If you didn’t need any other convincing that life can through curveballs and some stories are almost too unbelievable to tell, then make sure you watch Spike Lee’s new film, BlacKkKlansman. It doesn’t only just tell the almost ridiculously amazing story of Ron Stallworth and how he infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan as a Black police officer in the late 1970s, but it connects today’s events as a second thought.
Let’s Back Up
Let’s take it back. The KKK were recruiting people and still believing people of color were taking over the country by basically being accepted. Blacks and Latinos were in commercials, in newspapers, and media outlets that were broadcast into every home. To a White supremacist, this meant the end of America as they knew it; change is difficult for these people. And in 1979, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), a rookie cop in Colorado Springs who is stuck down in records (and sick of it) applies for a detective position.
Once granted, he takes it upon himself to call a number to the KKK he sees as a recruiting tool in a local newspaper. He speaks to the regional office and spontaneously schedules an appointment. Obviously, as a Black man, this wasn’t going to a productive meeting. So, he states his case to his superior officer and gets his Jewish American cop officer to play him in person. So, Ron does the phone work and Officer Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) is the face to the voice.
The Growth
The story begins to grow as they work together to infiltrate the Klan and even get as far as meeting David Duke, (Topher Grace)the Grand Dragon to the KKK during the initiation process. There were close-calls and situations that could’ve gone south very quickly for Ron and Flip. Now, this movie states early on it’s some “for real, for real shit” but Spike took many liberties from Ron Stallworth’s actual memoir where this movie was based. So, take it with a grain of salt with such sideline stories like Patrice (Laura Harrier) being harassed by fellow cop, Landers; although that happened a LOT and still does.
The story takes on a life of its own as the infiltration takes place. And from Ron’s first undercover case as a detective to watch former Black Panther Kwame Ture formerly Stokely Carmichael’s speech at a local college to dating Patrice, you can see the inner struggle between the character as a cop and a Black man. He believes in Black empowerment but is dating a Black revolutionary who can’t know he’s a cop. It’s something many Black people can relate to as we lead dual lives in a White world trying to find a balance.
In addition to the madcap adventures between one crazy KKK member trying to see if Flip is Jewish or not to the same crazy KKK member knocking on the actual Ron Stallworth’s door expecting the White Stallworth – leads to some funny interactions.
The Pain
But the most heart-wrenching part of the movie is the introduction of Harry Belafonte’s character, Jerome Turner, as he explained in details the extreme brutal lynching of real-life Jesse Washington. Belafonte’s weathered voice during the scene just added to the emotion behind the early 1900 murder. It puts the country’s history and unresolved, closed-discussion of racial animosity into perspective.
The outlandish characters created and merged into the real life people of whom are portrayed is something to be studied and makes this movie highly-recommended. In this age of Trump and a rising of racially-divisive speech and recruitment of hate groups as well as on the heels of the anniversary of Heather Heyer’s murder at the Charleston “Unite the Right” event makes it that much more a priority. Check it out for yourself and do a little history. Compare now to then and ask yourself “What has changed?”
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