by BOOTS RILEY
Spike Lee’s Film Makes Cop That Spied on Blacks Into Hero
Boots Riley says Spike Lee’s new movie is propaganda designed to make police look like allies in the fight against racial oppression.
“For Spike Lee to come out with a movie where story points are fabricated in order to make a Black cop and his counterparts look like allies in the fight against racism is really disappointing.”
Here are some thoughts on Blackkklansman.
This contains spoilers, so read no further if you don’t want the film spoiled. This is not so much an aesthetic critique of the masterful craftwork of this film as it is a political critique of the content of and timing of the film.
I also want to say, as I tweeted last week, that Spike Lee has been a huge influence on me. He’s the reason I went to film school so many years ago. He’s the first person I sent a demo tape of my music to when he had 40 Acres and a Mule Musicworks, and he has inspired me as a cultural critic as well. He never held his tongue about what he thought of Tyler Perry films or any other films that he happened to see and be displeased with. Spike doesn’t hold his tongue. Although I’m gonna lay out my disagreement, I hold him in highest respect as a filmmaker. I should also add that many people who helped make this film are folks who I know personally, and who I think are amazing folks with great intentions, and since they know me, they know I’m not gonna hold my tongue.
“Spike doesn’t hold his tongue.”
First, Blackkklansman is not a true story. A story not being “true” is not necessarily a problem for me. I have no interest in telling them myself at this time — but this is being pushed as a true story and it is precisely its untrue elements that make a cop a hero against racism.When I voiced some criticism before, a few people said, “But it’s a true story!” It’s not.
It’s a made up story in which the false parts of it try to make a cop the protagonist in the fight against racist oppression. It’s being put out there while Black Lives Matter is in discussion, and this is not coincidental. There is a viewpoint behind it.
Here is what we know:
The real Ron Stallworth infiltrated a Black radical organization for three years (not for one event like the movie portrays) where he did what all papers from the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (Cointelpro), that were found through the Freedom of Information Act, tell us he did — sabotage a Black radical organization whose intent had to do with, at the very least, fighting racist oppression. Cointelpro papers show us that these police infiltrators of radical organizations worked to try to disrupt the organizations through things like instigating infighting, acting crazy to make the organizations look bad, getting physical altercations happening, and setting them up to be murdered by police and others. Ron Stallworth was part of the Cointelpro. Cointelpro’s objectives were to destroy radical organizations, especially Black radical organizations.
“It’s a made up story in which the false parts try to make a cop the protagonist in the fight against racist oppression.”
Cointelpro papers also show us that when White Supremacist organizations were infiltrated by the FBI and the cops, it was not to disrupt them. They weren’t disrupted. It was to use them to threatened and/or physically attack radical organizations. There was no directive to stop the rise of White Supremacist organizations. The directive was to stop radical organizations. The White Supremacists were infiltrated to be more effective tools of repression by the state. In some cases, it was the undercover cops who came up with plans and literally pulled the trigger on assassinations. This happened in church bombings of civil rights movement associated Black churches in Birmingham, the assassination of a civil rights organizer from Detroit in Selma, the Greensboro Massacre of Communist Workers Party members in 1979, and more. This s what Ron Stallworth was helping to do, and he was doing it in that era. The events of the film all take place in 1979 and after.
Stallworth wrote a memoir to put himself in a different light, but let’s look at what else we know.
“Cointelpro’s objectives were to destroy radical organizations, especially Black radical organizations.”
Black Agenda Report for more