Spike Lee is one of our best filmmakers and critics. He has been controversial since he crafted the masterful “Do the Right Thing” back in 1989, unapologetically black, urban, cooler than you, and in your face. The U.S. would benefit from more Spike Lees and not just because our movies would be better.
But we think he overstepped on this one. As described by The Guardian [1], Lee compared Trump to Hitler while accepting an award from the New York Film Critics Association:
Lee said the comments about Trump were recorded on 6 January, the day of the Capitol breach [2], which he said was “a very sad day in the history of America”.
“We are living in a very serious time in America,” said the director. “His president, President Agent Orange, will go down in history with the likes of Hitler … all his boys, they are going down on the wrong side of history.”
Trump will go down on the wrong side of history as a terrible leader, evil, self-centered, fascist, all of that, and likely for a failed coup in an attempt to rip democracy from the United States. Trump did have children ripped from the arms of their parents and that could be considered a crime against humanity. There is no doubt that Trump is irretrievably evil.
But he’s not Hitler. If we put Trump in the same class of people as Hitler and Stalin we cheapen the memory of the millions of lives lost because of Hitler and Stalin. American Jews are right to be terrified of Trump and his mad followers, but we suspect that our Jewish community would also be deeply offended by any attempt to equate Trump to Hitler.
We understand where Spike is coming from. And certainly, black Americans had far more reason to fear Trump and his movement. We cannot deny it is easier to say this as a white American. Still, comparisons to Hitler should remain confined to those individuals that killed at the level Hitler killed. Perhaps Trump is capable of killing six million people if it suited him and it wouldn’t impact him. It is very scary to consider. But until someone does so, it’s inappropriate and disrespectful of Hitler’s victims.
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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak