A Blackman in the Klan

Blackkklansman by Kathia Woods

Blackkklansman is the latest offering by acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee. The movie is the story of how African-American police officer Ron Stallworth infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan. It all started when he read a recruitment ad in the paper and decided to call. The person on the other end had no idea that his latest recruit was black. This is where the story becomes interesting. Stallworth needs a white counterpart to help him pulls off this ruse. It comes in none other than Flip Zimmerman an undercover detective who also happens to be Jewish. Zimmerman portrayed by Adam Driver is responsible for characterizing the Stallworth who is very charismatically racist online to come to life in the real world. Complicating things further the person Stallworth built his radical repartee with was none other than David Duke. Duke is so impressed by his recruit that he decides to travel to Colorado for his initiation ceremony.
Stallworth who finally has found his sense of purpose at the Colorado Police meets Patricia president of the Black Student Union. Patricia is political unapologetically black and anti-police. Let’s recap by day Stallworth is pretending to be a white supremacist and at night he’s part of the black power movement with Patricia. There are many current themes in this movie. Code-switching the ability to converse in proper English to be accepted by mainstream Americans and jive/ebonies the urban vernacular often used amongst people of color. The complicit behavior at times by white women to use the police department as their security force against black men as seen in the news recently. The spreading of revisionist history to justify racism visa vie to deny the holocaust or holding on to Confederate monuments that celebrated slavery. This movie may take place in the 70’s, but the themes are very current. Spike has always been great by being in tune with the fabric of America. This movie works because although the events occurred in the past, we are still dealing with them today. The ending credits leave the audience with much to meditate. A Prince track and the killing of Heather Heyer shows us that America still has lots of work to do.