The Year That Was

In response to Spike Lee’s quote, “Black South Africans are gonna have to kill people. . . . That Gandhian (stuff) won’t work. They gotta start picking up guns. . . . I went to South Africa. I saw those little kids chanting, ‘One bullet, one settler.’ . . . Who knows? We might see that tactic here some day”:

Anger does serve a purpose. It exposes and condemns wrongdoing. But surely a filmmaker has an obligation to present justice while trying to denounce social injustice. If I were a 10-year-old African-American brought up on nothing but Lee’s movies, what do you think my attitude toward whites would be?

When people take the time to know one another, we discover there are good and bad in every race. A sentiment evidently not shared by the Spikemaster. Endorsing gunplay between the races in this country may not be the best-thought-out plan, Mr. Lee.

He’s a talent, no question, but if words are the summation of a man, then surely Lee is a racist.

PHIL BOATWRIGHT

Thousand Oaks