Spike Lee warned Tuesday that Donald Trump’s prescription for immigrants and Syrian refugees are comparable to policies pursued by the Nazis decades ago.
The outspoken director was responding to the statistic that of the more than 780,000 refugees who have entered the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, only three have been proven to have terrorism links.
“But you know what Trump’s saying: ‘They’re thinking about it!,”‘ he told The Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern on Tuesday. “And he wants to close down mosques now. That’s like the Nazis. That’s like Hitler, Mussolini, the Axis Powers. You can’t do that!”
Lee went on to blast the way the refugee crisis has been discussed in relation to terrorism perpetrated by Muslims.
“Let me ask you a question: If you blow up a federal building, is that a terrorist act?” he asked. “Yes. So is [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh a terrorist? Would Donald Trump label Timothy McVeigh a terrorist? I don’t think so. And it was a federal building! And the Planned Parenthood shooter, that guy is a terrorist, too. That’s not the first time some Planned Parenthood building has been shot up. That’s terrorism. So if we want to talk about terrorist, you can’t have this myopic view that all terrorists are Muslims!”
Lee noted that these issues even played into a scene in one of his most famous movies.
“That’s why we put that scene in ‘Inside Man’ where they grab the guy, and he’s yelling, ‘I’m a Sikh! I’m a Sikh!'” Lee said. “Here’s the thing: The United States has perfected the science of ‘the boogeyman.’ Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, Nazis, Soviets, Chinese, and now it’s the Muslims. They’re the new boogeymen.”
The “Malcolm X” director went on to call Trump’s claims that “thousands of Muslims” were cheering in New York and New Jersey after 9/11 “a bold-faced lie,” and said of his efforts to woo black pastors and the Hispanic community: “I don’t know, man.”
“Chi-Raq,” Lee’s newest directorial effort, is an adaptation of Aristophanes’ Greek comedy “Lysistrata” set in the modern South Side of Chicago that chronicles the aftermath of the gang-related shooting death of a young African-American woman.
The film comes on the heels of a controversy in the Windy City involving the alleged murder of Laquan McDonald by a white police officer. The officer in question, Jason Van Dyke, has been charged with first-degree murder, and on Monday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to relinquish his post.
Lee had a lot to say on the subjects of gun control and the state of Chicago’s South Side.
“America’s had a long love affair with guns,” he said. “Look at the art, the TV shows, the movies, the video games. We need to title guns like cars, which is something that Father [Michael] Pfleger talks about a lot. There are many different things that can be done that will not injure American citizens’ Second Amendment rights. Even hard-line NRA guys know that it has to be harder to get a gun. They even admit it.”
He said that his script for “Chi-Raq” was influenced by many recent events, including the church shooting in Charleston, S.C., the death of Sandra Bland in Texas, and Ben Carson’s rise to political prominence.
When asked whether he blames the current plight of Chicago’s South Side on Emanuel directly, Lee said the problems have been gestating for a while and need to be addressed by someone, anyone.
“Well, you could go back to [former Chicago] Mayor [Richard M.] Daley,” he said. “And right now, the Republican Governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, is cutting programs. The summer before last, Father Pfleger had funds allocated and had 3,000 summer jobs to get kids off the streets. I don’t know the exact number, but it was significantly cut. And those jobs are a matter of life and death.”
