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'World run by gangsters': Spike Lee sets political tone at Cannes

46 Comments
By Eric RANDOLPH

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all these poor oppressed minorities.....

8 ( +14 / -6 )

Agent Orange, this guy in Brazil, and Putin are gangsters.

Agreed. So are the current dictators Paul Biya, Yoweri Museveni, and Teodoro Mbasogo.

Spike should call out all evil men.

9 ( +13 / -4 )

I like Spike. He has the power to spread the truth and he does.

5 ( +15 / -10 )

I only know “Do the right thing”, but that’s a great film full of righteous anger.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

Lee mentioned recent victims of police violence and said: "You would hope 30-some years later, that Black people would stop being hunted down like animals."

I remembered watching an interview with him and a pastor in Chicago after he released "Chiraq." They were discussing the crime rate in Chicago and how people needed to go to police to report crimes because the no snitching code of the streets costs more lives. Now he is back on the police are hunting Black people on the streets woke train again to padden his bank account I guess.

-1 ( +11 / -12 )

In 1619 the first slaves to reach America's shores were brought there by the British and sold to the British colonial governor of Jamestown, Virginia.

10 ( +14 / -4 )

In 1619 the first slaves to reach America's shores were brought there by the British and sold to the British colonial governor of Jamestown, Virginia.

and who owned the slaves to be able to sell them to the British? Do you seen an ignored pattern here?

7 ( +15 / -8 )

@NOMINATION

No need to be offended. Of course the slaves were the prisoners of African warlords who traded them to the British before they were shipped across the Atlantic to the colonies. Those are historical facts.

10 ( +13 / -3 )

Is there anything more dangerous than a saint? Sorry Spike, loved your work, but the jury PRESIDENT trumpeting victimhood is a bit of a stretch innit? Back in the day though, you were the bomb, but like sickboy from Trainspotting said,

“Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever.”

These identitarians sell and profit from division and have nearly killed cinema in it’s entirety. Seen anything good out of Hollywood lately folks? From woke to broke. Collective guilt, fun times.

3 ( +8 / -5 )

No need to be offended. 

I am not offended. I am only adding to the history that you provided. People need to check how slavery all started and who to point the finger at and who should be responsible for reparations.

1 ( +9 / -8 )

IMO, Spike Lee and his films are overrated.

6 ( +14 / -8 )

Someone should tell him that Agent Orange is no longer POTUS.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Lee -- the first Black person to lead the festival's jury -- used his favorite nickname for Donald Trump, "Agent Orange", and sported a cap reading "1619", referring to the year in which the first slaves arrived in the Americas.

The Pilgrims didn't even land in the Americas until 1620. Blame the British!

And there were already slaves in the Americas for 100s of years before 1619. What about their rights?

And Spike hasn'T made a half-decent movie since 1989.

0 ( +8 / -8 )

Contrary to ‘this’ persona, Lee is is purported to be both, ‘a card-carrying member of the ARPA’ *and ‘*a hat-wearing MAGO supporter’. He’s been willing to lend his image to certain public causes yet his financial contributions are not known at this time. (Perhaps his tax returns will lend more information about his charitable contributions?)

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

The hunted down like animals thing is plain dumb.

The facts of 1619 don't support a view of how modern day Americans feel and act.

Orange is no longer "running the world".

Spike is just mouthing stuff he thinks the audience want to hear - he is surely to clever to believe this tripe.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

His mother thought “Spike” sounded ‘tougher’ than Shelton.

- “Indiana? We named the dog “Indiana”. - “I have find memories of that dog.

Coincidentally @Commodore 11:18am, Lee’s dog is named . . . “Ginger”.

- “For me, it was Ginger over Maryanne.” -

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

However, Lee hasn’t won any awards with PETA or others for his depictions of the callous treatment and murder of animals: “Crooklyn’s Cruel to Animals & Viewers”

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-30-ca-63771-story.html -
-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Curious about this uncommon ‘bit of knowledge’ @Lamily 5:19am you posited:

*- “…traders realized they could just land and round up anyone they saw without paying, that became the norm, sometimes enslaving kings and queens and thousands of non-slaves.” -*

Can you give some historic context to your statement?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Spike Lee forget to mention that Black men in Africa sold the Black slaves to the British and Americans. Maybe he should remind everyone that Black people are more likely to be killed in America by other BLACK people! Chicago has a Black mayor who does f all about black crime. Oh, and maybe Spike will tell everyone that being a black man in America has enabled him to become a multi-millionaire!!!!!

4 ( +6 / -2 )

RecklessToday  01:09 pm JST

I think what he says is important. Many people seem to not recognize that a larger number of slaves were sent to the Caribbean and South America, particularly Brazil, as opposed to North America. Does anyone care or focus on those descendants? They seem to be a lot worse off than African-Americans who have slave descendants.

I do, as mentioned in earlier posts.

The UK, Portugal, and other European nations (and African nations) that contributed to the slave issue should step up to the plate.

Why is the US doing more about this matter than every other country combined?

Why is the US taking the brunt of the blame--and shifting that blame to US citizens who are descendants of Europeans, who settled in the US long after slavery was prohibited?

0 ( +3 / -3 )

I like Spike Lee, always have, the guy is wicky and talented for sure and made funny and memorable movies, however, the guy does have a grudge against Whites and that is one of his weak and annoying points frankly. Only in America could Lee achieve such success, nowhere else would that have been possible, so as to why the man doesn't realize that is beyond me, but liberals do think emotionally more than rationally.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Sure he is right that the world is rule by gangsters but is kinda unfair that he is only calling out the white oppressors. Whether it's Asia, Latin America or Africa, there are many other races who are exploited and oppressed. I feel like he is kinda a hypocrite that he only mention that blacks are mistreated.

Woke culture and their forceful idea's. The problem is that in recent years they keep trying to remake films and try to replace the roles of previous favorite actors with diversity or females. Terrible adaptions and boring story. There is barely any originality and creativity in most of US films these days.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

@jiji Xx all those privileged majorities..... with warped mindsets is the reason why this world is the way it i

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

To be honest I don't agree with anything "Short" Spike Lee says especially when he said ""You would hope 30-some years later, that Black people would stop being hunted down like animals." Let me put it another way after those 30 years to this day You would hope that black people/ African Americans would STOP HUNTING down each other like animals!! It is what it is! Report it Spike both ways not one way. A better way of saying it would have been! I would have HOPED after 30-some years, that Black people would stop being hunted down like animals not only by the police but by EACH OTHER! It is what it is!!

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Anything dealing with a successful POC and the dog whistle brigade are rampant. Multiple ignorant posts on the same theme. Spike Lee or Naomi Osaka and it is like a broken record.

Ex. Black people were responsible for their own slavery as hundreds of years before the institution ended some complicit Africans sold rivals into slavery. Ignoring the institutionalization and industrialization of slavery after that and the fact that previous institutions of slavery(like the Roman) did not have similar racial and hereditary components.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

but liberals do think emotionally more than rationally.

Yes, American conservatives, especially since the last election where their Lord and Saviour went down in ignominious defeat, have been impressing the world with their rationality and logic.

We need more storytellers like Spike Lee and fewer like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Gaetz and Mike Lindell.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Please do something about this kind of issue.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

- “Please do something about this kind of issue.” -

WhoWhat issue?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

snowymountainhellToday  12:19 am JST

WhoWhat issue?

Was thinking the same.

Spike will be happy though--these 1619 Project proponents Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah-Jones were hired to Howard University's faculty.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

It’s easy to criticize everyone and everything and at the same time being a rich and celebrated systemic part of it all himself. Walking on the red carpet in Cannes he is already more privileged than billions of white, black or whatever other people on this planet. And I bet he is shaking hands and drinking champagne with gangsters a lot there too.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Spike Lee denouncing authoritarians and the fact that black people are still "hunted down like animals" in the U.S.

Spike and his woke comrades live in an alternate reality of slave patrols and klansman roaming America’s largest urban communities. They actually believe that white people suffer from an incurable moral failing called ‘whiteness’ that must be actively defended against. He probably doesn’t even realize his absurd level of privilege compared to 99.9% of the world’s population, black, white, Asian, whatever. He could rescue himself and his entire family from the American dystopia if it were to cross his mind. He could easily move back to the motherland and live again among the same people whose ancestors captured, enslaved, and sold his ancestors to the British slave traders ( whose ancestors probably still live in England).

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Yup all those rulers of Haiti. Africa, and Jamaica also! Don't forget those corrupt politicians!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Anything dealing with a successful POC and the dog whistle brigade are rampant. 

Pointing out that Spike is grossly exaggerating is not a ‘dog whistle’. You are reflexively rushing to protect a point of view you are unwilling to examine critically. Lee and Osaka are wildly privileged people who were able to achieve a great deal in the country they like to slander as being systemically racist when that is objectively not true. They assign blanket responsibility for the problems of their community when they themselves know better based on their own successes and achievements. I don’t understand what they hope to achieve through this fierce form of tribalism. It certainly cannot lead to better outcomes for those of the community they claim to be fighting for. It just leaves everyone worse off - which perhaps is the goal. People have a tendency to want to pull down othets who achieve more than themselves- in this case it’s their collective selves.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

 "You would hope 30-some years later, that Black people would stop being hunted down like animals."

One would've hoped that with a recent Black American POTUS that would mark a change but there's still some people who haven't evolved since 1860. They're the ones who fell for the 'birther' lies started up booger-brained brats, like Agent Orangutan.

ETHAN1001July 8  06:52 pm JST

Spike Lee forget to mention that Black men in Africa sold the Black slaves to the British and Americans.

They did. But those were mainly war captives from other nations and they were sold to European traders. And Europeans had indentured servants and serfs too. Slavery was finally abolished in Ethiopia in 1942 under Haile Selassie.

And Native Americans were enslaved at first by the Spaniards but disease and war and genocide led the Europeans to look at Africa for their 'manpower resource labor'. And I think the first slaver ship to sell Africans to slavery came before 1619 and it was run by Dutch slavers. I may be wrong.

Erik MoralesToday  05:48 am JST

Yup all those rulers of Haiti. Africa, and Jamaica also!

Africa has had its share of dirtbag dictators - Mobutu of Zaire, the head of Equatorial Guinea who proclaims himself to be a god, Idi Amin (remember him?), and let's not forget the fascist Hutu Power who initiated the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and started a chain reaction of ethnic wars thruout the middle of Africa that continues to this day. And Haiti - Duvaliers and ever since. Their latest corrupt tinpot got assassinated the other day and things in Haiti are chaotic again.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Lee and Osaka are wildly privileged people who were able to achieve a great deal in the country they like to slander as being systemically racist when that is objectively not true.

Your idea of privilege as Lee and Osaka show your ideological blinders. They are talented and rewarded.

Privilege is what Lee is talking about: the nepotism of the undeserving Trump clan and heirs and heiresses.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

One would've hoped that with a recent Black American POTUS that would mark a change but there's still some people who haven't evolved since 1860. They're the ones who fell for the 'birther' lies started up booger-brained brats, like Agent Orangutan. 

Actually, it started under John Podesta and Hillary and then whipped up by the media to be more accurate.

And Native Americans were enslaved at first by the Spaniards but disease and war and genocide led the Europeans to look at Africa for their 'manpower resource labor'. And I think the first slaver ship to sell Africans to slavery came before 1619 and it was run by Dutch slavers. I may be wrong.

More or less, that’s correct.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

This is untrue.

It’s true in many of the Wikileaks cables that are online and free to the public states that that’s where the ORIGINS of the birther movement started

The GOP simpletons believed it.

No, Assange is sitting in a jail rotting away, still not charged for doing just that, revealing information that put a spot light on the government and DNC.

Hey Spike--Looking forward to proof of Trump's Russian collusion too.

I think we are now at the 3rd upcoming attempt that will also fail miserably, but they still have to try, he could run so….

The narrative is old and worn out and the only people that are taking the Russian collusion seriously besides Hollywood are Schiff and Nadler(which they really don’t either, but if they can stop Trump from running, they’ll do whatever it takes.)

0 ( +2 / -2 )

This is untrue. Trump was the most active and highest-profile birther conspiracist of all. He lied on Twitter to say he had a "very good" (unnamed) source that had proof Obama wasn't born in America.

The GOP simpletons believed it. Even people on this site believed it. Even you believed it

Hey Spike-Looking forward to proof of Trump’s Russian collusion too

Plenty of unsubstantiated stuff around.

I don’t know if you were posting here after the 2020 US election. The election fraud nonsense and the belief that the result was going to be overturned took the hysterics from the simpletons into a whole new stratosphere. Some collapsed into what I can only imagine was incontinence.

Absolute circus. Would make an interesting if rather sad movie.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Plenty of unsubstantiated stuff around. 

Not really.

I don’t know if you were posting here after the 2020 US election.

Not at all.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Privilege is what Lee is talking about: the nepotism of the undeserving Trump clan and heirs and heiresses.

Absolutely. Very undeserving, unqualified, unprincipalled, uncultured, undiplomatic, not suitable and not fit to run a trash can let alone speak for the american people. None of them have worked an honest day in their lives, ever.

bass4funkJuly 9  05:29 pm JST

One would've hoped that with a recent Black American POTUS that would mark a change but there's still some people who haven't evolved since 1860. They're the ones who fell for the 'birther' lies started up booger-brained brats, like Agent Orangutan. 

Actually, it started under John Podesta and Hillary and then whipped up by the media to be more accurate.

The sassymouth Trumpster amplified all that bull, and he lipped off with that 'Pizzagate' nonsence too. But listen to the disgusting things he said on the Wendy Williams and Howard Stern shows and it should be obvious to anybody that a booger-brain brat like him is not to be believed, taken seriously or trusted or even worth talking to.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Lee -- the first Black person to lead the festival's jury -- used his favorite nickname for Donald Trump, "Agent Orange", and sported a cap reading "1619", referring to the year in which the first slaves arrived in the Americas.

Does anyone here really buy into that 1619 fantasy? Something the dems are trying to pollute the nations children with, going off on the loony CRT myth. I guess they prefer fantasy over reality.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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