One of the most amusing aspects of modern political debates is how often people loudly proclaim their love for the United States Constitution while simultaneously demonstrating that they have never actually read it.
I bought my own copy of the Constitution for my personal library back in 1999. When smartphones became common, one of the first things I downloaded was a Constitution app so I could reference the document whenever I needed it.
The reason is simple: the Constitution is not a long document.
In fact, it is surprisingly short.
The original Constitution consists of seven articles. The longest of these, Article I, establishes the legislative branch and contains ten sections. The shortest, Article VII, is only a single sentence.
Add the 27 amendments that have been ratified over the course of American history, and the entire document is still roughly the length of a long magazine article or a short story.
Yes, the language reflects the legal style of the late eighteenth century. But it is not particularly difficult to understand, especially if you read an annotated edition that includes explanatory notes or writings such as the Federalist Papers.
The problem is that many of the loudest self-described “constitutional patriots” have never taken the time to read it themselves.
Instead, they treat the Constitution the same way many people treat religious texts: they claim to revere it, but rely entirely on other people to tell them what it says and what it means.
And those interpretations rarely come from constitutional scholars, legal historians, or practicing constitutional lawyers. More often, they come from political commentators or activists whose understanding of the document is shaped more by ideology than by careful study.
Blind allegiance to a document that one has never actually read is not patriotism. It is intellectual laziness.
If Americans truly care about the Constitution, the first step should be obvious.
I’m going to beat the proverbial dead horse here, but I feel I need to reiterate a point I made previously in this blog.
One of the most persistent myths in modern American political discourse is the claim that the Democratic and Republican parties have remained ideologically consistent throughout history. According to this narrative, the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and racial progress, while the Democratic Party has always been the party of racism.
This claim collapses under even the most basic historical scrutiny.
To maintain the illusion, modern conservatives must ignore several inconvenient facts. They must ignore the political dealignment and realignment that occurred between the late nineteenth century and the late twentieth century. They must ignore the steady migration of white Southern conservatives—particularly segregationists—from the Democratic Party into the Republican Party during the second half of the twentieth century.
They must also ignore the uncomfortable reality that many of the political figures celebrated in modern conservative circles were themselves defenders of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy.
The historical record is clear: the ideology of Southern conservatism did not disappear after the Civil Rights Movement. It simply found a new political home.
During the 1960s through the 1990s, many of the most hardline segregationist politicians—often referred to as Dixiecrats—gradually abandoned the Democratic Party and aligned themselves with the Republican Party. At the same time, the Republican Party increasingly adopted political strategies designed to attract white Southern voters who opposed civil rights reforms.
This shift was not subtle. It was openly discussed by political strategists and historians alike.
Yet modern conservatives often pretend that none of this happened.
Instead, they promote a simplified narrative in which the Republican Party “freed the slaves” and therefore cannot possibly bear any responsibility for the racial politics that emerged in the twentieth century. The fact that the ideological descendants of segregationists now overwhelmingly identify as conservative Republicans is conveniently ignored.
At the same time, many conservative politicians and commentators openly celebrate figures from the Confederate past while dismissing or ignoring the Republican leaders who actually fought to preserve the Union and end slavery.
Where are the monuments to Republican generals such as William Tecumseh Sherman or Ulysses S. Grant in the regions that once formed the Confederacy? Why are Confederate leaders, who were Democrats of their time, so often praised in modern conservative political culture?
The answer is uncomfortable but obvious.
For many conservatives, the issue has never truly been about party labels. It has always been about political ideology.
This ideological continuity becomes particularly visible when modern politicians attempt to avoid even the most basic historical truths.
For example, when asked about the causes of the American Civil War, some contemporary conservative politicians have offered vague explanations about “government,” “freedom,” or “states’ rights,” while carefully avoiding the central issue that historians overwhelmingly agree defined the conflict: chattel slavery.
Yet the leaders of the Confederacy themselves left no such ambiguity.
In their own declarations of secession, Southern states repeatedly and explicitly identified the preservation of slavery as the primary reason for leaving the Union.
The historical record could not be clearer.
Attempts to obscure that fact are not efforts to promote historical nuance. They are attempts to preserve comforting myths about the past.
And those myths serve a political purpose.
By denying the ideological continuity between past and present forms of white supremacist politics, modern conservatives attempt to distance themselves from the legacy of segregation and racial hierarchy while continuing to benefit from many of the political narratives that sustained those systems.
None of this is to suggest that racism exists exclusively within one political party. Racism has existed across the American political spectrum throughout history.
But it is impossible to have an honest conversation about American history—or modern American politics—without acknowledging the ideological realignment that reshaped the nation’s two major political parties during the twentieth century.
History cannot be rewritten simply because it makes some people uncomfortable.
In fact, the opposite is true.
Understanding the darker chapters of our past is precisely how societies learn to avoid repeating them.
Black Americans have long demonstrated that it is possible to love this country while also confronting its historical injustices. Despite centuries of discrimination, violence, and exclusion, Black Americans have served in the nation’s military, represented the country in international competition, and fought relentlessly to expand the promise of American democracy.
Acknowledging historical injustice does not weaken the country.
Pretending that those injustices never happened does.
If Americans truly want to move forward, they must first be willing to tell the truth about where they have been.
Every year on July 4th, Americans celebrate Independence Day with family gatherings, barbecues, and fireworks. For many, it is a day of patriotic pride, a celebration of freedom and the sacrifices made to preserve it.
But for others, the holiday carries a very different meaning.
Frederick Douglass once famously asked, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” In 1852, his answer was clear: the holiday represented a painful contradiction between America’s ideals and its reality. More than a century later, that question still echoes—but the answer has evolved.
Critics of Independence Day often point out a painful historical truth: when the United States declared its independence in 1776, the promise of liberty did not apply to everyone. Millions of people were enslaved, Native Americans were being displaced and killed, and women and poor men were excluded from political power.
The contradiction is obvious.
The same document that declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” was written by Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves and wrote extensively about his belief in Black inferiority.
These criticisms are not wrong. They are historically accurate.
The freedom celebrated on July 4th was originally intended primarily for land-owning white men. Black Americans, Native Americans, women, and many others were excluded from those rights.
Even during the Revolutionary War, enslaved Black people who sought to fight for the American colonies were often rejected. Meanwhile, the British offered freedom to enslaved people who joined their forces. Later, during the Constitutional Convention, the young nation again refused to confront slavery to maintain unity between Northern and Southern states.
For these reasons, I understand why some people view Independence Day with skepticism or even contempt.
But while I sympathize with that perspective, I do not share it.
Despite the hypocrisy of many of the Founding Fathers, we must also remember another truth: this country was built in large part by the labor, skill, and resilience of enslaved Black people.
The American colonies became economically powerful through crops such as tobacco, sugar, and rice. These industries made their overwhelming prosperity possible by enslaved labor and agricultural knowledge brought from Africa. In many ways, the wealth that allowed the colonies to rebel against Britain was created by the very people who were denied freedom.
Our ancestors helped build this country.
And many of them knew it.
Throughout the nineteenth century, some white abolitionists supported efforts to relocate free Black Americans to Africa through organizations such as the American Colonization Society. Liberia itself was founded by freed American slaves.
But many Black Americans rejected that idea. They chose to remain in the United States and fight for their rightful place within the country their ancestors had helped build.
That is a perspective I share.
If someone kidnaps you, forces you to build a house, and then tells you that you are free to leave once the work is finished, that does not erase the fact that you helped build the house.
You have a claim to it.
I am an American. This is my country.
The personal beliefs of many of the Founding Fathers matter less to me than the political framework they created. The words they wrote, however imperfectly applied at the time, provided the foundation for later struggles for freedom.
The ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were eventually used by abolitionists, civil rights leaders, and countless activists to argue that the nation must live up to its own principles.
Jefferson may not have meant all people when he wrote that all men are created equal. But that is what he wrote, and those words became powerful tools in the fight for equality.
The American political system, flawed as it has been, allowed movements for abolition, civil rights, and expanded democratic rights to emerge and reshape the country.
The fact that I can speak freely today (even critically) about the history and institutions of this country is evidence of that evolution.
Because of the protections enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I can express my beliefs, criticize injustice, and advocate for change without fear of imprisonment or execution.
That freedom matters.
So, when I celebrate Independence Day, I am not celebrating the perfection of the Founding Fathers. I am not celebrating a past that excluded my ancestors.
What I celebrate is freedom itself.
The freedom that was denied to my ancestors.
The freedom that generations of Americans struggled to expand.
The freedom that remains imperfect, but real.
This country has a painful history, and it still faces serious challenges. But it is also my home.
And despite everything, I love it.
When I celebrate Independence Day, I celebrate the ongoing struggle to make the promise of liberty real for everyone.
Because the words written in 1776 still matter:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
May we continue working toward a country where those words apply to all of us.
One of the most persistent claims in modern political debates is that the Democratic and Republican parties have remained essentially the same throughout American history. According to this argument, the political coalitions and ideologies of the nineteenth century supposedly still define the parties today.
This claim ignores one of the most well-documented developments in American political history: the gradual ideological realignment of the two major parties from the late nineteenth century through the late twentieth century.
Following the Civil War, the Republican Party was widely associated with the Union victory and the abolition of slavery. During Reconstruction, Republicans supported many early civil rights measures intended to protect the rights of newly freed Black Americans.
However, that political commitment weakened dramatically after the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction. Federal enforcement of civil rights protections collapsed, and white supremacist governments regained control across much of the South.
For decades afterward, Southern politics was dominated by segregationist Democratic politicians often referred to as Dixiecrats. These politicians supported Jim Crow laws, racial segregation, and policies designed to disenfranchise Black voters.
But American political coalitions were not static.
Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, particularly during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, many white Southern conservatives began shifting their political allegiance. As national Democratic leaders increasingly supported civil rights legislation, large numbers of segregationist voters and politicians gradually moved toward the Republican Party.
This transition did not happen overnight. It unfolded over several decades, from the 1960s through the 1980s and even into the early 1990s. Historians and political scientists commonly refer to this process as political realignment.
The shift can be seen in electoral patterns across the South. States that had reliably voted for Democratic presidential candidates for nearly a century increasingly began supporting Republican candidates. Conservative Southern politicians who once identified as Democrats also began switching parties.
Despite this well-documented transformation, some modern political commentators attempt to deny that any realignment occurred. Instead, they argue that the parties remain essentially unchanged and that historical responsibility for segregationist politics belongs exclusively to one party.
But historical evidence tells a more complicated story.
The ideological divide in American politics has long revolved less around party labels and more around competing views about civil rights, federal power, and social hierarchy. Over time, the political coalitions representing those views have shifted between parties.
This is why discussions of American political history require careful attention to ideology, region, and historical context, rather than relying solely on party labels.
Reducing the history of American civil rights struggles to simple partisan talking points obscures the reality of how political coalitions evolve. Understanding that evolution is essential for understanding the political landscape of the United States today.
Modern political debates often reduce complex historical events to simple partisan talking points. One of the most common claims is that the Civil Rights Movement and the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s were primarily the achievement of conservative Republicans.
This claim is frequently used in contemporary political arguments, but it oversimplifies a far more complicated historical reality.
It relies on several incorrect assumptions:
The Republican Party has always been a party of fiscal, social, and small-government conservatives.
American political parties historically operated as unified ideological blocs rather than coalitions containing both liberal and conservative wings.
Republicans were never involved in segregationist politics, white supremacist movements, or anti-Black rhetoric and policies.
All three assumptions are historically inaccurate.
In the decade following the Civil War, Republicans championed early civil rights legislation during Reconstruction. However, after the contested election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction, national political commitment to protecting Black civil rights declined dramatically.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, what historians often call the Nadir of American Race Relations (roughly 1887–1923), racist policies and segregation became entrenched across much of the United States. During this period, many politicians from both major parties adopted or tolerated segregationist attitudes.
Fast forward to the 1960s and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The legislation was originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy (D) in 1963. After Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson (D) made the bill a central priority of his administration and pushed aggressively for its passage.
Several key members of Congress played major roles in advancing the legislation, including:
Hubert Humphrey (D–MN)
Emanuel Celler (D–NY)
Everett Dirksen (R–IL)
William McCulloch (R–OH)
The final legislation was the result of bipartisan cooperation, though it was strongly driven by the Democratic administration and several Democratic leaders in Congress.
The final vote totals were:
House of Representatives 289–126 (70–30%)
Senate 73–27
When broken down by party, the numbers appear to show stronger Republican support:
House
Democrats: 153–91 (69%)
Republicans: 136–35 (82%)
Senate
Democrats: 44–23 (66%)
Republicans: 27–6 (82%)
At first glance, these numbers might suggest that Republicans were the primary supporters of civil rights legislation.
However, this interpretation ignores a crucial factor: region.
When the votes are separated by region, a very different pattern appears.
House of Representatives
Northern members: 281–32 (90%) in favor Southern members: 8–94 (8%) in favor
Senate
Northern members: 72–6 (92%) in favor Southern members: 1–21 (5%) in favor
In other words, the major divide was not simply party affiliation—it was North versus South.
Looking at the votes by both region and party makes this even clearer.
House
Southern Democrats: 8–83 (9%) in favor Southern Republicans: 0–11 (0%) in favor
Northern Democrats: 145–8 (95%) in favor Northern Republicans: 136–24 (85%) in favor
Senate
Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5%) in favor Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0%) in favor
Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98%) in favor Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84%) in favor
Not a single Southern Republican voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Meanwhile, Northern Democrats supported the bill at even higher rates than Northern Republicans.
Another important point often overlooked in modern political debates is that Democrats held large congressional majorities during this period.
In the 88th Congress (1964), Democrats held:
66 seats in the Senate
253 seats in the House
Without substantial Democratic support, the Civil Rights Act simply would not have passed.
A similar pattern appeared in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At that time, Democrats held even larger majorities:
68–32 in the Senate
295–140 in the House
The final votes were:
House 333–85
Senate 77–19
Again, both parties supported the legislation. But the historical record shows that the outcome cannot be reduced to a simple narrative about one party single-handedly delivering civil rights.
The reality is more complex.
Civil rights legislation in the 1960s passed through bipartisan coalitions, but those coalitions were shaped far more by regional politics and ideological divisions than by party labels alone.
Reducing this history to a partisan talking point oversimplifies one of the most important political struggles in American history.
How misleading statistics distort the history of American slavery
One of the most commonly repeated talking points in discussions about American slavery is the claim that “only about 2% of white Americans owned slaves.” Technically, the statistic isn’t entirely false. Historical records show that roughly 1.4% of white Americans were listed as the legal owners of enslaved people in 1860.
But that statistic is also deeply misleading.
The problem is that slave ownership was not simply an individual arrangement. It was a household institution. When a person legally owned enslaved people, everyone in that household benefited from and exercised authority over them. A slave owned by the father of a family was effectively under the control of the entire household: the wife, the children, and anyone else living on that property.
This is the same reason that car ownership statistics in the United States are often measured by households rather than by individuals. A car may be registered in one person’s name, but the entire household typically has access to it.
When historians measure slave ownership by households rather than individuals, the numbers change dramatically.
By 1860, nearly 10% of all white families in the United States owned enslaved people.
The concentration of slave ownership in the South makes the numbers even more striking. In that same year:
About 25% of white families in the South owned slaves.
In the states that would form the Confederacy, the number rose to 31%.
In South Carolina, approximately 46% of white families owned enslaved people.
In Mississippi, the number was roughly 49%.
These figures reveal that slavery was not an obscure or marginal institution. In many parts of the South, it was a central feature of society.
And even these numbers do not fully capture the scale of the system.
The entire Southern economy was built around slavery. Many people who did not personally own enslaved individuals still profited from the institution. Slave catchers were paid to hunt down escaped slaves. Blacksmiths manufactured shackles and restraints. Insurance companies sold policies on enslaved people as property. Enslaved laborers were often rented out to families or businesses that did not technically own them.
The percentage of white households that benefited economically from slavery was almost certainly much higher than the percentage that legally owned enslaved people.
So why does the “2% statistic” get repeated so often?
Because it serves a political purpose.
In many contemporary debates about race and history, some commentators attempt to minimize the responsibility of white Americans for the system of chattel slavery. They frequently redirect attention toward African kingdoms that participated in the transatlantic slave trade, or they argue that slavery existed throughout the world, implying that American slavery was not particularly unique.
But chattel slavery in the Western Hemisphere was fundamentally different from many earlier forms of slavery. It was racialized, hereditary, and legally defined as permanent property ownership over human beings.
Another frequently overlooked fact is that the vast majority of enslaved people in the United States were not directly imported from Africa.
By the nineteenth century, most enslaved people in the United States had been born into slavery within the country itself. Historians estimate that only about 4–6% of enslaved people in the history of the United States were directly imported from Africa. By 1860, the overwhelming majority of enslaved people were the descendants of earlier enslaved populations.
This means that the American slave system was sustained largely through the forced reproduction and exploitation of enslaved families within the United States.
None of this means that every white American owned slaves. In 1860, there were 33 states in the United States, and slavery was legal in only 15 of them. Many white Americans lived in free states or did not own land or enslaved laborers.
But minimizing the scale of slavery—or the extent of public support for it—distorts the historical record.
Slavery persisted not simply because of a small group of wealthy plantation owners, but because large segments of Southern society supported and defended the institution politically, economically, and culturally.
Even families who did not personally own enslaved people could still support slavery by voting for pro-slavery politicians, working in industries that sustained the slave economy, serving as overseers or slave catchers, or fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Statistics without context can obscure more than they reveal.
The claim that “only 2% of whites owned slaves” may sound like an attempt to shrink the scale of responsibility. But when examined more closely, the historical reality shows that slavery was deeply embedded in the social, economic, and political life of the United States.
In 2000, Spike Lee was already a household name and a well-respected writer and director. He had already directed 12 movies by this time. These were She’s Gotta Have It (1986), School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers(1995), Girl 6 (1996), Get on the Bus (1996), He Got Game (1998), and Summer of Sam (1999). Although the relative box office success of his movies from the late-1980s through the mid-1990s was already waning from Crooklyn onward during this time, his movies were still critically acclaimed, and his artsy filming and unapologetic and unafraid attitude on tackling subject matters that many other writers and directors were afraid to tackle, gave the studios and Hollywood as a whole, artistic legitimacy.
Spike Lee’s 13th movie, Bamboozled, a satirical comedy movie about the embedded racism of the entertainment media (particularly in television) along with society, did poorly at the box office and confused and even angered many people who initially watched it. Some critics, when it was released in 2000, thought that it was too shockingly heavy-headed. Roger Ebert thought that the use of blackface was too over-the-top and made the movie and its jokes more shocking than they were funny. I think that it was because of the initial shock of the use of blackface and the imitation of minstrel shows of a past in entertainment and media that is still very hurtful to black people and an embarrassment for whites, most audiences elected not to watch the movie at all.
A funny thing happens with time, though. The movies that few people wanted to watch in theaters develop a cult following later. These movies are lauded and appreciated by those who understand and appreciate the messages, the humor, and the artistic decisions that made these movies the bane of audiences and critics when they were initially released. This is what happened with movies like John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). I will admit that although I barely knew anything about the movie before and during its theatrical release, I would often pass it by when trying to rent movies at Blockbuster. The cover art with the old school minstrel caricatures made the movie repulsive to me initially. It wasn’t until years later, seeing it on a streaming service, that I watched the movie after buzz about it on the internet, particularly on social media. I suspect that many people watched the movie via streaming services like Netflix. After giving the movie a chance, I could see the message of Spike Lee’s reimagining of old school, in-your-face minstrel shows, and parallel that with the more contemporary stereotypical media depictions and capitalizing on them.
A Brief History of Minstrel Shows
Example of blackface in minstrel shows.Even black performers participated in minstrel shows. Sometimes, it was the only work that they can find as performers.
The minstrel show tradition officially began with the song and dance performance of Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, who performed as a stereotypical character, Jim Crow, in 1828 as part of a variety show. The song “Jump Jim Crow” would become a national sensation, especially in the Northern United States, where minstrelsy would become more popular than in the Southern United States. Thomas Rice would perform the character in blackface. Jim Crow was a character that Rice created who was a black, physically disabled stablehand who walked with a limp and would do a shuffling, hopping dance.
Poster for Jim Crow
The character became very popular and spawned many more white people in blackface performing stereotypes of dim-witted, lazy, and content slaves. Increasingly, more variety shows included blackface performances. By the 1840s, shows started to be entirely in blackface. For the next five decades, minstrel shows would be the most popular form of entertainment in the United States. The Jim Crow character’s name would later be used to categorize laws that were meant to keep black people in subservient positions, as second-class citizens, and as victims of an American form of apartheid after slavery ended in 1965.
The “Disappearance” of the Minstrel Show
It can be argued that minstrelsy didn’t completely go away after the mid-20th Century when it seemed to disappear (around 1960). Stage shows weren’t as popular as they used to be as movies and television became popular media in which people mostly got their entertainment. In the beginning of the 20th Century and even with the new media, aspects of the minstrel show remained. D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) employed many of the tropes used in the minstrel shows on the stage. It had white actors in blackface and actual black people performing stereotypical roles. Its popularity and message resurrected a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) that was dead over 40 years before this and would make it one of the most popular political organizations of the 1920s and 1930s, with members of both major political parties having membership and being influenced by the terroristic organization.
The Birth of a Nation (1915) showed the majority black state governmental bodies as disorganized, undignified, and corrupt, and the black people in them as uncivilized.A white man in blackface, who acted as one of the antagonists in The Birth of a Nation (1915), is seen being “brought to justice” (about to be lynched) by the Klansmen who were the “heroes” of this movie.
However, a new stereotype would arise that would be more dangerous than that of the childlike buffoonish “coons” and/or “sambos” of earlier minstrelsy. Starting in literature, the “black brute” trope would appear. This trope painted black men as animalistic predators who stalked white women to rape. Whereas the “sambo” stereotype was used to justify the perpetual enslavement of black people, the “black brute” stereotype was used to justify the systemic murder and second-class citizenship of black people. It is no accident that these stereotypes became popular during the time period in the United States in which anti-black lynchings were the most active (1880s – 1920s). This stereotype would not go away. Instead, it will later dominate other negative stereotypes of black men.
The classic coon, mammy, and pickaninny tropes employed by minstrel shows would be seen in early movies and shorts. The Three Stooges would use them in scenes with black domestic or service workers. The black characters in the Our Gang (The Little Rascals) series were modeled after the pickaninnies of minstrel shows. Early cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Felix the Cat were modeled after minstrel shows and would even sing minstrel songs in the shorts. Imitation of Life (1934) was full of the “mammy” character, Delilah Johnson, saying the most cringe-worthy anti-black things while pledging her undying loyalty to the white character, Beatrice Pullman. The biggest black stars of the early 20th Century, after movies had sound, were William (Willie) “Sleep ‘n’ Eat” Best and Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew “Stepin’ Fetchit” Perry.
More dignified and human black characters in mainstream Hollywood would come in the late 1940s. But minstrel characters would persist. In 1951, The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show premiered. The show was a live-action television sitcom based on the minstrel radio show by the same name. The show was a television hit and lasted all the way until 1960. This is the official end of the minstrel show.
However, many of the most harmful aspects of the minstrel show would survive to this day through 1970s blaxploitation films, the popularity of James “JJ” Evans Jr. in the show Good Times, gangsta rap music and videos, many Tyler Perry movies, and various other popular forms of American entertainment. In fact, it is the persistence of these tropes and stereotypes in popular media, especially movies, that spawned Robert Townsend’s first movie, Hollywood Shuffle (1987). Hollywood Shuffle is a spiritual prequel to Bamboozled in many ways.
Movie poster for Hollywood Shuffle (1987)
A reimagined alternative to a current social condition
In Bamboozled, Spike Lee imagines a television network in which minstrelsy wasn’t just hidden and denied but accepted and made into a hit television show. It was the product of irresponsible capitalism that cares more about profits and the illusion of diversity than any sense of responsibility towards the community. The black caricatures are packaged and presented to mixed audiences as ironic or edgy humor while corporate executives monetize disturbingly grotesque racial spectacle, and black writers, directors, actors, producers, and crew are financially and professionally trapped in a system that greatly rewards self-exploitation. In this imagining, media is a direct descendant of the minstrel tradition and never broke from it. Society is not in a post-racist era; we are just in a more polished one.
Escaping this unfortunate reality requires systemic changes. The problems in Bamboozled are not due to changes in technology, nor will they be fixed with technology. Instead, what must be done is that the power structure must change. Modern art is profit-driven and controlled by capitalistic corporations. Capitalism rewards spectacle over dignity. This is what you experience when watching daytime talk shows featuring lie detectors and paternity tests or when listening to Sexy Redd songs. The ratings, box office receipts, album sales, and other metrics justify any moral compromise by the corporation. And most of the executives who control the distribution of art are white, so they have no sense of responsibility towards the black community, especially the poor and working-class black community.
In the movie, CNS television network is run by white people who have final say in the content that they put on air. The audiences love Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show and CNS makes sure to protect itself from any charges of racism by making sure that that everyone from the cast to the crew is black. There is a scene in the movie in which Myrna Goldfarb the PR Consultant in CNS, a white woman, gives the “Mantan Manifesto” to shield the company from any scrutiny, criticism or charges of racism. It is as follows:
“Gainfully employ African Americans in front of and behind the camera.”
“Let the audience decide.”
“Who are these would-be ‘cultural police’?”
“Who determines what is Black? We are not saying anything about the entire African American community.”
“This is simply satire.”
“If they don’t like it, ‘F-‘em!’ ”
“And lastly, always smile, wear kente cloth, reference Dr. King, and remember, this show was created by a non-threatening Black male.”
The cynical way in which heavy and much-needed conversations about racist portrayals, racism, and responsibility, while hiding behind the positive public relations of black employment and opportunity, makes this manifesto even more insidious.
Spike Lee suggests that the things to do to escape this condition are to have changes in media ownership and governance. . This is not explicitly articulated; rather, it is conveyed implicitly. The issue was that everyone over Pierre Delacroix (whose real name is Peerless Dothan and the main protagonist of the movie) is white and feels no connection or responsibility towards the black audience that they are trying to capture and build on. They didn’t care if the show helped or harmed the community. The only thing they cared about was the ratings. However, simply putting black faces in seats of power in a company will not lead to any fundamental and/or significant changes if the overall economic model rewards racial exploitation. So, a big part of reform is to go with a model that doesn’t. Also, there would have to be reform when it comes to cultural gatekeeping.
The Legacy of Minstrelsy Lives On
Bamboozled is more appreciated today than it was when it was first released over a quarter of a century ago. The film is seen today as less absurd and more prophetic in the same vein as Network (1976). In 2023, the movie was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry. Although the film used the over-the-top idea of a modern-day minstrel show fashioned in the same manner as minstrel shows of the past, the message of the movie resonates more now than it did when it was initially released.
Online, content is measured by engagement metrics that reward outrage and caricature, and viral culture spreads and monetizes stereotypes. Black “trauma porn” is still very popular, and black pain and spectacle still generate profit. Today, many black content creators upload videos of themselves engaging in “coonery [and] buffoonery” (to quote Spike Lee himself) for clicks. Many of them are either being anti-black contrarians or engaging in hyper-performative racialized personas for algorithmic gain, mostly for the popularity and approval of non-black audiences. Both online and on television, corporate brands use black culture for capitalistic endeavors while avoiding structural change. Diversity is treated more like a public relations project and less like a way to redistribute power and ownership in the media.
The Hodge Twins started off on YouTube as fitness influencers. After a while, they were doing comedic critiques on videos, sometimes being edgy and offensive while doing it. They slowly morphed into anti-black conservative panderers to maintain an audience online.
Bamboozled‘s extreme minstrel imagery is greatly exaggerated. But to me, that is the point. In reality, the minstrelsy is much more subtle and thus, deniable. Putting those images in one’s face makes one confront the ugly truths about the treatment of black people and culture in media. We no longer see people in literal blackface (at least most of the time) performing exaggerated and dehumanizing stereotypes. But we do see a constant parade of harmful “marketable stereotypes” which, in my opinion, aren’t too much better. Bamboozled is actually less of a reimagined condition and more of an amplified mirror held up to society, including black people themselves.
Conclusion
Spike Lee’s Bamboozled shows us that racial exploitation is not a glitch in a capitalistic society built on racism. Instead, it is the feature. What was thought of as grotesquely absurd satire is now being appreciated and studied. There are video essays about this movie by young content creators online. In true Spike Lee fashion, no one in this movie is immune from criticism. Even the somewhat “conscious” but hypocritical Mau Mau, who are miseducated “hoteps” (pro-black people who are usually socially conservative while embracing pseudo-intellectualism) that constantly indulge themselves in alcohol and marijuana while having trouble making an articulate statement, catch strays in this movie, y’know what I mean? The modern media ecosystem proves that this movie wasn’t a fantasy. Rather, it was a diagnosis of our society in the form of dark satirical comedy.
Ten years ago, Critical Race Theory was a relatively obscure academic course, typically offered at the university or graduate school level. Relatively few people, mostly those with majors and/or minors in sociology or African and African American Studies, or those seeking a law degree, were aware that this course even existed. Since around 2020, Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become one of, if not the most controversial, subjects in schooling, and the proverbial boogeyman of everything wrong with contemporary education in the United States. For those on the right side of the political spectrum, CRT has been blamed for many of the societal ills in today’s America.
But what exactly is Critical Race Theory?
CRT is an academic and legal framework created by law school professors, activists, and academics, including Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Harris, Charles Lawrence, Mari Matsuda, and Patricia Williams during the mid-1970s. These individuals observed that the advances of the Civil Rights Movement were stalling and even being rolled back. They realized that racism was getting more covert and subtler than it was during the 1950s and 1960s, the peak of the Civil Rights Movement. They concluded that new theories and legal strategies were necessary to identify and combat these more covert forms of racism.
Critical Race Theory teaches that race is not a legitimate scientific taxonomical classification of human beings with varying physical differences. Instead, race is a somewhat arbitrary social construct in which the effects of the belief in the scientific validity of race are still very socially significant.
Mosaic of different racial characteristics forming one male face.Black and White twins, Lucy (L) and Maria Aylmer (R). The girls are fraternal twins with the same biological parents, Donna Douglas (a black woman with a white parent) and Vince Aylmer (a white man). Often mistaken for friends, the girls often carry birth certificates to prove that they are sisters.
It also teaches that racism is not merely the anomalous product of misled individuals. Rather, it is the embedded feature of a society built on racial separation, animosities, and rigid hierarchies. Racism is woven into laws, policies, and practices despite the claims and assertions of meritocracy and color-blindness. Racism is not always the intentional consequence of malevolent deeds of individuals due to ignorance, hatred, or irrationality. Instead, racism is more often a manifestation of the unintentional consequences of subconscious choices, even though these consequences can be predicted by those who are aware of the ambience of racism.
Opponents of CRT argue that it is a racist ideology, rooted in Marxism, that demonizes white people for the actions of a relative few in the past. In their minds, CRT scapegoats white people for the socioeconomic and moral failure of many black people and other racial minorities. They conflate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives (such as DEI training) with Critical Race Theory courses. They claim that CRT is being taught to children in K-12 schools in non-English and Non-Social Studies courses.
The Backlash…
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr during his May 8, 1967, NBC Interview
“… And honesty impels me to admit that America has a broad racist element still alive. Racism is still existing in American society in many areas of America, North and South. And the other thing is that there has never been a single solid, determined commitment of large segments of white America on the whole question of racial equality. I think we have to see that vacillation has always existed. Ambivalence has always existed. And this, to me, is the so-called “white backlash.” It is merely a new name for an old phenomenon. I see the white backlash as a continuation of the same ambivalence and vacillation of white America on the whole question of racial justice that has existed since the founding of our nation.
I think the other thing that we must see at this time is that many of the people who supported us in Selma, in Birmingham, were really outraged about the extremist behavior toward Negroes, but they were not at that moment, and they are not now committed to genuine equality for Negroes. It’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee an annual income, for instance, to get rid of poverty for Negroes and all poor people. It’s much easier to integrate a bus than it is to make genuine integration a reality, quality education a reality in our schools. It’s much easier to integrate even a public park than it is to get rid of slums. I think we are in a new era, a new phase of the struggle, where we have moved from a struggle for decency, which characterized our struggle for 10 or 12 years, to a struggle for genuine equality. And THIS is where we’re getting the resistance, because there was never any intention to go this far. People were reacting to Bull Connor [Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, Alabama] and to Jim Clark [sheriff of Dallas County, Alabama] rather than acting in good faith for the realization of genuine equality.”
Christopher Rufo seemed like a man looking for a cause. He found it in 2018 when he ran across anti-bias documents while running for a Seattle city council seat. He lost his race, but he gained a cause to advance his political career in other ways. He then started collecting curricula and slide shows for anti-racism seminars throughout Seattle, Washington. He interpreted the methods and bullet points from these workplace trainings as anti-white racist attacks.
The anti-racism seminars pointed him to books by anti-racism authors. Going further down the proverbial rabbit hole, the anti-racism authors, such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, led him to CRT and the works of its founders.
Rufo leaned heavily on CRT and its connections to more radical and leftist philosophical influences while ignoring influences of those more moderate or with more mainstream appeal, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Baldwin, and others. He was convinced that CRT was radical and Marxist and therefore a poison on this good and moral capitalistic society. Rufo found a new battle in the continuing culture war between the political left and the political right.
Christopher Rufo launched a relentless propaganda campaign against CRT. Critical Race Theory became a catch phrase for every aspect of black-centered, anti-racist, and inclusive lessons within all school programs, including K-12.
Rufo was proud of his work and how quickly news outlets and politicians on the right caught on to his messaging. Because of this, he wasn’t shy about bragging about his methods. He wrote in a correspondence with Angie Wang of the New Yorker:
“We’ve needed new language for these issues. ‘Political correctness’ is a dated term and, more importantly, doesn’t apply anymore. It’s not that elites are enforcing a set of manners and cultural limits, they’re seeking to reengineer the foundation of human psychology and social institutions through the new politics of race, It’s much more invasive than mere ‘correctness,’ which is a mechanism of social control, but not the heart of what’s happening. The other frames are wrong, too: ‘cancel culture’ is a vacuous term and doesn’t translate into a political program; ‘woke’ is a good epithet, but it’s too broad, too terminal, too easily brushed aside. ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain
Its connotations are all negative to most middle-class Americans, including racial minorities, who see the world as ‘creative’ rather than ‘critical,’ ‘individual’ rather than ‘racial,’ ‘practical’ rather than ‘theoretical.’ Strung together, the phrase ‘critical race theory’ connotes hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American.” Most perfect of all critical race theory is not ‘an externally applied pejorative.’ Instead, it’s the label the critical race theorists chose themselves.”
On X, Rufo made this post bragging about his work:
Rufo did a very good job with his propaganda, but he had given up the game on a public social media platform and to a writer in a media magazine. His ego is about as big as his goals, and he couldn’t help but take a bow and a victory lap. His work was done.
What now?
The issue with CRT was that it was a little bit too vague and too alien for most people. Rufo’s propaganda campaign worked, but not as well as he thought it would. CRT, as a sinister Marxist plot against white people and America, was replaced a couple of years ago by DEI. CRT is mainly about race. DEI can be about anything and everyone that doesn’t check all boxes for every privileged group in the various social hierarchical systems that exist in the United States. CRT is still looked at with suspicion by those on the political right, with school-aged children who may have gotten offended after a history lesson about chattel slavery in the United States. There were laws passed in many states to ban CRT in K-12 schools. However, there was no evidence that the course itself was being taught in K-12 schools. Rather, only certain ideas associated with CRT have made it to K-12 classrooms. Also, these bans are usually vague, with CRT being poorly defined.
Christopher Rufo got many people on the right side of the political spectrum to hate and fear a university and law school course that they don’t really understand through a constant propaganda campaign. He recognized that the obscurity of the course was its weakness from a public relations perspective. He also understood that emancipatory movements and initiatives were almost always followed by irrational reactionary backlash. He made a relatively unknown course and made it public enemy #1 for a period of four or five years.
