Blackkklansman: WAKE UP AMERICA!

Malachi Jay Bruno

ENGL-280-01


Blackkklansman: Wake up America

Blackkklansman, released in 2018 and directed by Spike Lee, is an intensely emotional film that forces the viewers to come to a necessary realization; there is still hate in the world, and the need for the Black Lives Matter movement. We start the movie by meeting Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) who landed a job with the Colorado Springs Police Department as the first African-American policeman in the city's department. Not long after working for them, he asks his sheriff to be promoted to an undercover detective in order to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and expose their cataclysmic plans and ideas towards those who do not fit their standards of a human being. 

This was my favorite movie that we watched this semester, I haven't felt the emotion and anger in any other film I'd seen. Blackkklansman is extremely relevant to where the world is today, with the topics relating to race and the Black Lives Matter movement touching the heart of many people. I believe it was extremely important; it showcased the extreme prejudice that came with just being black in the 70s, simply just existing and trying to get on with one's daily life. There was a constant need to be courageous because the second you turn your back, someone could be plotting your demise just for the want of equality. This can be seen towards the end of the movie when Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier) is being targeted by one of the members of the KKK, Felix Kendrickson (Jasper Paakkonen), due to the fact that she is an adamant advocate for the Black Lives Matter Student Union. He and his wife were plotting to put a bomb in her mailbox, but it failed miserably and backfired. They got Patrice when she was vulnerable, just hanging out with a friend and relaxing. 

As soon as I finished this movie, I rounded my family up and forced them to watch it with me. I believe it's really important to show this movie, for people who are uneducated to understand a portion of the horrors that people of different culture and races go through everyday. 



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