In his acceptance speech, which he read from a sheet of notes, Lee referred to February being Black History Month and discussed slavery and its legacy, particularly within his own family. His great-grandmother, he said, was a slave.Lee said: “Before the world tonight I give praise to our ancestors who built this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native people. If we all connect with our ancestors we will have love, wisdom and regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment.“The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilise, let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate.”
At a subsequent press conference, Lee was asked if his film had changed America. He responded by discussing the white nationalist rally and march in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, during which Heather Heyer, a 32 year-old counterprotester, was killed by a car driven by an extremist.Lee included footage of the attack in BlacKkKlansman. Trump infamously said there had been “very fine people, on both sides" of the protests.“That car drove down that one street in Virginia,” Lee said, “and the president of the United States did not reject, refute [or] did not denounce the Klan, ‘alt-right’ and neo-Nazis. This film, whether we won best picture or not, this film will stand the test of time being on the right side of history.”
Around dawn on Monday, from the White House, Trump duly responded with a nasty personal jab.He wrote: “Be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes or better yet not have to use notes at all when doing his racist hit on your president.”
He also claimed he had “done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts, etc) than almost any other President!”
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