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<\/p>\nBy Alex Zamalin.<\/p>\n
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BlacKkKlansman<\/em>, directed by Spike Lee, 2018<\/p>\n BlacKkKlansman<\/em>, the cinematic dramatization of the real-life story of Ron Stallworth, a Black detective who infiltrates the Colorado Springs chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1970s, is director Spike Lee\u2019s meditation on white supremacy during the early years of Donald Trump\u2019s presidency, when white nationalism was on the rise and was exemplified by the bloody 2017 \u201cUnite the Right\u201d march in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left one person dead. Lee goes back in time to make sense of the contemporary moment, to explain why white racism has never been dead in America, why it has always been lurking beneath the shadows. The first five minutes of the film subject the viewer to a diatribe by a fictional white supremacist, Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard (played by Alec Baldwin) who, looks directly at the camera and shows us clips from D.W. Griffith\u2019s The Birth of a Nation<\/em> (1915) in order to sing the praises of the Klan during Reconstruction (1865-1877) and dehumanize Black citizens who emancipated themselves from slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War.<\/p>\n The first five minutes bring us into the world of the archetypal white supremacist \u2014 the one who basks in eugenics, the one who is filled with rage, the one who spews hate with a ferocity that is only matched by a perverse delight. But by minute 6, the scene shifts to a different figure, the ordinary racist, in a place where racism isn\u2019t dressed in white robes, where it subtly, but no less insidiously, finds its way into institutions \u2014 like the police \u2014 that are deemed respectable by white Americans.<\/p>\n The question of how one ought to respond to the racist is a recurring one throughout the film. Minute 9 is when Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington) begins to act on a recognition that finally becomes clear to him and also to us: one cannot easily reason with the racist. After multiple white officers in the CSPD (Colorado Springs Police Department) refer to Black men as \u201ctoads,\u201d as they ask Stallworth to find records in the office, Stallworth \u2014 for this first time in the film \u2014 powerfully resists his dehumanization. \u201cThere are no toads here, only human beings,\u201d he says. Racism relies on bad faith, which is to say that, the racist asserts something they know is patently false. Deep down, the racist knows Black citizens are human, but they nonetheless take great pleasure in describing them in subhuman ways, precisely because it forces the Black citizen to \u201cprove\u201d their humanity \u2014 which is, of course, humiliating.<\/p>\n This vicious cycle frames the possibilities for antiracist action. For this reason, the nineteenth-century Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, at the height of US slavery in the 1852, argued in \u201cWhat to a Slave is the Fourth of July\u201d (1852) that in order to confront the racist, rational argument is insufficient, or even useful. What is necessary in the response is irony, fire and brimstone. \u201cAt a time like this,\u201d Douglass says in his lecture, \u201cscorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation\u2019s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.\u201d<\/p>\n This theoretical insight cannot be overstated. To confront racism, one needs to put the racist on the defensive \u2014 lay bare their bad faith. That\u2019s why Stallworth looks the cop straight in the eye and simply declares what is obvious to everyone \u2014 \u201cthere are no toads here.\u201d Notice how Stallworth doesn\u2019t defend his \u2014 or Black people\u2019s \u2014 humanity. Instead, he draws attention to what the white cop knows but refuses to admit, as his colleague, a Black officer stands directly before him.<\/p>\n Black people are not toads.<\/p>\n There are no toads here.<\/p>\n See the first Minute 9 here<\/a><\/em>. This series is curated by Nicholas Rombes.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Zamalin-Rutgers.png\")