“‘Here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘Even today, a large part of the African-American community of New Orleans thinks that those levees were bombed. Now, whether that is true or not, that should not be discounted.’ He rattled off past government trespasses: 1927’s Great Flood of Mississippi, when the levees were, in fact, blown up; the flooding of the Ninth Ward during Hurricane Betsy in 1965; the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
“‘So, in the collective mind of African-Americans, it is not some science-fiction, hocus-pocus thing to say that the government is doing stuff,’ he continued. ‘Even if it didn’t happen, you cannot discount it and dismiss it as Oh you people are crazy. It’s what people think—talk to Jewish people. Because of the Holocaust, you know, anything that happens, it’s like, ‘Oh! It’s starting again.’ And I’m not going to fault someone of Jewish ancestry that feels like that because that happened! This is history.’”
What's beautiful about this reasoning is that Lee has created a marvelous self-fulfilling prophecy that seems to have eluded him: high profile folks like him continue to float this idea, and then say that since people believe it is possible, it is significant. Amazingly, he continued to try and justify this premise: “‘No one is saying to Jewish people, ‘Oh, you’re crazy!’ So if you use the same analogy, then it’s not so farfetched.’”
Also of note in this interview was Lee’s second attack on secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in just two weeks. This time, Lee suggested that no African-American should consider voting for her if she ran for president in 2008:
“‘African-Americans will have to really, really, really, really, really, REALLY analyze the Secretary of State’s record, and get past the pigmentation of her skin,’ he said. ‘If we do that, I don’t think we can vote for her. I’m not the spokesperson for 45 million African Americans … but that’s my right as an American citizen.’ He laughed. ‘Hopefully, that right hasn’t been rescinded yet. I’m not going to vote for that woman. No. Way.’”
In addition, Lee reached out to the woman who recently confronted Rice: “‘To the lady that got in Ms. Rice’s face in the store before you got pulled off by Secret Service,’ he said. ‘If you read this article, please contact The New York Observer because we’re trying to find you for the documentary we’re doing on Hurricane Katrina.’” Lee then joked at the possibility that the woman may have met with foul play as a result of her protests: “Caggle, caggle. ‘IF you are still alive, that is.’”
Finally, Lee also reached out to a person that had an expletive for the vice president, and suggested that she may have been moved to Gitmo with other detainees that he amazingly referred to as “peace activists”:
“‘Also, to the person that said ‘Go f--- yourself, Mr. Cheney.’ If you are still alive, we’d like to contact you too. If you are still on our plane’”—caggle—‘if you are still walking amongst us, if you get this down in Guantánamo with the other jailed peace activists and suspected Al Qaeda agents who have been jailed for five years and not charged with anything, please get a message to me! We want to know what prompted you to tell Mr. Cheney to go f--- himself! Thank you.’ He paused to catch his breath. ‘Seriously, we’d like to find that woman.’”
Isn’t it wonderful that America has Hollywood directors like this who are so passionately benevolent that they are willing to help race relations in our country while at the same time improve the caustic political tone that is so rampant?
