Spike Speaks... "Massuh Clinton"

One of my favorite movies is Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, mostly for its commentary on race relations in America. The power in the movie that drives home it's theme of the division between black and white is it's candid portrayal of the relations between the Irish-whites and African-Americans in the Beford-Stuyvesant community of Brooklyn. I think it's message is as necessary today as when it was released in '88. Below is a brief excerpt from a recent interview of Spike featured in The New York Mag:

Around the tenth anniversary of the film, you said that not much had changed—Diallo and Louima were in the news. How does it look to you now?

The way Bloomberg is handling stuff is a world away from Giuliani and Koch—and how Dinkins handled Crown Heights, too. I’m optimistic, but we’re going to hell in a handbasket. Fuck recession, we’re in a depression. I’m blessed, I can afford to send my children to private school. But where’s the affordable housing? You can’t afford Bed-Stuy!

What do you think of Obama?

I’m riding my man Obama. I think he’s a visionary. Actually, Barack told me the first date he took Michelle to was Do the Right Thing. I said, “Thank God I made it. Otherwise you would have taken her to Soul Man. Michelle would have been like, ‘What’s wrong with this brother?’ ”

Does this mean you’re down on the Clintons?

The Clintons, man, they would lie on a stack of Bibles. Snipers? That’s not misspeaking; that’s some pure bullshit. I voted for Clinton twice, but that’s over with. These old black politicians say, “Ooh, Massuh Clinton was good to us, massuh hired a lot of us, massuh was good!” Hoo! Charlie Rangel, David Dinkins—they have to understand this is a new day. People ain’t feelin’ that stuff. It’s like a tide, and the people who get in the way are just gonna get swept out into the ocean.

Read the full article here. The article covers the process and how the making of Do the Right Thing really matured Spike. He is also given a chance to give some of his political perspectives of the past and now (hence, "Massuh" Clinton). I'll let y'all take what y'all want from the interview.

Oh yea, here's something else I found interesting:

Was the studio prepared for the controversy when the film came out?

At the last moment, Paramount asked me to change the ending. They wanted Mookie and Sal to hug and be friends and sing “We Are the World.” They told me this on a Friday; Monday morning we were at Universal.

Whack right?

Here's a little clip from the movie.

Pax.