David_Hilliard
Loves Spam
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Shelton "Spike" Lee was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1957. Soon thereafter his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Lee was raised. He would grow up to be one of the most well known filmmakers in American history.
Lee's father was a jazz musician, his mother a teacher. Lee graduated from Morehouse College in 1979 and attended the graduate film program at the Tisch School of Arts, where he began making short, independent films.
Lee's breakthrough movie was She's Gotta Have It (1986), which he followed up with successes like School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), and Malcolm X (1992). Although Lee has made several additional movies since then, none have enjoyed the commercial or critical success of his early films. Lee frequently plays the roles of major characters in his movies, and the name of his production company is "40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks" (an allusion to General William T. Sherman's 1865 Special Field Order which set aside the Sea Islands and a 30-mile-wide tract of land along the southern coast of Charleston, South Carolina for the exclusive settlement of black families, each of whom was to receive 40 acres of land and an army mule). Lee, who has been described by film critic Roger Ebert as "one of the greatest filmmakers working in America today," also has taught film classes at Harvard University.
Lee's films often have strong racial and political overtones. The most obvious include Do the Right Thing, which depicted racial tension and violence between Italian-Americans and blacks, and Malcolm X, which glorified the life of and perpetuated a number of fictions about the radical Muslim leader. Films like Bamboozled (2000) and Mo' Better Blues (1990) portrayed Jews as manipulative, evil racists. Get on the Bus (1996) celebrated Nation of Islam leader and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March." Not unexpectedly, the Jewish bus driver is the villain of the piece. In 2002, Lee made a short film titled We Wuz Robbed, about the 2000 Florida election recount - accusing the Republicans of stealing the election.
Lee has been outspoken on many social and political issues. In 2002, he appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" and claimed falsely that Republican Senator Trent Lott "is a card carrying member of the Klan. [Lott's] gotta go," said Lee, "he doesn't belong in the Senate. I know he has that [Klansman's] hood in the closet somewhere, the hood and the robe...I would like to see Bush, [Colin] Powell, Miss [Condoleezza] Rice, [apologize]. You know, you're prominent African-Americans in the Bush administration, what's this 'mum's the word'? Bush got you in check, you can't speak out?" When pressed to substantiate his charge against Lott, Lee said, "It's metaphysical."
According to Lee, "racism is woven into the very fabric of America." Lee cautions against the notion that America has become a land of equal opportunity for all. In Lee's view, the problem of contemporary racism problem is caused overwhelmingly by whites, while blacks are incapable of racism because they lack social, political, and economic power. "Racism," he says, "is when you have laws set up, systematically put in the way to keep people from advancing, to stop the advancement of a people. Black people have never had the power to enforce racism, and so this is something that white America is going to have to work out themselves. If they decide they want to stop it, curtail it, or to do the right thing … then it will be done, but not until then." Lee doesn't explain which laws are designed to stop blacks or how the presence of blacks at all levels of government and business is compatible with his assumptions that they lack power in the first place.
In Lee's opinion, the legacy of slavery is very much alive today. "We're still wrestling with this question because it comes down to this," he explains. "lack people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here [as slaves] and it's been a quest since then to define who we are. That's why we've gone through the names — Negro, African American, African, Black. For me that's an indication of a people still trying to find their identity. Who determines what is black? I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn't black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley. So there is this definition of black: if you're a young black kid today in urban America and you speak correct English and you get great grades, you're not black. But if you're f***ing around getting high, standing on a corner, drinking a 40, saying 'Know'm sayin?' Know'm saying?' then you're black."
A gun control advocate, in the aftermath of the Columbine school shootings in May 1999 Lee suggested that National Rifle association president Charlton Heston should be shot: "Shoot him," said Lee, "with a .44 caliber Bulldog." Lee later apologized for this remark.
Lee has been an outspoken opponent of the War in Iraq: "They [the U.S. government] are trying to sell the world something that isn't true. When [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld [whom Lee has called "a gangster"] makes statements like, 'If you don't support our war you are supporting terrorism,' I feel disgusted. They have shown no evidence of a link [between Iraq and al Qaeda]. This has nothing to do with disarmament. It's about oil. We all know Iraq is a country with a great reserve of natural resources."
In 2004, Lee told Playboy Magazine that he thinks NASCAR is a racist enterprise, charging that there is a paucity of blacks among the sport's fans, employees, and participants. Said Lee, "I just imagine hearing some country-and-Western song over a loudspeaker at NASCAR: 'Hang them niggers up high! Hang them niggers up high!' I'm not going to no NASCAR."
Over the years, Lee has made political contributions to a handful of candidates, all Democrats. These include Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Bradley, Harvey Gantt, and Ronald Kirk.
In October 2005, reports surfaced that Lee would be making a movie for HBO entitled When the Levee Broke -- a reference to the devastating floods of Hurricane Katrina that had engulfed New Orleans the previous month. While details on the film's eventual content were sparse, Lee made it clear that he was in accordance with some other notable leftists who charged that President Bush had not dispatched federal aid workers to Louisiana more quickly because so many of the victims were black. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan went so far as to state, "I heard from a very reliable source, who saw a 25-foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up [by the government] to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry." When Spike Lee was asked by CNN anchorwoman Daryn Kagan whether he believed the government had purposefully allowed blacks to drown or be rendered homeless, he replied, "It's not too far-fetched … I don't put anything past the United States government. I don't find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans."
Lee's father was a jazz musician, his mother a teacher. Lee graduated from Morehouse College in 1979 and attended the graduate film program at the Tisch School of Arts, where he began making short, independent films.
Lee's breakthrough movie was She's Gotta Have It (1986), which he followed up with successes like School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), and Malcolm X (1992). Although Lee has made several additional movies since then, none have enjoyed the commercial or critical success of his early films. Lee frequently plays the roles of major characters in his movies, and the name of his production company is "40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks" (an allusion to General William T. Sherman's 1865 Special Field Order which set aside the Sea Islands and a 30-mile-wide tract of land along the southern coast of Charleston, South Carolina for the exclusive settlement of black families, each of whom was to receive 40 acres of land and an army mule). Lee, who has been described by film critic Roger Ebert as "one of the greatest filmmakers working in America today," also has taught film classes at Harvard University.
Lee's films often have strong racial and political overtones. The most obvious include Do the Right Thing, which depicted racial tension and violence between Italian-Americans and blacks, and Malcolm X, which glorified the life of and perpetuated a number of fictions about the radical Muslim leader. Films like Bamboozled (2000) and Mo' Better Blues (1990) portrayed Jews as manipulative, evil racists. Get on the Bus (1996) celebrated Nation of Islam leader and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March." Not unexpectedly, the Jewish bus driver is the villain of the piece. In 2002, Lee made a short film titled We Wuz Robbed, about the 2000 Florida election recount - accusing the Republicans of stealing the election.
Lee has been outspoken on many social and political issues. In 2002, he appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" and claimed falsely that Republican Senator Trent Lott "is a card carrying member of the Klan. [Lott's] gotta go," said Lee, "he doesn't belong in the Senate. I know he has that [Klansman's] hood in the closet somewhere, the hood and the robe...I would like to see Bush, [Colin] Powell, Miss [Condoleezza] Rice, [apologize]. You know, you're prominent African-Americans in the Bush administration, what's this 'mum's the word'? Bush got you in check, you can't speak out?" When pressed to substantiate his charge against Lott, Lee said, "It's metaphysical."
According to Lee, "racism is woven into the very fabric of America." Lee cautions against the notion that America has become a land of equal opportunity for all. In Lee's view, the problem of contemporary racism problem is caused overwhelmingly by whites, while blacks are incapable of racism because they lack social, political, and economic power. "Racism," he says, "is when you have laws set up, systematically put in the way to keep people from advancing, to stop the advancement of a people. Black people have never had the power to enforce racism, and so this is something that white America is going to have to work out themselves. If they decide they want to stop it, curtail it, or to do the right thing … then it will be done, but not until then." Lee doesn't explain which laws are designed to stop blacks or how the presence of blacks at all levels of government and business is compatible with his assumptions that they lack power in the first place.
In Lee's opinion, the legacy of slavery is very much alive today. "We're still wrestling with this question because it comes down to this," he explains. "lack people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here [as slaves] and it's been a quest since then to define who we are. That's why we've gone through the names — Negro, African American, African, Black. For me that's an indication of a people still trying to find their identity. Who determines what is black? I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn't black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley. So there is this definition of black: if you're a young black kid today in urban America and you speak correct English and you get great grades, you're not black. But if you're f***ing around getting high, standing on a corner, drinking a 40, saying 'Know'm sayin?' Know'm saying?' then you're black."
A gun control advocate, in the aftermath of the Columbine school shootings in May 1999 Lee suggested that National Rifle association president Charlton Heston should be shot: "Shoot him," said Lee, "with a .44 caliber Bulldog." Lee later apologized for this remark.
Lee has been an outspoken opponent of the War in Iraq: "They [the U.S. government] are trying to sell the world something that isn't true. When [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld [whom Lee has called "a gangster"] makes statements like, 'If you don't support our war you are supporting terrorism,' I feel disgusted. They have shown no evidence of a link [between Iraq and al Qaeda]. This has nothing to do with disarmament. It's about oil. We all know Iraq is a country with a great reserve of natural resources."
In 2004, Lee told Playboy Magazine that he thinks NASCAR is a racist enterprise, charging that there is a paucity of blacks among the sport's fans, employees, and participants. Said Lee, "I just imagine hearing some country-and-Western song over a loudspeaker at NASCAR: 'Hang them niggers up high! Hang them niggers up high!' I'm not going to no NASCAR."
Over the years, Lee has made political contributions to a handful of candidates, all Democrats. These include Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Bradley, Harvey Gantt, and Ronald Kirk.
In October 2005, reports surfaced that Lee would be making a movie for HBO entitled When the Levee Broke -- a reference to the devastating floods of Hurricane Katrina that had engulfed New Orleans the previous month. While details on the film's eventual content were sparse, Lee made it clear that he was in accordance with some other notable leftists who charged that President Bush had not dispatched federal aid workers to Louisiana more quickly because so many of the victims were black. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan went so far as to state, "I heard from a very reliable source, who saw a 25-foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up [by the government] to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry." When Spike Lee was asked by CNN anchorwoman Daryn Kagan whether he believed the government had purposefully allowed blacks to drown or be rendered homeless, he replied, "It's not too far-fetched … I don't put anything past the United States government. I don't find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans."
