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Subject: Spike Lee's Racial Preference<By Richard Cohen=
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 04:39:11 EST
Message-ID: <35.1992Nov13.043912@AmeriCast.com>

Spike Lee's Racial Preference<By Richard Cohen=

 With the election (successfully) concluded, we can now turn our
attention to Spike Lee, the cinematic pamphleteer, and his re-
quest that only black journalists interview him about his upcom-
ing film, "Malcolm X." Lee and his studio, Warner Bros., insist
that no rigid rule has been set and only a mere preference has
been stated. Nevertheless, no matter what term is used - a re-
quest, a demand or something else entirely - it's a bow toward
racism. For Spike Lee, the best journalists are born (black) and
not made.

 Lee gives two reasons for his request. The first is to encourage
- or even compel - publications to hire and use black writers.
Nothing wrong with that. Experience shows that it has taken more
than good intentions to get mainstream newspapers and magazines
to hire and use African Americans. Community pressure and bracing
legal suits have done wonders. Suddenly, qualified blacks materi-
alize where, supposedly, none existed before. If Lee is merely
attempting to make more materialize, then more power to him.

 But his other argument is more problematic - and worrisome. A
Warner Bros. official put it this way: "Spike genuinely feels on
understanding, both spiritually and intellectually" than do white
writers.  "They come in with a greater depth, a greater under-
standing. That's not to say that he gets an easy ride from black
writers." Maybe not. But it sure seems that's what he's looking
for.

 To understand what's wrong about Lee's request - and what's
wrong about acceding to it, as at least one publication has done
- it's important to pay attention to precedent. Lee says he has
it on his side. Hollywood stars - and Lee is certainly one - are
notorious for seeking out sympathetic journalists and refusing to
deal with those they fear will be critical. The names usually
mentioned in this regard are Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas, Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Julia Roberts.

 Politicians occasionally attempt something similar. We are told
that President Bush felt he could not get a fair hearing from
Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw, among others, and refused to be
interviewed by them. This, at least, was the common wisdom in my
business about a month ago, and it was - for the record - denied
by the White House. Still, for the presidential debates, journal-
ists were chosen and blackballed for reasons having nothing to do
with professional ability.

 But in all of these cases, the selecting is done on an individu-
al basis. Lee, though, is dealing in a whole class of people - a
race, in fact - which he finds unsuitable. He says, reasonably
enough, that blacks probably have a different, more sympathetic,
take on Malcolm X (the man or the movie) than whites. Surely,
though, that's a gross generality - as pernicious in its own way
as the generalization that young black males represent a physical
threat. This, we are told, is no reason for a cabdriver, for in-
stance, to reject a potential passenger - and in many cities, the
law forbids it.

 Lee may think he is practicing a kind of affirmative action of
the sort sanctioned by law. But he is not. The selling of a movie
(or Spike Lee himself) can hardly be called national policy, and
it's hard to connect it to a societal good. On the contrary, he
has inadvertently put his finger on an aspect of affirmative ac-
tion that even its defenders (me, for instance) find troubling:
its preoccupation with race or ethnicity at the expense of indi-
viduality. One may ask, for instance, why a middle-class African
American law school applicant should be favored over, say, a poor
white who has been even more disadvantaged? In an individual
case, an answer is not readily forthcoming. If anything, we have
become too accustomed to thinking in broad racial or ethnic
terms.

 Anyone can see what Lee is talking about and understand his
stated intentions. But his obligation as a filmmaker - and, in-
cidentally, as a businessman - is to make a movie that a viewer
can understand regardless of race. Otherwise, he has failed as an
artist, and in his hands Malcolm X remains a parochial figure
whose story appeals only to blacks and not someone whose life -
and intellectual growth - is of universal interest.

 Just as clearly, the obligation of newspapers and magazines is
to demand that their writers be judged as individuals, not as
members of a particular race, gender or ethnic group. For too
long, blacks have been the victims of exactly the sort of prac-
tices Lee is now advocating. His policy, no matter how benign his
intentions, smacks of the sort of separatism that Malcolm X him-
self was coming to repudiate before he was killed.

 I, for one, will see the movie with an open mind. That, it
seems, is more than Spike Lee has about me.

02:26 11-13C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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