This page was created on July 1, 2005
This page was last updated on July 23, 2005

One of the most provocative films I ever saw was Do the Right Thing. I saw it on opening weekend in a packed theatre with an urban mixed-race audience. Skeptics had been predicting that the movie would incite riots. But a remarkable thing happened. The audience saw Mookie’s point of view, and they saw Sal’s, too. And for the most part, Lee has continued to make responsible films over the years. Mike Gunn is pretty much on the mark. We should be listening, whether we are or not.

However—one of the most ridiculous statements I ever heard was Spike Lee’s assertion that “Black folks can’t be racist. White folks invented that shit!” In fact, I thought the statement so ridiculous that I concluded either Lee was insane, or I didn’t understand the English language. So I started paying more attention to what Lee was saying. I discovered that, by his definition, “racism” is not the same thing as “prejudice” or “bigotry.” Racism is institutionalized bigotry, according to Lee. A less provocative translation of Lee’s statement would be, “Minorities can’t be racist; they don’t have the power to legally oppress others. Minorities can certainly be bigoted, but only the majority race can systematically and legally deny the rights of others.”

So for a long time I’ve been sympathetic to Lee’s point. But something about his view has never really set right with me, and thanks to Mike’s prompting I’ve finally figured out what it is. At the risk of coming off as a racist (since I certainly am part of that white male majority), let me try to explain.

The political issue at the core of the American Civil War was “States’ Rights.” One side of the argument claimed that the Federal Government had the right to trump local jurisdictions and, just for one example, abolish slavery at the national level. The other side of the argument claimed that it was up to the states to decide such issues. So for the first eight decades, our nation had “slave” states and “free” states, and our federal government spent a great deal of time haggling over whether new states would be admitted to the union as “slave” or “free.” Oh. And then there was that war.

So how do we see states’ rights being worked out today? Not so long ago (okay, maybe thirty years is a while back) the Federal government decided that vehicle speeds should be limited to 55 mph in order to conserve energy. So local jurisdictions lost the right to set freeway speed limits, and those roads we used to drive at 70 just didn’t seem that exciting any more, and Sammy Hagar had a hit record. After the energy scare passed (and Hagar joined Van Halen), the states got the right to regulate speed limits again. In sections of Montana today, there are no posted limits, which makes Sammy really happy.

My point? Just this: it’s never really mattered whether the Federal or state government has set the speed limit. Drivers have ignored the law in every single case. In America, you see, personal rights have always trumped Federal rights and states’ rights. So institutionalized racism is toothless if the citizenry has the brains and the balls to say, “Screw you. I know the right thing when I see it.”

So I don’t think I agree with Lee any more. His definition of racism cedes the Federal government way more power than it actually has. That view allows the spineless bigot to say, “I was only following orders.” It allows the oppressed to say, "I'm a victim." Bull.

So here’s the gold in the gutter: how I treat another human being matters. Period. Race don’t enter into it, unless I—I, personally—let it.

Well, I have to admit that I’m not a totally up to speed with Spike Lee’s films. I guess that I tend to stray from controversy except when it’s trying to get a laugh. TV's South Park is more my style. That’s me though—I usually go to the theater for entertainment, rather than for rigorous documentaries (or for editorialized documentaries, even if they are well done).

Lee’s films also have a reputation of concentrating on people who conform to institutional scripting, which is something that I just don’t identify with. I guess that’s why I haven’t sought out these films. They just don’t seem aimed at me. But I am sure that there’s something to be gained from them for some people.

I can’t really speak directly to Mike’s assessment of the box office showings of these films, but I do have to wonder if these films are, in fact, reaching their intended audiences. As a member of another minority group, I am familiar with films that chronicle the gay experience. These films—such as Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette—also tend to perform poorly at the box office unless they feature a big name such as Robin Williams, Tom Hanks or Patrick Stewart.

Now, I’m not talking about films that are merely trying to leverage a recently realized market demographic. The films that I am talking about are grittier ones similar to Spike Lee’s, ones that don’t benefit from mainstream window-dressing and could almost be put in a time capsule to archive a series of events or a particular segment of the population. These films tend to have fervent cult followings and seem to benefit from the audience’s need for validation. However, this validation comes at the cost of buying into the institutionalization that Greg mentions.

Perhaps the same is true for the audiences of Lee’s films. And like Greg, I totally agree that I’m not forced to follow the suggested script—and I certainly can’t use that script as an excuse to avoid accepting responsibility for my own behavior.

Another issue that I have with films of this type is that they’re fairly self-contained. If the director has already worked out all the angles of an argument, then there’s not much for me to add to the dialog (internal or external).

Oddly enough, that might be one of the issues that people have had with the format of After Eden. After all, the After Eden staff is a fairly tight-knit group. The contributors tend to anticipate alternative viewpoints and address them as well as they can. If that one-two punch hasn’t covered all the related issues, then we follow it up with another opportunity to wrap up loose ends in the DA’s entry. After all that, the dialog has pretty much run its course.

So, while our columns are interesting to those involved, we probably don’t engage people in the way that we might have expected. I guess that is perhaps one lesson that we can take away from this, as both readers and contributors, as AE draws to an end.

In 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul speaks of Christianity as "the ministry of reconciliation."⁵ By this, he means that the central story of the faith is the reconciliation of Man to God through the blood of His Son, Jesus. Christianity, then, is the ministry of reconciliation because all who claim the name of Christ are ministers—literally, servants in the Greek—of God's specific conciliatory purpose.

But Christianity is not only the ministry of reconciliation—it is the ministry of all things godly. One of the other theological terms applied to the act of Jesus' death on the cross is redemption. In conceiving Hollywood Jesus, David Bruce understood that Christianity is also the ministry of redemption—and in particular, it is the redemptive hope for our culture: not through legislation, stone-throwing or critical negativity, but through showing us the godly things already embedded in our culture. For God reveals Himself through all that He has created, even the things that we may not particularly like.

After Eden is dedicated to this redemptive vision. We believe, as G.K. Chesteron put it, that "humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea."⁶ That's not a reality we endorse. We'd like to help salvage the gold from the gutter, and rescue the diamonds from the sea.

Mike Gunn is a pastor at Harambee Church in Tukwila, Washington, and was cofounder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

Jenn Wright is a writer with degrees in literature and theology. She is co-writing the Narnia coverage for Hollywood Jesus, which has debuted this fall in anticipation of the first movie's 2005 release.

Hollywood Jesus Senior Editor Greg Wright is a writer and ordained minister of the dramatic arts. He teaches English Literature at Puget Sound Christian College, and is author of Peter Jackson in Perspective: The Power Behind Cinema's The Lord of the Rings.

Editor Dave Stark is an ordained minister and former Microsoft manager. He is now a partner in Restoring Hope Construction.

The Devil's Advocate is a composite personality of our consultants and editorial staff. He may look like someone you know—and probably thinks like a lot of them.

Spike Lee
On Racism

Racism is when you have laws set up, systematically put in a way to keep people from advancing, to stop the advancement of a people.¹

Jesse Jackson
On Racism

Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites—rather than fighting for jobs or education—fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. ²

Hubert H. Humphrey
On Opression

We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong... But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice—however much we might desire it.³

Spike Lee
On the Right Thing

Black people have never had the power to enforce racism, and so this is something that white America is going to have to work out... If they decide they want to stop it, curtail it, or to do the right thing... then it will be done, but not until then.⁴

Chesterton
On Perception
It is a strange thing that many truly spiritual men... have actually spent some hours in speculating upon the precise location of the Garden of Eden. Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.⁷