BLACKKKLANSMAN

We live in a world where truth is often stranger than fiction, and the new film BlacKkKlansman by Mr. Spike Lee is a very good example. The film is based on the 2014 autobiography of Ron Stallworth, an African-American police detective from Colorado Springs, Colorado who helped to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

How exactly did any African-American man infiltrate the KKK you ask? He did so by making phone contact with local KKK leaders after seeing an advertisement in the local paper and then working with a white colleague who was his in-person stand in.

I will not give away the plot, but the movie was a reminder of the long history of racial prejudice in our country and how the roots of Trump may be traced back to various sad episodes in our history - slavery, reconstruction, the founding of the KKK. That those sentiments were also evident in our recent history in Charlottesville, Kentucky, and Squirell Hill speaks to the relevance of the issues raised in Mr. Lee's film.

As I watched the movie with Nicholas tonight, I reminded him that there were hateful, intolerant, and violent people in our society. However, I also pointed out that there are heroes like Mr. Stallworth, Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer, and leaders like President Obama who speak out against racial injustice. For it is only by raising our voices together and acting together that we will defeat intolerance and make our American union more perfect.