# Are Spike and/or Denzel racists? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 3, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538 "2005-04-03T17:53:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/21 "2005-04-05T05:29:12Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > **School Daze** : White people do not exist in the movie. The subject of the entire movie is racism between light-skinned and dark-skinned blacks. It’s a strange surreal movie (it’s like a musical) that I hope I never have to see again. I’m a sucker for just about any college movie, no matter what, so I rather enjoyed this. But in retrospect it seems stranger and stranger to me. I don’t cavil at the lack of white people in the movie. It was supposed to be at an HBC, and while IRL there would presumably be _some_ whites there, I would just shrug it off with a “meh, it’s a movie”. But that other bit about him not talking to his dad because he married a white woman, that’s really sad to hear, if true. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/22 "2005-04-05T06:55:47Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Why do people do this? The “what if the tables were turned” hypotheticals are getting old. > > For the tables to be turned, whites would have to comprise some small population of the Hollywood establishment. They would have to be historically excluded from mainstream films and academy awards. Films in which whites dominate the cast would NOT be considered mainstream films. Whoopie would have to be a white comedian talking to a predominately black audience, and the producer being honored would have to be black. All of this person’s films would have to be predominately black. > > When I imagine the “tables being turned”, I don’t see the outcome being any different. > > If Whoopie is an anti-white racist for telling this joke (a joke that I believe is open to multiple interpretations, not necessarily yours), then we’re all racist. In most of her movies, she’s been the lone black actor in a sea of white. Her humor is mainly “cross over”, non-racial stuff. She has dated at least two white men, and she voluntarily named herself “Goldberg”. I dunno what’s going on in her head, but “I hate Whitey” is probably NOT one of her regular thoughts. Bad bad post. There comes a certain point where minorities have to realize what they are, minorities. I think a reasonable stance is that minorities should get the chance to prove themselves just like whites can. If two actors compete for a job (a job that doesn’t by it’s script nature demand a certain ethinicity) if the black actor doesn’t get it despite being better than the white actor, that is wrong and something should be done about that sort of institutional racism. But the constant attention people make of the fact that, “look, there aren’t as many blacks as whites here” is stupid. Frankly because there _can’t_ be. Blacks represent about 12% of the population, 12% of the population doesn’t supply enough acting talent to be \> 50% of the population in most hollywood movies, gala events, et cetera. There comes a certain point where the complaining needs to stop. I’m in favor of racial equality but not numerical equality, how are we supposed to compensate for the fact that there are 200 million more white people than black people? Kill off 200m whites? Promote a rapid birth rate among blacks? That’s why ideas about compensating for racism numerically are stupid, you need to focus on the root issues and promote equality of opportunity–for in this case equality of result is an impossibilty. It reminds me of a recent article I read where black athletes were complaining that the MLB was only 13% black. Well hey, guess what, that represents roughly the percentage of blacks in the country, I’d say it’s working out just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/23 "2005-04-05T06:57:54Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > I had not thought about Redford’s not having many Blacks in his films. Several productions have been about Hispanics and American Indians. I think he tends to do a lot of movies set in the West. Seems to me that Will Smith may have had a sizeabe role in **Bagger Vance** though. (Am I misremembering?) > > I’ve never thought about Whoopi or Spike or Denzel as being racist – just incredibly talented. (Denzel should have had the Oscar for **Malcolm X**.) It’s reasonable to assume that anger drives a lot of Lee’s work, but that doesn’t translate to racism. Nor does his not speaking to his father after his father married a white woman indicate that the problem, if there is one, is her race of the marriage itself. > > If you have to _ask_ if someone is a racist, then it’s probably not a problem. I think Spike is a good director but Whoopi Goldberg is only a good comedian, never a good actor. Denzel has done good movies but he overacts at times and to me it’s a turn off. Sometimes he’s great sometimes he’s too hackneyed. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/24 "2005-04-05T12:33:19Z")
Martin Hyde writes: \> It reminds me of a recent article I read where black athletes were complaining \> that the MLB was only 13% black. Well hey, guess what, that represents \> roughly the percentage of blacks in the country, I’d say it’s working out just fine. The percentage has dropped further and now only 10% of major league baseball players are black. There has been a rise and fall in this. The first black major leaguer was in 1947 (if I recall correctly). By 1975, 27% of all major leaguers were black. Then the influx of foreign-born baseball players, particularly from Latin America, began, and the percentage of blacks and non-Hispanic whites in the sport dropped. 10% of all major leaguers are now from the Dominican Republic. In each of the sports where American blacks were overrepresented, the same thing has happened. (And, let’s make it clear, it was only maybe four or five sports where this has happened - basketball, football, boxing (but less than formerly), baseball (but less than formerly), and maybe track and field (but this isn’t usually professional). It’s not the case that blacks are overrepresented in sports as a whole in the U.S. In fact, they are slightly underrepresented overall. In many American sports, there are very few blacks.) In each case, the sport was formerly dominated by whites who mostly came from working-class backgrounds. At the point that blacks became eligible for playing the sport, they began to flood in. Sports are a terrible investment of time for someone from a middle-class background. Your chances of getting rich are much better if you spend your time trying to do well academically and getting a good job than if you spend your time trying to become good at sports and become a professional athlete. If you come from a working-class background though, you might feel that you have so little chance of making it academically that it’s worth it to spend all your time on developing yourself in sports. So blacks flooded into these sports, seeing it as their big chance to make it into the middle class. It became less important to whites, who increasingly didn’t see it as a good investment of time. But then another group of people began coming into sports - American Hispanics. Again, coming from a working-class background, they saw sports as their way into the middle class. In baseball and boxing, the percentage of Hispanics increased and the percentage of blacks and non-Hispanic whites decreased. Furthermore, in some sports there has been an influx of foreign-born players. Even in basketball there has been a lot of foreign-born professionals lately and I presume there has been a decrease in the percentage of blacks in the sport. What’s happening is that we’re now outsourcing the development of our professional athlete to foreign countries. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/25 "2005-04-05T14:05:09Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > But if you don’t turn around everything, then of course the outcome will be different. Well, yeah, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Are you familiar w/ the Fundamental Attribution Error? It’s when we see somebody in a different situation and make some sort of character judgement (perhaps based on genetics or social forces) without thinking that we’d do the same thing. E.g., we blame Islam and Arab character flaws for suicide bombings instead of thinking about the forces at work. If we switched everything to be the exact opposite, then of course the outcome would be just the same. (If Americans were living under the thumb of a terrorist occupier, we’d be suicide bombers, too.) To me, turning the tables means swapping situations without changing all the other factors related to them. For example, I would say movie _Trading Places_ is an example of turning the tables. The rich, well-bred guy and the poor, poorly-bred guy are swapped out, but their histories are not changed as well. The result is that the environment rather than breeding has a large say in what sort of person one becomes. Whether you agree w/ the movie’s implications, I still would consider it a good representation of what I’d call “turning the tables.” > [@](#): > > I’m guessing what you’re saying is that by “turning the tables” at the grossest, most parsimonious level, we’re able to construct some kind of working framework of the “problem”. By just flipping the “color”, we can imagine that the Ivory Awards would be received with more negativity than the Essence Awards has been. Well, yeah. This isn’t really a mind-blowing revelation. But if we want to dip further and figure out **why** this is the case (besides RACISTS BEING RACIST OMG!!), we need to evaluate the other differences between the players. This requires turning the table completely, IMHO. Make whites a small percentage of the population. Give them a history of exclusion. Label them as “non-mainstream”. IMHO, if we don’t do this, then we’re just doing a superficial examination of the issue. I’m gonna have to disagree w/ this. The reason I disagree is that with your scenario, we may expose the proclivity to make the Fundamental Attribution Error, but that’s not a very deep thing to do, IMO. We can simply point to the Tamil Tigers and explode the myth that Islam or Arab culture is the reason for suicide bombings. If we switch everything, we’re still not getting at what I find to be the interesting questions. For example, there are many whites who feel that a black person can get ahead, regardless of what environment she grows up in. They’ll point to Rice and Powell as examples. They’ll say that blacks have won Oscars (hell if I know whether that’s actually true). They’ll say that there are only small actors and anyone is eligible for an Oscar—Hollywood is a meritocracy. Why have entertainment awards specifically for blacks? (I don’t know if that’s what the Essence Awards are, but I’d bank on many whites believing that’s what they are.) Why is it racist to have awards specifically for whites if Latinos & Blacks & whoever may do so without anyone raising an eye. To me, the scenario of the Ivory Awards can lead to deeper discussion of racism & prejudice, because when we change everything, we’re just changing words but not the situation. Or, at the very least, we can open up questions that would otherwise not be opened. Is Hollywood racist? You can bet dollars to doughnuts that there are an awful lot of middle-American whites who consider Hollywood to be on the far left when it comes to things like race, and they sure as shit aren’t going to buy into the idea that blacks are systematically discriminated against when it comes to good roles and recognition. I think a hypothetical such as the Ivory Awards can get at such issues and help to make people think, whether they like it or not. > [@](#): > > I agree completely. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/26 "2005-04-05T23:32:48Z")
> [@js\_africanus](#): > > To me, turning the tables means swapping situations without changing all the other factors related to them. So answer me this: Would you expect a guy to react to a joke about his small penis the same a large-peniled man would react to a joke about his member? “Holy shit your crap is small. I’ve seen baby inch-worms that are bigger.” versus “Holy shit your crap is big. I’ve seen Burmese pythons that are smaller.” Is the offensiveness level of the comment inherently the same? Does “turning the tables” result in the same outcome? _Should_ it? Should the well-endowed guy take umbrage at the fact that people feel free to joke about his size, _just_ because people feel less comfortable ragging on the smaller guy’s? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/27 "2005-04-05T23:35:55Z")
Insert “way” after “same” in: Would you expect a guy to react to a joke about his small penis the same a large-peniled man would react to a joke about his member? ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/28 "2005-04-06T03:29:02Z")
Maybe I have Whoopi all wrong? Perhaps there is a sheepish smile under that scowl when she plays the race card? I guess it’s just that my gears get ground when a white person is chosen over a black for any reason whatsoever, and the first response from the black person is … racism. Sure there is racism out there, but can we please visit the list of other discerning qualifications first? As far as turning the tables, let’s say it was Chevy Chase as MC, Spike Lee was being honored, and the majority of the audience was black. How would the comment, “You didn’t hear many white folk applauding”, go over in that situation? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/29 "2005-04-06T11:33:55Z")
> [@ccwaterback](#): > > Maybe I have Whoopi all wrong? Perhaps there is a sheepish smile under that scowl when she plays the race card? I guess it’s just that my gears get ground when a white person is chosen over a black for any reason whatsoever, and the **first response from the black person is … racism.** But is that what Whoopi said (I didn’t see the comment so I’m not able to argue specifically argue about it)? Or was that what you were inferring? ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/30 "2005-04-06T14:40:48Z")
> [@gum](#): > > How can Whoopie Goldberg be a racist when she had a thing with Ted Danson? Because he’s the type of guy who would appear in blackface and portray a character with all kinds of prejudiced views? ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/31 "2005-04-06T20:22:25Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Because he’s the type of guy who would appear in blackface and portray a character with all kinds of prejudiced views? I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, **gigi**. Must be the language. I’m sorry. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/32 "2005-04-06T20:37:59Z")
> [@gum](#): > > I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, **gigi**. Must be the language. I’m sorry. [Blackface](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface) is when white and even black performers in cabarets, etc., wore black makeup and performed stereotypical acts that ridiculed black people. It was used by white performers like Al Jolson. Nowadays it is a symbol of a more overtly racist time. (Whoa, that link shows a Netherlands character “Zwarte Piet”.) Anyway, when Ted Danson was dating Whoopi Goldberg he appeared at the Friar’s Club in blackface; even at this quite irreverent place it was considered going too far. (See link as well.) He also played a prejudiced character on the TV show “Becker”; I know it’s just a character but all I can imagine is writers sitting around thinking up racist things to say and feeling OK doing it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/33 "2005-04-06T20:45:57Z")
It should be pointed out that Goldberg. who was dating Danson at the time, had actually written his lines and she dismissed the criticism on the grounds that it was all in fun. (Of course, that just made the situation seem even more strange.) ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/34 "2005-04-06T21:23:17Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > That and his asshattery at NBA games. Spike made me a Reggie Miller fan. ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/35 "2005-04-06T21:43:15Z")
That was an interesting article. Thank you **gigi**. Thank you too, **tomndeb**. It’s rather fun to hear his ‘schtick’ [sp?] was written by Whoopie Goldberg. I know about our ‘Zwarte Piet’. I was always told: ‘He is black because he has to climb through chimneys, to deliver the presents for the kids’. Shows how wrong I can be, huh. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538/36 "2005-04-06T22:49:51Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > He also played a prejudiced character on the TV show “Becker”; I know it’s just a character but all I can imagine is writers sitting around thinking up racist things to say and feeling OK doing it. And don’t forget, there’s a blind, black male friend there to soften his vacariously cathartic blows. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-spike-and-or-denzel-racists/297538.md?page=1)