Spike Lee, being noble, perhaps, but also horning in on another director's movie. Still, why should Quentin Tarantino be able to get away with doing a movie about slavery?
"All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors to see that film. That's the only thing I'm gonna say... I can't disrespect my ancestors. I can't do it. Now, that's me. I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody but myself. I can't do it."And that's the only thing he's going to say.
"What does he want to be made, an honorary black man?... I want Quentin to know that all African-Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick."He had to say that too.
I think it's fine for him to say all these things. First, it looks like people are going to him with questions. And, second, everything he said was true.
Posts
162 comments:
Did he tweet Quentin's phone number too?
It's telling Obama chose to hang with Jay-Z and not Spike Lee the day before the election.
'Do the Right Thing' director had slammed his fellow Hollywood heavyweight
Do the Right Thing came out 23 years ago. What's this "fellow heavyweight" shit?
Slavery ended when it no longer made economic sense.
It used to be a plus, the harsh results of losing in battle.
Having lost the economic case, justifications for it became ludicrous, and Britain and the US ended it.
It's not a specifically black thing at all, unless you think you can get something for it.
Shorter Spike:
How dare someone else sully my ancestors. That's my job.
Some of Spike's ancestors were slaves. Some of his ancestors sold soon-to-be slaves to slave traders.
Peter
"My Ancestors Are Slaves"
Note the present tense. It will never end.
""It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.""
This is not true for the most part. Slave traders did not steal their slaves. They purchased them from other Africans.
Roots wasn't historically accurate either. But it was supposed to be. If anyone needs calling out on this account let's start with the fiction that gets put forward as truth.
Spike Lee produced the most virulently racist movie I've ever seen, Do the Right Thing.
The premise of the movie, set in Ft. Greene Park in Brooklyn, is that white store owners were intruders in that community, stealing what rightfully belonged to blacks.
The solution... burn those businesses down!
It says everything that needs to be said about white guilt that this racist monstrosity was seen as a groundbreaking piece of art.
I lived in Ft. Green Park at the time that movie was made. Shopkeepers worked behind 2 inch bullet proof glass to survive.
Spike Lee is a monstrous fucking racist piece of shit.
We are all the descendants of slaves and slave owners. Every known society on earth have practiced slavery in the past and some still do.
Institutionalized slavery that is; more or less equivalent cases, though no longer sanctioned by law, are, of course, still found everywhere we look.
Mr. Lee is not as special as he thinks.
A black IBM executive who had been posted to Africa wrote a book a few years ago thanking God his ancestors had been slaves so that he would live as an American. I doubt that the ancestors appreciated it but they certainly did not want to go back to Africa when slavery was ended by the Civil War.
Tarantino films are comic books for Pete's sake. They bear about as much resemblance to reality as The Wizard of Oz. Lee's rant is like Steven Hawking putting down the Superman movie by saying flying around the world can't reverse time. Lee demeans himself with his ignorance.
rhhardin,
Slavery didn't end when it no longer made economic sense. It was a very strong economic institution in the South and would have carried on but for secession and the Civil War.
Would it have fallen apart 50-100 years after 1861? Maybe, but it wasn't dying in 1861. There was an unbelievable amount of wealth chained up to slavery.
Rudi Giuliani sensibly ignored Lee's violent, racist solution to the problems of Ft. Greene Park.
Instead of turning the neighborhood over to black thugs, the solution that appealed to Lee, Giuliani put the thugs in jail.
This proved to be a far better solution, and it made the neighborhood livable.
Between Spike Lee and Barack Obama (not to mention his wife) I'd venture to say that race relations have been set back a generation.
Which no doubt was the plan.
And, second, everything he said was true.
"Stolen From Africa."
Wasn't slavery more of an indigenous African institution and slaves an export?
African Slave Trade
The African slave trade refers to the historic slave trade within Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in many parts of the continent, as they were in much of the ancient world. In most African societies, the enslaved people were also indentured servants and fully integrated. When the Arab slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many local slave systems changed and began supplying captives for slave markets outside of Africa....
Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."
Africans and Europeans "acting stupidly".
Slavery didn't end when it no longer made economic sense. It was a very strong economic institution in the South and would have carried on but for secession and the Civil War.
Would it have fallen apart 50-100 years after 1861? Maybe, but it wasn't dying in 1861.
I'm not so sure. Brazil had far more slaves than the American South, and it was even more vital to the economy, yet despite the lack of any sort of civil war slavery ended in 1888.
Peter
Errr, Roots was produced, written, and directed by white guys. Several of them Jewish.
It was also historical balderdash (I slightly misquote Alex Haley) designed to tell a story.
But I guess that's ok.
-XC
"Quentin Tarantino, though, defends the film and the choices in dialogue. "I think it's kind of ridiculous (the criticism), because no one can actually say with a straight face that we use the word more than it was used in 1858 in Mississippi. So since they can't say that, what they're basically (saying) is I should lie. I should pretty it up. I should lie, and I don't lie when it comes to my characters and the stories I tell."
A similar controversy occurred within Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, a book in which the 'N-word' features almost 220 times. A new edition came out in 2011, without the offensive word, which was designed for children to use in school, such is the pertinence of studying the book as a piece of seminal literature. This decision was also condemned due to fears that America was rubbing out its tarred history with slavery."
Tarantino is claiming the truth as a defense. I don't mind the fact he is in defense mode, as I don't think anyone should give him or Hollywood any breaks, but instead break their crony corruption bullshit accounting methods with transparent forensics.
Schindler's List was in black and white.
"Spike Lee is a monstrous fucking racist piece of shit"
I just know I don't like him.
Spike Lee? Yawn. He's mostly famous for being the world's most annoying sports fan these days.
I guess if he wants to play that game, you ould say that his stupid bank robber movie with Denzel and Clive Owen trivialized the Holocaust. Whatever, he's just an old has-been attention whore.
I am equal opportunity movie goer. I avoid Lee's movies and Tarantino's cause I think they are lousy except for one of Tarantino's movies that had the chraracters named Mr. White, Mr. Green, etc
The economic system that favors slavery is the hit the guy on the head and take his stuff system.
Specialize and trade is much more successful.
The white guy's wealth is higher if the black guy is not a slave, on the whole.
The unwhole is the pro slavery interest group from the old order but they get outcompeted.
It is a damn fitting irony that Obama's ancestors on his dad's side, being Arab-African and all may have been slave owners and traders of other Africans.
A friend of mine said that Spike's unbought nine-dollar ticket probably won't break the film.
And way off-topic, "Mongo only pawn in game of life."
Maybe not entirely off-topic.
"Still, why should Quentin Tarantino able [sic] to get away with doing a movie about slavery?"
Uhhh, because he's a film maker? But maybe you mean something subtle by the term "get away with." If you mean be immune to criticism, it hasn't happened for any of Tarantino's other movies, so I don't expect it to start now. I haven't seen it, but a combination of comedy and graphic images of the cruelty of slavery is certainly going to set some people off. Lee seems to have been set off by the use of the n-word...in a movie about slavery that he hasn't seen. Well, Spike is always good for a quote, I expect it doesn't pay as well as making movies, but if it's all you have...
AJ Lynch, Quentin Tarantino apparently stole that material.
Strangely enough, the American West wasn't a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western, either.
Is Django Unchained pretending to historical veracity? 'Cause I don't often see Tarantino put in the same category as Ken Burns.
Spike received reports that some people where twitching in their cushions wondering where this was all going.
Those of us with long memories will remember that Steven Spielberg caught shit for directing a very respectful version of "The Color Purple" back in 1985.
It seems he was judged by some to be too melanin-challenged to pull off the job.
"It is a damn fitting irony that Obama's ancestors on his dad's side, being Arab-African and all may have been slave owners and traders of other Africans."
Then he is just carrying on an old family tradition of screwing over black people. The Obama economy has hurt blacks more than any other group.
Slavery's Global Comeback"
There are now twice as many people enslaved in the world as there were in the 350 years of the transatlantic slave trade.
I assume Spike Lee is actively petitioning the UN to hold accountable and boycott countries dealing in slave trade.
The sensitive souls of Althouse chiming in here - (I speak in particular of slave-owner Shouting Thomas) - help remind us of why conservative contributions in the arts and entertainment industries are flimsy, flaccid, foolish second-string productions compared to everything else.
Apparently 150 years doesn't provide enough historical perspective to discuss what constitutes a decent depiction of slavery for you guys. So why not heat up some microwave-able popcorn, watch Triumph of the Will, and let us know the ideal way to create and critique a more entertaining and relevant narrative of that era in 2160?
"we have our own holocaust, screw the jews" -- spike lee
Merry Christmas Spike, Quentin.
Lee's rant is like Steven Hawking putting down the Superman movie by saying flying around the world can't reverse time.
You mean you can't? !!!
Fight the Glower!
Fight the glowers that be!
Peter,
If if it didn't make economic sense, i.e. there was a lot of wealth in slavery... why did the Deep South states secede?
It wasn't a failure, but an economic success.
This is also why Thomas Jefferson didn't free all of his slaves... that was his patrimony. They were all too valuable to let go.
It is a damn fitting irony that Obama's ancestors on his dad's side, being Arab-African and all may have been slave owners and traders of other Africans.
Where the hell is there any evidence for any Arabic origins in Obama's family? I realize the statement above is the stupidest of ridiculous points, but I'm still curious about the origin of whichever fever-swamp conspiracies are left to crop up and fester once the fiasco of birtherism lost steam.
Seriously, thoughts for some of you guys are like the intellectual equivalents of weeds. Brain weeds.
I wonder if chickelit considers Spike Lee to be a counterpart to Leni Riefenstahl.
This thread is just bait anyway. If you want criticism of Spike Lee, read what Samuel L. Jackson said about him. Far more interesting and relevant.
If Spike and the rest of the racialists are so offended by slavery, wehy aren't they doing anything to end the widespread slavery of Africans in Africa today?
Not a big fan of either. I think "he got game" is the only movie that Spike Lee directed that I've seen. As far as Tarentino goes, I liked about half of "Pulp Fiction." The Kill Bill movies were mediocre.
What's his name unchained seems mediocre too.
wehy aren't they doing anything to end the widespread slavery of Africans in Africa today?
His cousins may be current slaves.
Obama the Slaveowner? (Capitalization intended). That's rich.
Seriously, get some Christmas spirit, you guys.
Tarantino thought that by having black actors play black roles he had the black blessings covered.
But now, it appears as if after Obama, the cost of doing race business has gone up, not down.
Where the hell is there any evidence for any Arabic origins in Obama's family?
You mean apart from his father's name, appearance and culture?
"Where the hell is there any evidence for any Arabic origins in Obama's family?"
You mean apart from his father's name, appearance and culture?
Yeah. I mean, actual, you know, evidence.
I have a feeling that at least a good third to half of you have first names, etc. that derive from the ancient Hebraic culture you incorporated into your own, and are reminded of on days like today. Doesn't mean you're Jewish Americans.
Ritmo's here. Threads over. Merry Christmas!
There is a story that pope Gregory the Great visited the slave market in Rome and noticed some very handsome blue-eyed blond young boys for sale. He asked what kind of people they were, and they answered that they were Angles and came from Britain. The pope said they surely meant angels and determined to send a mission to their country.
This mission departed for Britain in 595 A.D., and was led by the future St. Augustine of Canterbury.
The story is apocryphal, but it is a fact that in Roman times - and obviously for some time afterward - Britain's main exports to Rome were tin from Cornwall and slaves captured in a similar fashion as practiced in Afrca.
O Ritmo, ritmo, ritmo..
Google is your friend, my friend. Blacks fell for symbolism and that is all they got, nothing more, nothing less. Spoke Lee and his ilk got PUNK'd!
Lyle,
"Slavery ended when it no longer made economic sense."
and
"There was an unbelievable amount of wealth chained up to slavery."
are not mutually exclusive statements.
Ok, just hope the oil doesn't spoil the view of any snow that might have otherwise accumulated in your section of PA today, Pumper Humper. ;-)
Google is certainly my friend, pm. But that doesn't mean that there is much if any reason to trust Tom Holbrook's column in The Examiner.com, much less the only source he manages to quote, an obscure blogger named Kenneth E. Lamb.
Kirk Parker,
Why secede and fight a war over slavery if it no longer made economic sense?
Feel sorry for those there and here.
One principal of a village school, owned by Obama's grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama and supported by Obama's family in the village of Kogelo, western Africa, has indicated that our President-elect has already broken promises made to them back in 2006 on his visit to his homeland. Principal Yuanita Obiero stated his exact words during that visit were, 'Hopefully I can provide some assistance in the future to this school and all that it can be...... I know you are working very hard and struggling to bring up this school, but I have said I will assist the school and I will do so.' Although Obama has not sent any assistance to the school as of this writing principal Obiero and Obama's grandmother are confident he will do so. Grandmother Sarah told newsmen, 'When he comes down here, he will change the face of the school and believe me, poverty in Kogelo will be a thing of the past.'
"I have said I will assist the school and I will do so" -- sad.. keep waiting.
Spike should never have white people in any of his movies, especially whites who are not honorable.
Because then he is sullying MY anscestors.
Stick only to movies only with blacks spike.
But that doesn't mean that there is much if any reason to trust Tom Holbrook's column in The Examiner.com, much less the only source he manages to quote, an obscure blogger named Kenneth E. Lamb.
Now you are moving the goalposts. You asked for "any evidence" and when it is provided for you, you dismiss it casually. Actually, the onus is now on you to provide evidence that the provided evidence is false.
The premise of the movie, set in Ft. Greene Park in Brooklyn, is that white store owners were intruders in that community, stealing what rightfully belonged to blacks.
The solution... burn those businesses down!
THe mail character in that, Mookie, has to be one of the biggest assholes in cinema thats supposed to be a sympathetic character (?).
Fitting that he was played by Spike Lee.
pm317:
President Obama has always shown a remarkable callousness towards his father's family and people. Look at how he treats his relatives illegally living in the United States, and those living in poverty stricken squalor in African slums.
Gahrie - "any" evidence is not an excuse for bad evidence. The column is written by some business guy who probably has a political agenda. If you look up his only source, you can't find any sources there to authenticate it further. Even if you wanted to believe that either of these sources were authoritative in any way, you'd have to see what credibility there is to the evidence they cite: None.
That's what historians do - they go to the source used by the source until they find something that can be trusted, verified, authoritative. "Some guy on the internet saying something" is not that standard.
I take it this is a process you're unfamiliar with. But it's what helps keep us from believing that ancient aliens colluded with the Masons in order to build our own national monuments, as well as any other silly little thing that any one of us could make up right now.
ritmo, that article is not your consumption, you know that right? your stupidity has already done its damage. Let us just hope for fair weather in DC and he goes golfing everyday.
Anyway, didn't Gingrich say that Obama descended from Luo tribesmen?
I guess he got bad information. ;-)
pm, no need for hate. Peace on earth and good will to men. The article (an editorial, mores - there is a difference) cites nothing authoritative. I'd be interested more in Obama's African ancestry - (Arab or otherwise, wherever the chips may fall), and am finding interesting Ancestry.com articles on his mother's possible descent from the first African slave in America. Either way, bad evidence is bad evidence. If I stated that "Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a pony", right here, right now, it would have as much authority as what you cited - some guy on the internet saying something that could not be verified.
Merry Christmas.
What makes Spike Lee any less screwed up than an Irishmen who defines himself by hating the English, a Jew who defines himself by the Holocaust and hating Germans, or an Armenian who can't forget what the Turks did to his ancestors and obsesses over it and burns for vengeance? Nothing. They're all of them, Spike Lee included, twisted freaks. The only difference is the wall to wall cowardice of our best and brightest vis-a-vis blacks, who must not never no how under any circumstances be called on their bullshit outrage stance.
Where the hell is there any evidence for any Arabic origins in Obama's family? I realize the statement above is the stupidest of ridiculous points, but I'm still curious about the origin of whichever fever-swamp conspiracies are left to crop up and fester once the fiasco of birtherism lost steam.
Now you know Ritmo. Don't you feel extra dumb? (Dumb being your normal state). How many ways can you put your foot in your mouth before saying to yourself "Hmmm, maybe I should talk out of my ass the first chance I get".
Your ass is your mouth. So your foot is actually in your ass.
Spike Lee is an ass.
Movies about slavery have been going on for at least 50 years, and now he notices? More likely he just wanted some airtime to his name and the movie was convenient.
No, I don't care about the movie itself but the idea this Lee character can set there and talk about it like it was an outrage. Ho, hum.
Oh, lookie what I found here -- a more respectable source -- at least the webpage looks good and professional and it says "London Evening Standard":
But this bucolic scene in his father's village of Kogelo near the Equator in western Kenya conceals a troubling reality that, until now, has never been spoken about. Barack Obama, the Evening Standard can reveal, after we went to the village earlier this month, has failed to honour the pledges of assistance that he made to a school named in his honour when he visited here amid great fanfare two years ago.
You may read the whole thing here.. You too, O Ritmo, ritmo, ritmo..
jr - lose the hate and bring the evidence.
No I don't feel dumb. Get me some facts.
Merry Christmas.
Your first comment and you're already playing the race card and going to the Nazi allusions:
Apparently 150 years doesn't provide enough historical perspective to discuss what constitutes a decent depiction of slavery for you guys. So why not heat up some microwave-able popcorn, watch Triumph of the Will, and let us know the ideal way to create and critique a more entertaining and relevant narrative of that era in 2160?
Typical Ritmo. You really are a sleazy bastard.
pm, a quick search of the term "arab" in David Cohen's London Evening Standard article reveals no results.
Perhaps you read a different article or were thinking of another issue.
Lose the hate? You immediately charge people on Althouse as being Nazis.
FUCK YOU!
jr, your language today is really not very Christlike. Especially when using terms like "bastard".
Merry Christmas to you.
Please take it down a notch. Triumph might have been a bit below the belt, but I didn't know if Chickie might have found it funny. In any event, it's grandly patriotic, nationalistic stuff. Praised for its artistry as much as it is criticized for its ethical stupidity. That's film criticism for you.
O Ritmo wrote:
pm, no need for hate. Peace on earth and good will to men
So then why did you start the conversation with:
Apparently 150 years doesn't provide enough historical perspective to discuss what constitutes a decent depiction of slavery for you guys. So why not heat up some microwave-able popcorn, watch Triumph of the Will, and let us know the ideal way to create and critique a more entertaining and relevant narrative of that era in 2160?
Hint, if you start the conversation suggesting people should watch Triumph of Will you are not engaging in honest debate, nor are you projecting good will to man. So you shouldn't expect it.
You immediately charge people on Althouse as being Nazis.
Well, not all of them. But there is Cedarford, of course.
FUCK YOU!
But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Or just, have a good one.
Ritmo wrote:
Please take it down a notch. Triumph might have been a bit below the belt, but I didn't know if Chickie might have found it funny. In any event, it's grandly patriotic, nationalistic stuff. Praised for its artistry as much as it is criticized for its ethical stupidity. That's film criticism for you.
GO F yourself you snivelling worm.
O Ritmo, ritmo, ritmo (wish I could use smaller font and make that disappear).. heh, search for something from your footlicking friend Kristof at NYT and you might find something you like better..yeah that is a tease.
O Ritmo wrote:
But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
Or just, have a good one.
How about this? You shut up, crawl back under your rock and let the adults continue with the conversation.
Your faux humility and calls for charity are really galling from such a worthless troll.
I hope your christmas sucks.
Ritmo,
Obama's supposed Kenyan father was of mostly arab extraction, as is not uncommon in East Africa. Of course, if Obama's father was actually Frank Marshall Davis, then he has little or no arab ancestry.
I think Spike Lee had his history all wrong, his ancestors weren't stolen by evil white Europeans. All of the slaves transported to the Americas were captured, kidnapped or disposed of due being troublemakers by their fellow black Africans and sold by the same people to European slave traders.
Many African males bought by Arabs as slaves were castrated and turned into eunuchs while the females depending on their beauty, youth and intelligence were transported to the muslim lands and sold to pashas as part of their harems and household and others to brothels.
Spike Lee is lucky.
pm - I'm actually looking for anything authoritative at all on the subject and strangely finding nothing. So like Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark after the government took it, I have no choice but to abandon the search. But if you're up for a trip to Kenya with me... (Kristoff at least travels to the places he reports on).
O jr - you truly are destroying yourself with hate today.
GO F yourself you snivelling worm.
In keeping with the situashun.
O Ritmo, so you didn't find your friend Kristof's article? No? Really? What a failure! Google is working against you, my friend.
Jerome - I'm aware that Kenya is close ("dangerously close" as some American nationalists might put it) to the Arabian peninsula, and that a lot of seafaring trade nearby resulted in much cultural (and yes, perhaps even biological) exchange over the years. But Obama has an actual family tree, and researching the Onyangos doesn't get me any closer to these Arabs from whom you claim he is "extracted".
The antiquity of that last term aside, to claim that these cultural exchanges (including names, religion) give him an overwhelming and direct link to those Arabs is about as silly as claiming that all the white settlers who founded Bethlehem, PA (or any of the many other American cities with biblical place-names) were Jews or Sabatean Christians. It's just silly.
Possible - perhaps even likely, but sounds conspiratorially silly - until I see evidence to the contrary.
Ritmo sez "Lose the hate".
That's rich.
Without hate Ritmo is like a river without water.
Cleanse the palate of Spike Lee and watch a 1961 (?) interview of
James Baldwin on Malcolm X (3 of 3) as he probes for an understanding of the roots of racism.
Anyway, for something even more entertaining (and likely), I found this quote in Wiki regarding Obama's father's family:
Barack Obama relates how his step-grandmother Granny Sarah (Sarah Onyango Obama) describes his grandfather: "Even from the time that he was a boy, your grandfather Onyango was strange. It is said of him that he had ants up his anus, because he could not sit still."
I'm reminded of Muhammad Ali's statement when he returned from "The Rumble In The Jungle". When asked what he thought now that he'd been to the African motherland he replied, "I'm sure glad my grandfather got on that boat!"
Althouse would have been appalled no doubt.
Ritmo,
If you're going to wade in with your usual bullshit, why do you expect civility?
But ok, I'm trying to figure out what the hell you are even trying to articulate, in between your suggestion that we watch Triumph of the Will.
The sensitive souls of Althouse chiming in here - (I speak in particular of slave-owner Shouting Thomas) - help remind us of why conservative contributions in the arts and entertainment industries are flimsy, flaccid, foolish second-string productions compared to everything else.
Apparently 150 years doesn't provide enough historical perspective to discuss what constitutes a decent depiction of slavery for you guys. So why not heat up some microwave-able popcorn, watch Triumph of the Will, and let us know the ideal way to create and critique a more entertaining and relevant narrative of that era in 2160?
This seems to be about the question of movies about slavery and not about Obama's arabic heritage. So lets leave it at that only. What are you trying to articulate.
Are conservatives on this board wrong for saying Spike Lee is an asshole for suggesting that Quentin shouldn't be making a movie about slavery?
I'm trying to get from you where the Triumph of the Will comment even originated.
Can you articulate your position without immmediately coming across like an attack dog? If so, please do, and then we can have a conversation. Otherwise, eat me.
jr - the discursion on Obama's supposed Arab ancestry came after pm's little knock about it. I find it more interesting than anything else, but it doesn't look like there's much more we can find to it.
As far as the original shot about conservatives in the arts, perhaps it was a bit harsh, but no less fair than all the shots the board here takes about liberals somehow being bad at business. Of course there are good, conservative artists - Tolstoy being perhaps the greatest, but also C.S. Lewis (both religious people, too). Mel Gibson has shown talent as a director, but is too insane to take his work seriously, as profitable as some of it has been. Clint Eastwood makes good pictures, but still less of them, less that could be critically acclaimed, and altogether less profitably than those of his more, er, open-minded colleagues. Also, Clint's probably at least as much a libertarian as a conservative.
I'm not sure what more there is that you'd like me or anyone else (including yourself) to say about all this.
Merry Christmas. Soon I take it we will both have to take leave of this chat-board and attend to other things, though, right?
Europeans deserve criticism for the way they exploited and commercialized the African institution of slavery. But some of them deserve credit for the way they acted to abolish that institution. Slavery existed in Africa for thousands of years without anyone ever coming up with the idea that it was wrong....Whatever your color, there' not much in the history of slavery in which to take pride.
You bring up a good and fair point, William. But it gets me around to thinking about how American slavery was unique in the color/"race" differential. Traditionally, conquering nations got to enslave the conquered. That's just how it was. But the proliferation and eventual popularity of racial theories of inferiority/superiority reached fever-pitch in the 19th century (and beyond), and that is why and perhaps how we got around to addressing it at a later time than the other nations did. Our "conquered" were still at large in our own country and that forced us to grapple with the twin sins of racism and slavery more contentiously than other nations who could separate the two evils from one another in their own experience.
O Ritmo wrote:
As far as the original shot about conservatives in the arts, perhaps it was a bit harsh, but no less fair than all the shots the board here takes about liberals somehow being bad at business.
NOt analagous, because being bad at business just makes you dumb, not EVIL. Nazis were evil. You are insinuating conservatives are Nazis. Big difference.
Again, dont feign peace love and understanding when the first thing out of your mouth is the people on the board are Nazis.
ee uses slavery as his personal race card. He bitched about no slaves in "The Patriot", the Mel Gibson movie.
As Joe Johnston famously told us, slaves were a luxury item, most people owned none - in fact, 1860 census puts 1/4 of the slaves in the country in Charleston county SC.
Ritmo, the pasty white face boy who's never had anything to do with blacks pulls the blacks as humans hostage bit again
Ritmo, you are such a complete racist fool.
I can introduce you to some black people. That is, if you're not afraid.
White racists do exist. Ritmo is the proof.
'm not sure what more there is that you'd like me or anyone else (including yourself) to say about all this.
What does that have to do with Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino and the whole question of Spike Lee's critique.
WHat is the conservative position? Is Quentin the conservative movie director? Is finding Spike to be completely off base in his critique of this movie a conservative critique? Is calling Spike Lee an asshole, a conservative critique?
So then, you too think that Quentin should have no business making a movie about slavery?
Even though his movie about "slavery" is as much about slavery as Jonah Hex is about the Civil War.
But, if were though to make a serious movie that went into the underpinnings of slavery,so what? Why should he be told that he shouldn't be able to make such a movie because he's white, by a racialist like Spike?
NOt analagous, because being bad at business just makes you dumb, not EVIL.
So you are saying that there's no intellectual component to morality? I'll have to disagree.
By that logic, you could say that the Nazis could have been logically/intellectually correct in their goals, but that they just went about them in a mean way.
That is not how modern society judges it. We say that they were both rationally wrong and evil in the extent to which they perpetuated their wrongdoing.
It is also wrong to say that ignorance is always (or even usually) an innocent thing. Ignorance can allow one to commit many wrongs. Ignorance of the law, for instance, is said to be no excuse to breaking it. Just as much evil results from ignorance as it does from knowledge of how to go about doing something you somehow know to be wrong.
You should re-think your ideas on the relationship of reason and intellect to morality. I think they are lacking.
For your info, guys, Ritmo is a white kid from a rural area who lives in a lilly white community.
He pulls out the "I love blacks" routine solely for the sake of portraying his arguments as unassailable.
The dumb kid is a complete racist who just likes to use blacks whenever necessary in the service of some foolish argument he wants to win.
Blacks are just props for this racist kid. That's it.
Thomas, eat whatever goodies have been prepared for you and please leave me out of your chest-beating pleas to not consider you a racist for believing that there is an inherent criminality in blacks.
Ritmo, you should rethink posting on this board and repeatedly exposing yourself for the bitter racist that you are.
Your racism is quite transparent.
The dumb kid is a complete racist who just likes to use blacks whenever necessary in the service of some foolish argument he wants to win.
Correction: I'll use whatever facts or evidence are available to win a good argument.
And I'll leave the foolish arguments to you.
Don't you have anything better to do today? You sound as foolish and obsessive as Cedarford.
Ritmo, I repeat, I'll introduce your little punk ass to some blacks.
It would be a first for you, right?
Come on, you little white racist punk. I'll escort you so you don't have to be afraid.
You are just a dumb racist kid, Ritmo. One of the worst.
Tell us where you live, Ritmo.
You don't know any blacks and you never have, you little punk racist.
Ritmo, you are a racist punk.
Ritmo is a white kid from a rural area who lives in a lilly white community.
- !!!!! -
I live in the city. Not in Woodstock.
Go beat on something else today. Don't you have family to spend time with?
Ritmo, you've pulled your usual blacks as human shield routine.
You are such a nasty little racist punk.
Own it.
Ritmo trolls hard enough to get Shouting Thomas to take the bait. Ritmo's Christmas is saved!
You're a liar too, Ritmo.
Come on, quit lying and quit using blacks for human shields.
Come on, you little racist punk, quit pretending.
I'd be happy not to Paco, but Thomas just can't ever help himself.
It must suck to always have to be on the defensive like that.
In Hispanic countries, the color line was wavier and more undulating than in Anglo-Saxon countries. But if the racism was less pronounced, the conditions of duress were far worse. American exceptionalism applied to slaves as well. North American slaves lived twenty five years longer than their counterparts in Spanish and Brazilian climes. Is racism a worse crime than early death?....I read a recent article in the Smithsonian magazine about how Thomas Jefferson's plantation was administered. Small boys were set to work making nails. If they fell behind in their work, they were beaten. It sounds pretty awful. But remember that at about this same time, children in England were taken from foundling homes to be used as chimney sweeps. They were made to crawl up chimneys to dislodge soot. The term "light a fire under him" comes from the tactic of literally lighting a fire under small children to motivate them to climb up chimney stacks. Most of these kids died of cancer. The past was an ugly place, and it was ugly for just about everybody.
Ritmo, I'm here to ridicule your little racist punk ass for hours if you like.
Got a party to go to in several hours, but I'll call you a racist as long as you like.
You're a racist punk kid, Ritmo.
O Ritmo wrote:
So you are saying that there's no intellectual component to morality? I'll have to disagree.
I"m not saying that at all. I'm saying that YOU'RE immediately suggesting that people on the board are akin to Nazis as an attack point. You're not delving into the nuances of intellect versus morality and how the two intersect.
No, you're immediately going to the insult. So, then having done that, why get all holier than thou when recognizing youre not being serious but disrespectful I call you out and am disrespectful to you in kind?
Even your appeal to christian morality (not that you deserve it) is snide and snarky.
jr,
Forget the Nazi shit.
That just the little punk's way. Whenever the dumb, racist punk can't think of anything else, he pulls out the Nazi shit.
Ritmo, you're a racist punk white kid. Quit using blacks for human shields.
jr - I've said my peace. I guess I'm just not into seeing the redemptive side of right-wing ideas today. Perhaps they exist, though. But I've got a life to live.
In the meantime, I'll leave you to debate just how evil and mean a person I must be with Shouting Thomas, who seems to be the only other one here today fixated with the idea of berating to death whatever he can't debate his way out of.
No more good wishes to you, since you can't seem to find it in you to tolerate them.
Enjoy Thomas, he's got plenty of vim today (among other things) in him.
Spike Lee is boycotting a movie that is made by a white guy "about slavery" that he hasn't seen. How much "about slavery" is it though?
Was, Inglorious Basterds ABOUT nazi Germany? In that movie the Jews Kill Hitler and all the Gestapo, something that NEVER occured historically. If you're going to veer that far from accuracy I don't see why anyone would take a Tarantino movie about "slavery" with anything but a grain of salt.
I guess he's trying to suggest that Tarrantino is trivializing slavery, but
Spike Lee would also have an issue if it were a serious director directing a series study of slavery simply because the director was white.
Quit using blacks for human shields.
Are you using whites as "human shields"?
You're just the usual racist punk white kid, Ritmo.
Ritmo, I'm going to keep calling you out for your racism.
I don't tolerate racist punks like you.
fix·a·tion (fk-sshn)
n.
1. The act or process of fixing or fixating.
2. An obsessive preoccupation.
3. Psychology A strong attachment to a person or thing, especially such an attachment formed in childhood or infancy and manifested in immature or neurotic behavior that persists throughout life.
The definition of racist... Ritmo!
Go put on your Klan outfit Ritmo!
Did that make you feel better, Tommy?
Yes, Ritmo, it is my mission in life to expose racists like you.
Racism is intolerable and must be rooted out.
I won't rest until your racism is exposed and denounced.
Well, in that case, your "mission", as you put it, sounds like quite the driving force for you! You must think about it often.
And you do so with the tenacity and commitment of people so ready and willing to prove their point they would burn crosses to show it!
Good for you, Tommy!
I'll be you have a lot of experience with that "burning crosses" shit, don't you Ritmo.
Are you wearing your Klan outfit now?
'humperdink' nails it: once the 'ritmos', 'garages', 'cracks' and 'ingas' show up, the thread is over. they ought to be ignored but, alas, the temptation to engage is too great for some. oh well..lots more internet to be read elsewhere...
merry xmas, ann.
the discursion on Obama's supposed Arab ancestry came after pm's little knock about it. I find it more interesting than anything else, but it doesn't look like there's much more we can find to it.
Oh, poor Ritmo.. he can't find the article.. such a failure he must be. there are breadcrumbs for you to follow, my friend.
That racist piece of shit demeans his ancestors every time he opens his mouth.
DinobotPrime,
Quite right. History shows the blacks in Africa sold out their own kind to slavers just to get rid of the opposition, just as many American Indians scouted for the U.S. Army to get rid of other tribes... not realizing they would just be next once their usefulness was unneeded.
And Muslims still practice slavery over there.
It's even ok in their Koran to have slaves.
Southern slavery was servants in rich mens houses and farms until Eli Whitney created an industry for cotton to feed the lndustries in England.
.
Then field hands in cotton plantations became gold. The politics took over for the next 20 years demanding secession to hold on to that cotton wealth.
Intimidation of the non slave owners was as bad as the labor unions today.
Free men need political courage. Thaddeus Stevens was a free man. Lincoln was a trial lawyer hired by the abolitionists.
So far 27 comments by Ritmo and 16 by Shouting Thomas. And I haven't read any of them.
Thanks rc, for allowing me to realize how alike we are in that regard.
s/b Lee, not ee.
Paul said...
Quite right. History shows the blacks in Africa sold out their own kind to slavers just to get rid of the opposition, just as many American Indians scouted for the U.S. Army to get rid of other tribes... not realizing they would just be next once their usefulness was unneeded.
No, most of the Indians scouting for the Army were Corn Indians - semi-sedentary tribes who farmed as much as they hunted. Their own piece of land (reservation) without the threat of raids from the Buffalo Indians was fine by them.
By any sane measure, Spike Thomas has had a life full of perks and privileges. His childhood was spent in an intact home among loving parents. He makes a good living as a Hollywood director and gets to sit almost on the court at Knick games. If I had a life so blessed, I would sing hosannas every day. Yet he always seems to have a wild hair up his ass.....I think his sense of anger and injustie comes not from white oppression but from growing up short and runty among kids who let short and runty kids know that they were short and runty. That's probably the motivation behind the Knick seats. He gets to rail against all those tall pricks. That's what really pisses him off. Not white people. Tall people.
Nice.
A fool says disprove a logical fallacy, and people do try to the delight of precisely one.
Carry on, indeed.
http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/twain.html
I'd only point out that Mr Lee's ancestors were not stolen out of Africa. They were sold by native Africans to slave merchants.
It doesn't lessen the tragedy, but it does acknowledge the role that other Africans played in their plight.
I'd also point out that the average African American is doing far better than the average inhabitant of Africa.
So far 27 comments by Ritmo and 16 by Shouting Thomas. And I haven't read any of them.
But you did count. *flickers eyes, bends shoulder* He cares.
" most of the Indians scouting for the Army were Corn Indians"
Did you mean to say "Cornball Indians"?
"jr - I've said my peace. I guess I'm just not into seeing the redemptive side of right-wing ideas today. Perhaps they exist, though. But I've got a life to live."
Talk about holier than thou bull shit.
I just read through this comment thread and Ritmo lets off a stink bomb and then accuses everyone else of having the bad manners... all without ever making an argument. As usual.
Then the chortling... whoo-hoo... made him hit me, now I'm the winner!
What does Ritmo think of spike lee's insistence that he owns the history of slavery, that a white guy isn't allowed to have an opinion because he's white, or anything else. No one knows. It's beside the point. Look back at the thread. Look back at any discussion EVER on this blog. Ritmo doesn't have opinions. Ritmo is a vandal. Purely. Winning is tearing people down, tearing opinions apart, winning the *argument* but never the point, since there is no point to win because there was never an opinion expressed.
And on Christmas, call people Nazis, pat your back, quote some scripture... fabulous day for you sweetie. Isn't it.
"No, most of the Indians scouting for the Army were Corn Indians - semi-sedentary tribes who farmed as much as they hunted. Their own piece of land (reservation) without the threat of raids from the Buffalo Indians was fine by them."
I spoke to a woman a bit ago who's ancestor was a scout for Kit Carson (no love lost for that fellow) who had been stolen by indians as a child. He got beaten and thrown in the stockade to rot because he told Carson that he should get paid more because he spoke four languages. A relative found him there and they got him out.
Pretty cool story, though I'm sure it wasn't wonderful for the guy at the time. And the family antipathy for Carson lives on.
A mans a man. Racist is an attitude that ancestry DNA. creates different races with different humanity.
Why fall for that?
Are RG3 and Russell Wilson men like Brethren Fare or are the Africans? The NFL is ahead of the racists. What will politicians do for votes now?
This cell phone does its own thing. That was Bret. Farve .
"...spike lee's insistence that he owns the history of slavery, that a white guy isn't allowed to have an opinion because he's white, or anything else"
This doesnt even resemble what Spike Lee said.
I'd hope (it's a day for hope!) even Ann is embarrassed by what is passing for "comments" in this thread.
"I'd hope ... even Ann is embarrassed"
You think Althouse is responsible for all the comments on the thread? Which ones do you suppose are 'embarrassing'?
The criticisms of Lee are embarrassing both in style and substance. Embarrassing to read. You dont have to agree with Lee to see that.
I agree that it is sad that yet another thread devolved into a Troll and Response dyad. But I don't see what is embarrassing about that, at least from Althouse's point of view. Discouraging, perhaps.
If Ann felt no responsibility there wouldn't be the "no faith" rule. It's an interesting question though...how much responsibility should a blogger feel for the comments? I'm not even sure.
Er..."bad faith" rule.
"The criticisms of Lee are embarrassing both in style and substance. Embarrassing to read. You dont have to agree with Lee to see that."
So you assert. However, you offer nothing to back up your assertions. Why are they embarrassing?
Spike Lee... yawn.
Didn't he comment on Clint Eastwood's film re: Iwo Jima, and the lack of blacks in his story?
"This doesnt even resemble what Spike Lee said."
You're right. He didn't say much. Perhaps it was the "honorary black man" comment, which it turns out, was about Pulp Fiction and not this movie.
Here is the scoop on the n word. It IS trendy, it's used all the time amongst blacks and has been for years. According to my fourteen year old, it is perfectly acceptable to use the n word if it ends with an a rather then an r. Ending it with an a signifies friendship, ending it with an r will get your head busted. Spike Lee knows this, but he's gotta play the offended card for us white folk.
Im assuming this film is set in the mid to late 1800s? What was the typical speech back then, if its authentic and thats the way everyone talked, what's the problem?
William said...
By any sane measure, Spike Thomas has had a life full of perks and privileges. His childhood was spent in an intact home among loving parents. He makes a good living as a Hollywood director and gets to sit almost on the court at Knick games. If I had a life so blessed, I would sing hosannas every day. Yet he always seems to have a wild hair up his ass.....I think his sense of anger and injustie comes not from white oppression but from growing up short and runty among kids who let short and runty kids know that they were short and runty. That's probably the motivation behind the Knick seats. He gets to rail against all those tall pricks. That's what really pisses him off. Not white people. Tall people.
Thomas should thank God every day for his luck at having his ancestors sold into slavery by his other ancestors so that he could grow up here in the US instead of with the descendants of people who's ancestors were not sold.
So should all of the decendants of slaves in the US. If they are not happy here, go on and move to Africa. Good luck there.
My friend on facebook said this. Tarantino: sibyl composing suicide notes on behalf of a dying civilization.
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