Set in the early 1970s, but very much about right now, BlacKkKlansman tells the story of a black man who becomes a cop in a time when black men were not cops. This is not a docudrama. This is a film inspired by real events, but not based on them. Spike Lee is plainly preaching to the choir. Klansmen are vile and evil mouth breathers who are clearly incapable of rational thought. Black people, the only group shown to suffer from the klan’s attentions, are uniformly beautiful. The men are well spoken and well dressed. The women have perfectly spherical afros and look like runway models. The only white woman with a speaking part is a morbidly obese Edith Bunker who loves her racist husband and can’t want to kill some niggers herself. The N-word plays a starring role in Black Klansman, from casual everyday use to personal attacks to proud identifier.
In a scene near the start of the film, our hero Ron Stallworth is talking to his Sargent. The Sargent warns Ron not to underestimate the beliefs of klansmen like David Duke, a man like that could use hate and ignorance to become President of the United State. Ron laughs and says that could never happen. The klansmen repeatedly say America First and David Duke asks in a low voice, can we make America great…again?
With the exception of David Duke, played with some gusto by Topher Grace, all the members of The Organization, as the kkk likes to call itself, were portrayed as poor white trash without enough money for dental work, but with plenty of cash to stockpile guns and the occasional IED. Spike Lee shows some of the rich white trash as well. They are not active members of the klan or any other hate group, they just support them and do nothing to stop them. People who are still racists, but have rebranded that racism into nazi style nationalism. The art of the pivot, where a protest against police murdering unarmed black men is rebranded for the faithful as a protest against the national anthem. Sports heroes are mentioned in BlackKklansman, Ron’s favorite is O.J. Simpson.
In many ways, Blackkklansman is the story of The Glory Days of the 1970s. Movies with black action stars are mentioned, there was talk of the coming Revolution, fashion and style were clearly on the minds of the black college students, things were looking up. To highlight the fact that Ron and his friends are living in a dream world, we have a cameo by Harry Belafonte where he recounts witnessing a lynching. As he tells of the horrors of an innocent man being burned alive, the scene is inter-spliced with the latest group of klan recruits watching Birth of a Nation and cheering as the hate group is born.
There’s an odd bit where a new klansman shows up for a big ceremony. He’s a racist like the other low lives, but he’s Hispanic. This is outright weird. I was in New Mexico once taking portraits at a Masonic Lodge. It was out in the middle of nowhere, so I asked one of the old guys what they did for fun. He said, ‘We’ve got a pretty active unit of the klan. We stay busy.’ It was no accidental that Trump chose immigration as one of his big talking points. Would a Mexican want to be a member of the klan? Maybe. Would they let him be a member? Doubtful.
There were a few laugh out loud moments to break the tension. A few depressing moments when it’s clear that the revolution didn’t quite work out the way the Black Students Union had hoped. For the most part, BlackKklansman was an upbeat film. Out hero lives to fight another day. The world is changing. Things are going to be better.
The film ends on a hopeful note. They are ready to take on the challenge. The future is so bright they have to wear shades.
Then we are shown a black car plowing into a crowd of people in Charlottesville in 2017. The attack is shown from several angels and freeze frames as people are thrown through the air. Trump is shown giving his Very Fine People speech. David Duke is shown spouting some bullshit. The finial frame is a sidewalk memorial to Heather Heyer, the woman killed by the nazi driver in the terrorist attack.
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