At last night’s Academy Awards ceremony, Spike Lee won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay for the movie BlacKkKlansman. It was the director’s first-ever competitive win, though he has been nominated multiple times and was given an honorary award for his contributions to the industry in 2016.
Lee’s speech was thoughtful and touching, reminding the audience of this historic year, which marks the 400th anniversary of enslaved Africans first being brought to the United States. He praised the black ancestors who came before him and also offered an appreciation of his grandmother, a woman who sacrificed her own financial security to send him to college and film school. At the end of his speech, Lee underscored the importance of the 2020 presidential election.
The 2020 presidential election is around the corner! Let's all mobilize, let's all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let's do the right thing!
These statements apparently aggrieved and insulted Donald Trump, even though Lee never once mentioned him, any candidate, or any political party. However, the egomaniac-in-chief just knew it was about him, calling it a “racist hit.” It bothered him so much that he was up at 6:50 in the morning tweeting about it.
This is almost too easy to make fun of. Someone’s president was seriously up and tweeting first thing about what Spike Lee said (or more accurately, didn’t say) in his Oscar acceptance speech. Notice how Trump insulted Lee’s reading ability, once again quickly defaulting to the same racist tropes he’s used in the past to describe other high-profile black people. He loves to insult the intelligence of black people, which is laughable, since he’s about as well-spoken and smart as a rock. His own staffers have said they can’t give him daily briefing reports because he doesn’t can’t read them and needs shorter briefings with less information and with graphs and charts (read: pictures). So Trump insulting Lee for reading his acceptance speech from a piece of paper is beyond ironic.
Of course, this response is also full of lies. The black unemployment rate is at an all-time low (at 7.8 percent), so that part is true. But there is context that Trump ignores when he claims credit for this. According to FactCheck.org, when Trump took office, the numbers were already at a 10-year low (thanks, Obama!), and they have simply continued their downward trajectory under his administration. At the same time, the organization notes that “the gap between white and black unemployment remains largely unchanged under Trump.” And the labor force participation rate (the percentage of people aged 16 and over who are working or looking for employment) for black Americans is slightly lower on his watch than it had been before he took office.
Trump also has no black senior White House staff (remember the time Kellyanne Conway could only remember the name of Ja’Ron, an assistant who is not actually working in the West Wing?) and has only one black member of his cabinet.
But sure, Donald, keep claiming that you’ve done more for black people than any president ever has (insert eye roll here).
Actually, we can give Trump one thing. It is true that Trump has been the most openly racist president in recent times and the most insulting to black folks. He’s consistently used his platform to call black people lazy, dumb, ungrateful, and racist. He’s advocated police brutality and violence. He’s supported racist NFL owners in not hiring players who protest police violence during the national anthem. He’s called Nazis and Klan members fine people. He’s even insulted black people who were not born here, calling their countries “shitholes.” And of course, he had to try to hijack Spike Lee’s moment and historic win by making it all about himself. So let’s definitely give him credit where credit is due.
It’s still Black History Month, and this one has been a doozy with all the blackface scandals. But several key wins and historic firsts at last night’s Oscars remind us of the ever-present creativity, beauty, and resilience of black Americans. Congratulations to all the winners and to Spike Lee, who was long overdue for an award. He was absolutely right, too. Let’s choose love over hate in 2020, and vote for a leader with the ethics and values we deserve.
To read Lee’s entire acceptance speech, click here.