Lee’s personal views get spiked

By Alex Creammer
Guest Writer

I left the Distinguished Speaker Series with a bad taste in my mouth. I feel very sorry for Abdul Ghaffar and Dr. Diane Jones. I sincerely hope they are refunded their costs that were spent on Mr. Spike Lee. From afar, I honestly looked up to him and admired him. These are my humble opinions and this is why I say them.

Mr. Lee came to an institution of higher learning in tennis shoes, jeans, a sweater and a baseball cap. He had no notes. He rambled from one end of the stage to the other.

He spun his stories to captivate the easily impressionable audience, approximately 75 percent high school and college students.

Several white audience members left early when he started segregating whites in his weak attempts at history lessons, which were really ploys to wake the audience, like a comic review.

He simply stated in the movie “Barbershop,” that civil rights “greats” Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks were slandered and that we as Americans should never let that happen.

Shortly after, he slammed George Washington and Thomas Jefferson for being slave owners. Lee has enough money to go to Africa right now and there are several provinces where slavery is still a lucrative trade, blacks selling blacks.

Did he not think UNCP educates its students? Did he not know there were white students here? Why be so hypocritical? Why is he such a hater? He comes from a lavish background. He is a third generation Morehouse graduate. It is very expensive to attend Morehouse. He did not grow up in the projects, nor was he constantly singled out. He is a millionaire and a very successful artist, movie director, actor and ultimately very educated.

An educator from this region stood up, someone that was older, wiser and probably a lifelong educator with a passion for teaching. He saw right through Spike Lee’s antics. He asked Lee to talk to the youth for a few moments and tactfully talk education to them. Lee - like a snob - cut the educator down and said he had been, for the last hour and a half. The audience laughed, not the majority, but the young impressionable kids. The educated just gasped. Internally, some said, ‘You have got to be kidding.’

Spike Lee truly showed his colors. He is a rich, opinionated American whose battle cries make no sense. He is looking for listeners and I hope Pembroke will scrutinize future visits from him. He owes UNCP an apology for his attire, his inefficiency as a speaker and his remarks. The slander of the races should not be tolerated especially when his facts aren’t straight.

Maybe it works in New York, but not to the educated, hard-working Americans of UNCP. Especially when you tell a UNCP student to follow a passion like a “crack addict.”