Exciting mash-up of dangerous lies and important truth about racism

Rating: 4/10 (24 September 2018)

"Black KKKlansman" is based on the memoir of a black former cop. The job of police (black and white alike) is to keep workers and the oppressed in line on behalf of the owning class, with blacks at the bottom as a special target of state brutality from slavery on. While spying on the Klan in the '70s with the help of a white colleague, the black cop also infiltrated the multiracial, worker-oriented Progressive Labor group. Police historically disrupt progressive organizations, while generally protecting those of racists and fascists -- the rulers' reserve army. Over and over they cover for individual cop acts of racist brutality. How does Spike Lee handle these facts? He ignores his hero's work against PL and invents an episode in which the police department opposes a racist in its ranks.
The movie does show racism (still) rampaging, stoked by the rulers' present front man. Against this unavoidable truth, the filmmaker counterposes messages and protests rejecting hate. Their wishful moralizing is about as useful as a silk shirt against a bullet. Our defense depends not on cops, or mockery of the racists, or "love," but on the power of the multiracial working class.
A new rating is in order: This exciting entertainment for anti-racists should be viewed through class-reality lenses. Rita Freed