THE LESS THINGS CHANGE

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

 Robert M. Hutchins

For far too long, Black life in America has this perpetual feeling of a deepened, dark state of dispiritedness.  We wake-up (if we are lucky), climb in & out of the shower then migrate to the kitchen for a jolt of morning coffee. As the morning ritual continues, we turn on the morning news trying to either; avoid, justify, denounce & sometimes perpetuate, how Black people in America are being portrayed & betrayed by the corporate-owned news networks in their desperate attempt to make America white-er again.  The morning continues with a wink at the weather, a dose of celebrity gossip, before finally squeezing OFF on the flat screen’s remote right before Kayne West says something more stupid than his spousal choice. 

The journey continues by traveling over an hour to a job (if we are lucky) that we often hate or tolerate—just to be surrounded by a group of people [that if given a choice] we’d never hang out with voluntarily.  As noon hits, it’s lunch and lattes lazily, clock watching and  desperately awaiting the evening horn to sound.  Before night taps us on our tired shoulders, we try to hang out with or talk to or text the actual people we really love and want to spend time with…, just before tucking a loved one in bed—only to hit repeat for four more days.

At our society’s worse, we are often seen marching on T.V.’s evening news, wiping the tears of the new nightly social injustice.  At our community’s best, we are often cheering for people that abandoned the community five years before their celebrity & elite drugs ever kicked in.  The marches, despite the emotional optics, won’t (independently) change or fix much…, until we put our collective money where our overworked mouths and feet are.  Good luck explaining that "freedom plan" to the loved one that is on a line holding an iPhone, waiting to buy an iPhone, while Tweeting about the long line, online. Sure the “Likes” and the “Tweets” are considered (for some inane reason) the social norm of modern communication, but what are the people saying and who are they saying it to and, more importantly, who’s responding to timelines of extraneous, unfiltered, inconsequential rhetoric?

And, oh by the way, there is a fucking idiot in the White House with the keys to a nuclear bomb!!  If you are still wondering how the Adjective-in-Chief got in the Oval Office, look no further than the Hollywood’s ‘hood' orator, Spike Lee and his newest release BlacKKKlansman.  I feel like Spike’s body of work is becoming so extraordinarily, effortless, that we are taking his vivid, unapologetic, portrayals of black life for granted.  Much like we did to the work of a Nina Simone or a Mos Def, or a Bill Russell or to a lesser degree Donald Glover. 

BlacKKKlansman is one of Spike Lee's best films and it flowed fluently, like a Black Thought freestyle.  This is one of the rare Lee films that didn’t need Spike’s heavy-handed, socio-political thumb prints, as the plot needs no extra seasoning. The dichotomy-famed John David Washington was simply outstanding as the Black man, infiltrating the hate-based Ku Klux Klan.  

Washington got plenty help from the well-balanced cast, led by co-infiltrator, Adam Driver, whose performance was literally and figuratively toe-to-toe with Washington’s.  The insanely dope music cupped your ears between the ignorant oral tsunamis of hate speeches.  

Stars of BlacKKKlansman: JD Washington & Adam Driver 

Somewhat surprisingly, Spike was able to stay out of the way of this storyline that seemed to be pilfered from an old Chappelle Show skit, but far more real, while somehow managing to be equally funny. We can thank the satirical brilliance of Jordan Peele for those incredible captured moments.  
There are long, pin-dropping moments in the film where you can almost hear your theatre mate’s heartbeat, trying to grasp how humans can behave this way.  The gut-wrenching, hate-spewing, anger seemed so outlandishly-extreme that you’ll say to yourself, there is no real life,  industrialized nation that could ever withstand a group of mentally-deranged, lily-white lunatics until we near the end of the film when Spike Lee poetically spins America’s Oval Office chair around…, then the real tears start to flow... if you are lucky. 

1 love,
Ray Lewis