BlacKkKlansman and the Jews

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This post is divided into two sections first nonspoilers then spoilers

Spike Lee has always been a political filmmaker with racial issues usually front and center. Even while often disagreeing with his message I have found his films mesmerizing. The topic of the film based on a true story of a black cop Ron Stallworth infiltrating the Klan in the 1970s made it a “must see” for me. With a title and story like that, of course, racial issues were front and center. What surprised me was how central Jewish issues were to the plot and even more importantly the nuanced portrayal of Jewish issues in the film. That was something particularly surprising considering his history. The lead villains in his 1990 film “Mo Better Blues” were stereotypical Jewish shysters. In defending himself against charges of anti-Semitism he did himself no favors by noting he could not have anti-semitic characters in his films because that would never be approved by the Jews who run Hollywood. These remarks came at a nadir in black jewish relations, especially in New York. Just the year before the Long Island’s groundbreaking rap Group Public Enemy’s Minister of Information Professor Griff had said Jews were responsible “the majority of wickedness that goes on across the globe." A year after the movie after a Jewish run ambulance service ran over and killed a black boy in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section the neighborhooderupted in riots.

I am going to delve into a bunch of history that will only make sense later on if you read the spoilers section. The fact that black-Jewish relations would be troubled seems odd because the two groups vote loyal Democrat/Progressive. It would have been seen especially insane during the mid-1960s. The two groups were natural allies. The civil rights movement was a natural cause for Jews who were just 20 years removed from the Holocaust and overt discrimination at home. Symbolic of this alliance was the murder of 4 civil rights workers in Mississippi one of whom was a New York Jew. But there were issues. The Jews by then were middle and upper class many of whom were “oppressive” Jewish owners and store owners in black ghettos. In 1968 the NYC schools were one big unit. In one black section of Brooklyn, the local blacks wanted community control of their schools. An experiment was funded in that district by the Ford Foundation. The experimental local school board fired the teachers from the mostly Jewish teachers union. Their contract violated, the teachers union staged a series of strikes. Accusations of antisemitism and racism flew, antisemitic and racist statements were made and black-Jewish relations have never been the same. Spike Lee as an 11-year-old from Brooklyn had to be affected. Yours truly as an 11-year-old son of a striking teacher sure was.


*********SPOILERS***********SPOILERS********SPOILERS***********
At first, Stallworth gets an undercover assignment to spy on Black “militant” Kwame Ture/Stockley Charmichal. In the speech, Ture quotes from the Jewish law book the Talmud. Later on, Stallworth calls the local KKK and gets an invitation to come to the meeting. Obviously, he can not go without being found out so he does the calling while his partner ”Flip” actually goes to the meetings and actually gets to meet David Duke. In the film the partner is Jewish. This is dramatic license, Stallworth’s partner has never been publically identified. In the film, Stallworth wonders why his partner is not so passionate about the assignment since he also has “skin in the game”. Flip says growing up Jewish was never a thing, he was never Bar Mitzvahed, he was just another American kid but now that he has this assignment he can never stop thinking about it. This conversation has multiple meanings. Criticism of Black Lives Matter and Spike Lee is that they are race-obsessed. Activists respond because of your white privilege you can not understand. The point is Flip because he has passed as Christian falls into that explanation but once he gets the assignment he “gets it”. This is where Lee’s dramatic license does not ring true for me. Growing up around the time of Flip I find it hard to comprehend how he would not notice he was Jewish. Even though New York has more Jews than Israel I grew up in a mostly non-Jewish neighborhood. I was called “k*e” all the time my temple has swasticas painted on it on many Jewish holidays. Dramatic license or not the larger point being made is accurate. Prior to the 1960s Jews and other lighter-skinned ethnics such as Italians were considered and considered themselves nonwhite or not quite white. Historians point to the 1968 NYC teachers strike referenced earlier as the point Jews were considered/considered themselves white. Prior to that Jews and Christian ethics were often at loggerheads in New York. During the strike Working class white ethnics aligned themselves with the teachers union against the blacks. Turning point or not, dramatic license or not since the mid 70’s there has been little reason for me to consider myself nonwhite. Any fear of Anti Semitism becoming a threat seemed to be a leftover effect of schoolyard bullying not based on the reality of acceptance and accommodation to the point of overkill(holiday tree).

Of course, that has ended in the wake of Charlottesville and Pittsburgh. History has come full circle, Jews and blacks have a common enemy making this film, to put it mildly timely. The ‘Alt right” considers most definitely Jews as nonwhite.

Lee ends the film with a montage showing Charlottesville, Duke endorsing Trump, Trump’s “fine people” remarks. To me this was overkill. I find it hard to believe that even most Trump supporters have never heard of that narrative even while they disagree with it.

I am Jewish and half-Asian, so I'm aware of black-Jewish and black-Asian relations. Personally, I would prefer that black people and Jewish people rise in solidarity against harmful ideologies than have ethnic in-fighting that is perpetuated by politics.

We're all pawns in the political game of white supremacy whether we realize it or not, and as your post shows, some people are complicit in it while others know better. I would research racial triangulation if you want to know more. https://ryanashizawa.wordpress.com/2014 ... hierarchy/

Although the original context of this was in relation to Asians rather than Jews, I still think it holds up for anyone who is not a white Christian.