Because he is the constant drumbeat in our national consciousness, it was inevitable that Donald Trump, American president, would insert himself into the Oscars debrief this morning. Because he is a vicious know-nothing, it was always going to get ugly. Spike Lee lost out on the Best Picture prize to the scandal-plagued Green Book, but he did take home his first career Oscar—he previously won an honorary statue for a distinguished career—courtesy of his adapted screenplay for BlacKkKlansman.

After a nice moment with his old friend Samuel L. Jackson, Lee used his acceptance speech to comment on our particular historical moment:

The word today is “irony.” The date, the 24th. The month, February, which also happens to be the shortest month of the year, which also happens to be Black History month. The year, 2019. The year, 1619. History. Her story. 1619. 2019. 400 years.

Four hundred years. Our ancestors were stolen from Mother Africa and bought to Jamestown, Virginia, enslaved. Our ancestors worked the land from can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night. My grandmother, [inaudible], who lived to be 100 years young, who was a Spelman College graduate even though her mother was a slave. My grandmother who saved 50 years of social security checks to put her first grandchild — she called me Spikie-poo — she put me through Morehouse College and N.Y.U. grad film. N.Y.U.!

David Crotty Getty Images

Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who have built this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native people. We all connect with our ancestors. We will have love and wisdom regained, we will regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment. The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize. Let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing! You know I had to get that in there.

Lee traced his own family's experience in America as a vehicle for examining the 400 years since, as Malcolm X once put it, "Plymouth Rock landed on us." The detail that Lee's grandmother was a Spelman College graduate just one generation after a member of his family had been enslaved is a stunning reminder of how young and violent a country the United States is, and how its black citizens have found a way forward in spite of that. Along with the 90 years of Jim Crow, 60 years of separate-but-equal, and 35 years of racist housing policy that black Americans faced even after slavery was ended in a bloody Civil War, it's a stinging retort to the get-over-it-I-don't-want-to-hear-about-it historical denialism that was on show last week on Tucker Carlson's Fox News program.

Lee didn't mention the president by name, but he did mention 2020 and the notion that it would be a choice between love and hate. It's not the best sign that the President of the United States immediately identified that he was the "hate" option. But Trump received the message loud and clear, and reacted as he often does: by insulting the intelligence of a black person who criticized him.



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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, who has done more for African Americans (Criminal Justice Reform, Lowest Unemployment numbers in History, Tax Cuts,etc.) than almost any other Pres! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2019

This is a throwback to Trump's knock on Barack Obama—that he couldn't deliver a speech without a teleprompter. Combined with Trump's suggestion Obama couldn't have gotten into an Ivy League school legitimately, the message was unequivocal. Of course, Trump has used a teleprompter frequently since he's gotten into public life, including at his rallies. He's not particularly known as a "reader," either. And when he does go off-script—like in the non compos mentis exhibition in the Rose Garden a couple of weeks back, when he declared a national emergency while also declaring he didn't need to declare a national emergency—it is not pretty at all.

And, of course, Trump called Lee's speech "racist." It is not racist to talk about racism. This is the kind of whoever-smelt-it-dealt-it rhetoric on the issue that is common on Fox News, and also makes no sense. Racism will not go away if you act like it doesn't exist—or, as one of the least promising 2020 candidates put it, if you maintain you "honestly don't see color." Everyone has biases. You have to acknowledge them to overcome them. More to the point, BlacKkKlansman has a particularly nuanced take on the Black Panther rhetoric that sometimes verged on anti-white hatred—not that Trump will ever see the film.

Trump weighs in on the events in Charlottesville. August 15, 2017. JIM WATSON Getty Images

The Republican tax cut Trump mentioned will overwhelmingly benefit the rich, a group that is disproportionately white. In fact, the racial income gap continues to widen: In 2017, the median wealth of white households was $171,000. For black households, it was $17,100. This is tied closely to racial discrimination in mortgage-lending, which targeted black customers for predatory sub-prime loans heading into the Great Recession. African-American unemployment—like unemployment across the board—is indeed down near all-time lows. But it is still nearly twice the rate of white unemployment. Of the accomplishments listed, criminal justice reform is Trump's strongest: the bipartisan bill he signed at the end of last year was a great, if modest, first step forward on an issue that disproportionately impacts black Americans.

The fact is, though, that Trump's record of public racism is expansive, deep, and goes back decades. He launched his political career with a campaign to question whether the first black president was American at all—and thus, to make Obama illegitimate. He has scarcely looked back, culminating with his disgusting claim that there were "very fine people on both sides" at the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. One side consisted of anti-racist counter-protesters. Surely, there were some very fine people there. The other side consisted of neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederates, and various other white-nationalist and white-supremacist groups. Are there "very fine people" who think it's a good idea to march alongside Nazis?

Some of the folks that Very Fine People apparently march alongside. Chet Strange Getty Images

This, of course, was the crescendo of BlacKkKlansman, which featured footage from Charlottesville—particularly the moment when a white supremacist drove his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing a woman named Heather Heyer, in what even then-Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III called an act of domestic terrorism. Hate crimes and hate groups have been on the rise over the last couple of years, even if conservatives have begun to seize on Jussie Smollett's allegedly false report. Just last week, a white nationalist and aspiring domestic terrorist was arrested with 15 guns, 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and a hit list.

Throughout the film, there are echoes of our current moment—from the KKK's penchant for saying "America First" to the prominent role enjoyed by David Duke, then the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who even then had designs on high political office. (The film mentions he began to call himself "national director" of the Klan in a bid for mainstream legitimacy.) Duke won a seat in the Louisiana state legislature in 1989, but ultimately lost his bid to represent the state in the United States Senate. Still, he has clambered back into some national prominence in the last couple of years. He's also a massive fan of President Donald Trump.

"Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa," the former head of the KKK said of Trump's "Both Sides" comment back in 2017. He also spoke at the rally itself.

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"We are determined to take our country back," he said at one point. "We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back."

Maybe Duke is just confused about what the president represents. Certainly, by his depiction in BlacKkKlansman, he's never been confused about what David Duke or the Ku Klux Klan represent. Spike Lee doesn't seem confused by any of it.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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