon) for anyone looking to understand the current moment, The Second Coming of the KKK offers “chilling comparisons to the present day” (New York Review of Books).
For those of you who haven’t seen Spike Lee’s film, or who have but are interested in its source material, read Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime, by Ron Stallworth.
The extraordinary true story and basis for the Academy Award nominated film BlacKkKlansman, written and directed by Spike Lee, produced by Jordan Peele, and starring John David Washington and Adam Driver.
When detective Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, comes across a classified ad in the local paper asking for all those interested in joining the Ku Klux Klan to contact a P.O. box, Detective Stallworth does his job and responds with interest, using his real name while posing as a white man. He figures he’ll receive a few brochures in the mail, maybe even a magazine, and learn more about a growing terrorist threat in his community.
A few weeks later the office phone rings, and the caller asks Ron a question he thought he’d never have to answer, “Would you like to join our cause?” This is 1978, and the KKK is on the rise in the United States. Its Grand Wizard, David Duke, has made a name for himself, appearing on talk shows, and major magazine interviews preaching a “kinder” Klan that wants nothing more than to preserve a heritage, and to restore a nation to its former glory.
Ron answers the caller’s question that night with a yes, launching what is surely one of the most audacious, and incredible undercover investigations in history. Ron recruits his partner Chuck to play the "white" Ron Stallworth, while Stallworth himself conducts all subsequent phone conversations. During the months-long investigation, Stallworth sabotages cross burnings, exposes white supremacists in the military, and even befriends David Duke himself.
Black Klansman is an amazing true story that reads like a crime thriller, and a searing portrait of a divided America and the extraordinary heroes who dare to fight back.
Meet the real Black Klansman, Ron Stallworth:
(transcript)
Spike Lee's new movie "BlacKkKlansman" chronicles the true story of an African American police detective named Ron Stallworth who launched an investigation into the KKK in Colorado by making members think he was a white man during phone conversations. We spoke to the real Ron Stallworth.
Rooting out racism, getting rid of the Klan and other white supremacists of their ilk, and making this country a safe place for those of us who are ‘othered’ isn’t going to happen any time soon.
That day will come faster if all of us make a commitment to push back harder and fight the hate.
I’m wishing Spike Lee good luck tonight, and I’m worried about what hate news I’ll be reading, tomorrow.