Director Spike Lee referred to “some negroes” that will be drinking President Donald Trump’s “orange kool-aid” this coming November, dismissing them as a small percentage.
Speaking with Gayle King of CBS on Tuesday, Spike Lee discussed his upcoming movie “Da 5 Bloods” and his decision to feature a black Trump supporter as one of the main characters. Though he said the film will treat the character with dignity, Lee’s rhetoric about such people was less dignified.
“In the movie you include a black Trump supporter complete with a Make America Great Again hat on. Now knowing how vocal you’ve been against the President I think many people were surprised that you made that decision. How come?” Gayle King asked Lee, as reported by Newsbusters.
“Well, there are some negroes that have drunk or will drink the Orange Kool-Aid that’s coming in November, but it’s a very, very small percentage and I needed — we needed that – my co-writer Ken Wilmott and I to put some tension in the group,” he said.
Spike Lee asserted that the character, played by acclaimed actor Delroy Lindo, will be treated sympathetically.
“These four brothers who grew up, who fought side-by-side in the Vietnam War and are coming back 40 some years later,” he said. “So everybody can’t be — everybody went off after they came back from the war, so people went their different ways and – I would like to add, played by the great actor Delroy Lindo, he really makes you understand why he’s wearing that hat and you have sympathy for him.”
Speaking with The Guardian, actor Delroy Lindo said that he had a difficult time accepting the role of a black Trump supporter when Spike Lee first approached him.
“I remember saying to Spike, ‘I’ve got a 17-year-old son, man. I don’t want him seeing me representing this person,'” Lindo said of the experience. “It had to do with my values, as a parent and as a being on the planet, feeling that I would be representing an individual who is … I don’t have the words to discuss this individual.”
Lindo just suggested that the character be an arch-conservative, but Spike Lee insisted he be a Trump supporter. “Spike thought about it for a few days, then said, ‘Yeah, I really need him to be a Trump supporter,'” said Lindo.
In an Instagram post in March, the director shared a photo of several of Trump’s supporters in the black community, including YouTube stars Diamond & Silk, praying over him in the Oval Office. Employing deeply racist language recalling that of a submissive southern house slave, Spike Lee wrote, “Massa, We Love You, Massa. We Gonna Pray Fo’ You Massa. Singing- ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.’”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Spike Lee even suggested that the world was suffering the earth’s wrath.
“Before Corona, after Corona, this is changing everything,” Lee said. “But you know why, the reason, I read an article about it, how pollution is clearing up, skies are clear, animals are coming out. I mean, you know, the Earth was angry at us. People may think I’m crazy that I believe it in my heart and soul, that we had gone too far and Earth said, ‘Hold up, we gotta change this.’”
“We were killing this planet,” Lee continued. “And this time that everything was shut down, the Earth has come alive. Water is clear. … And the other day I read in The New York Times, LA had the clearest air in the world. Los Angeles! There was one day last week they had the cleanest air in the world, LA.”
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