WHY SPIKE AIN'T HAAVIN IT!
An unabased Barack Obama supporter, the brotha warmed up the audience with a jab at the New England Patriots. But, turning serious, award-winning film director Spike Lee expressed concern about the misguided values some blacks live by today in a speech last night.
Lee focused on film, hip-hop and the importance of education and hard work in the black community in his lecture to an enthusiastic crowd in a packed Salomon 101.
"No matter what you want to do, if you want to achieve that dream, you have to bust your ass," Lee said. "I'm very fortunate (to be successful) because my first two years I wasn't doing anything in school."
Lee, who attended historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, said a major problem with the education of blacks was the notion that being smart was equivalent to being white.
"If you speak correct English, get good grades, you get ostracized as being a sellout," Lee said. While he was growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, "you got major props if you were smart. No one would call you a white boy or white girl if you got A's."
Lee said he blamed the rap industry for discouraging blacks from hard work and studying. At one point, "it was against the law for African-Americans to learn how to read and write," Lee said. Now, rap music and videos spread the notion that "ignorant is being black ... gangsta ... ghetto."
Lee, who said he had "no idea (he) wanted to be a filmmaker," credited his surroundings for his early success. Lee was raised in Brooklyn by his mother, an art teacher, and his father, a jazz musician. He said he first starting filming the summer after his sophomore year of college in 1977.
But that's not all. Seems like legendary filmmaker has his panties in a wad over a few things,like the difficulty in getting financing for films about blacks, why he'll win an Oscar in 2025, and politics.
When asked what he thought about Obama, Lee had this to say "I’m riding my man Obama. I think he’s a visionary. Actually, Barack told me the first date he took Michelle to was Do the Right Thing. I said, “Thank God I made it. Otherwise you would have taken her to Soul Man. Michelle would have been like, ‘What’s wrong with this brother?’ ”
As to whether this meant he was down on the Clintons, Lee answered in the way he always does, pulling no punches. "The Clintons, man, they would lie on a stack of Bibles. Snipers? That’s not misspeaking; that’s some pure bulls***. I voted for Clinton twice, but that’s over with. These old black politicians say, “Ooh, Massuh Clinton was good to us, massuh hired a lot of us, massuh was good!” Hoo! Charlie Rangel, David Dinkins—they have to understand this is a new day. People ain’t feelin’ that stuff. It’s like a tide, and the people who get in the way are just gonna get swept out into the ocean."
No really Spike, how do you feel?
