BlacKkklansman Screening

On Thursday, February eighth, The University of Connecticut’s Humanities House kicked off their Spring semester film series with a showing of Spike Lee’s BlacKkklansman. Students met up in a nearby classroom to walk together to the screening. There was a great turn out from our humanities house students, and I think that this movie touched on some important subjects like the dangers of hate filled extremism in a way that I’ve rarely seen displayed.

Spike Lee did a great job of emphasizing the thin line between absurdity and reality all while adding a satirical tinge. This film captures the true story of Ron Stallsworth, a Black Colorado Springs officer who worked closely with his Jewish partner to successfully go undercover and infiltrate the Klu Klux Klan to stop a rumored attack against civil rights activists. Stallsworth is constantly torn between two juxtaposing identities: a cop and a Black man in an unaccepting society, and having to prove to the world that those identities can indeed coexist. He faces many challenges throughout the film such as making sure his partner stays safe, his true identity stays concealed, having to prove that he is a more than capable cop to his reluctant chief and racist coworker, and trying to alter a broken system from the inside out. He does all of this while falling in love with a Black Panther advocate, and trying to protect the woman he has fallen in love with while being sure not to reveal too much about his identity as a detective. Being that this movie is based closely around a true story, he gave Stallsworth a voice and a platform to share his amazing work and to share an even bigger message.

It is interesting how Ron Stallsworth is undercover in many different meanings of the word. He is literally an undercover cop, but he is also undercover in terms of his budding relationship with Patrice, he is undercover of course as a Black man passing for a White man through conversations on the telephone but even towards the end when he is forced to protect David Duke, the president of the KKK. It is as if Ron can never truly be himself and is forced to carry the weight of all these conflicting identities in private.

Not only Stallsworth has to take on the task of being “undercover.” His partner, Phillip Zimmerman is the alleged face behind the voice of Stallsworth, and he thus has to actively pretend to be someone who despises his true identity as a Jewish man. There were times in the movie where Zimmerman had second thoughts about this mission. After his membership card arrived from the KKK, he didn’t want to keep it. He wasn’t proud. He felt guilty for openly betraying a piece of his identity that never seemed so huge before. Also towards the end, at his initiation ceremony, you could hear his reluctance in repeating back the mantra that has been spoken to him. He had to channel the attitude of a bigot and pretend to be someone he wasn’t. While watching the movie, I didn’t really think about how exhausting and conflicting playing his role in the mission had to be in addition to Stallsworth. In my opinion, Zimmerman didn’t get enough credit for his part in it all.

I think the transformation of Ron Stallworth’s character is also something worth noting. Toward the beginning of the movie, he was a skeptic about the pro Black movement and was on the outside looking in. It wasn’t until he had his initial conversation with Patrice and listened to the words of Stokely Carmichael that he came to realize that maybe this movement wasn’t accurately portrayed by the others on the outside looking in. The police chief referred to the Black Panthers as the biggest threat to American security, but after this meeting, Stallworth was really able to see what they were about for himself. His relationship with Patrice caused him to look inside himself and allow him to connect himself to a movement that was for him. I think this is what urged him to want to be an ally to these people and to use his position of power to try to change some of the realities of the way police and Black people interacted during this time.

I’m a huge fan of Spike Lee and his ability to make great movies about important topics and starting the discussion on these issues. The topic of racism is definitely an uncomfortable one, but a conversation that needs to be had nonetheless. And those that doubt the existence and the important of this conversation can be disproved by the footage of the Unite The Right White supremacist rally from just over a year ago.

I also appreciate the ending of the film and how Lee tied those events in Colorado Springs to the recent events that took place in Charlottesville, North Carolina. I think this addition gave us all time to reflect on how even though some of the attitudes displayed in the movie may seem exaggerated, there are actually plenty of people in our country today, partaking in these racist ideologies and allowing hate to cloud their judgement and fuel their actions. He included clips of protestors being ran over by White supremacists and this especially served as a wake up call to me, but I think to all of us as well. The ending shows that we have made progress as a country, but the work doesn’t stop there. Fighting against hatred is an active and everlasting fight, and our country is better than those clips shown. I am thankful to Spike Lee for calling us all to attention and for sharing Ron Stallworth’s story.

All in all, this film did a great job on touching upon issues that may be hard to discuss, all while taking some pressure off of the harsh subjects by padding the movie with a humorous undertone. Watching the movie was a great experience in itself and I think it was a great choice from the Humanities House leadership team. I hope that everyone saw the value in watching this movie and used this film not only as a source of entertainment but as a learning experience as well.