And the war rages on

A few weeks ago I discussed my dislike of Spike Lee, which was prompted by his verbal attack on Clint Eastwood. In a nutshell, Lee criticized Eastwood for not properly representing African American soldiers in his two World War II films.

Well, it seems that this little "rivalry" has escalated, shown in the video above. I think the first contributor hit the nail on the head: One of Eastwood's films was about a small group of soldiers that raised the American flag, and the historic individuals credited for that were not black. The next film was about the JAPANESE army, which, again, were not black. Even the second gentleman interviewed admitted that the "merited" criticism wasn't so much about Eastwood's films in particular. Instead, his films were bearing the burden of past movies that ignored the contribution made by African American soldiers.

Incidentally, I did some quick research on the subject, and according to my findings, the U.S. armed forces were not desegregated until 1948, three years AFTER World War II concluded. Therefore, during the war, the soldiers WERE racially divided, making it unlikely that black soldiers would be in a film about a troop of white soldiers, and vice versa.

Don't get me wrong. The brave African Americans who risked and sacrificed their lives during World War II should absolutely not be ignored and have every right for their stories to be told. They are heroic individuals, and I think it's wonderful that Spike Lee is providing their tale with such a grand platform. I just don't understand why you can't make a World War II film more or less exclusively about black soldiers without attacking a World War II film more or less exclusively about white soldiers. It's really too bad that these two films can't work in collaboration to show what these brave HUMAN BEINGS -- no matter their color or creed -- endured during the most widespread war in our history.

All of that being said, I will admit that saying "a guy like Spike Lee" was an exceptionally poor choice of words. Nevertheless, it's absolutely disgusting that Spike Lee would respond with "we're not on a plantation." I guess according to Spike Lee, if a white guy has a confrontation with a black guy, it automatically has a slavery undertone? That sort of appalling attitude does a tremendous injustice to the REAL instances of racism, which unfortunately are still very prevalent in this day and age.