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Vanity Fair Oscar Party 2019 - Post Party Arrivals

Source: David Crotty / Getty

If there’s ever a celeb who’s never afraid to speak their mind, it’s Spike Lee.

He’s been defying Donald Trump at every turn, and it should come to no surprise that the two native New Yorkers are at odds again. This time it’s regarding the statues being torn down across America. Since George Floyd was killed on May 25 at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the United States’ racially unjust ways have been put under a microscope.

Texas realtors are refusing to use the word “master” when referring to bedrooms, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s are being forced to rebrand and chiseled statues are being pummeled to the grand by protestors. And according to an interview on a new episode of Luminary’s Black List Podcast, Spike Lee is here for removing monuments that celebrate leaders of the confederacy and all imagery associated with it.

“F-ck that flag,” Lee said unapologetically. “That flag, to me, [makes me feel] the same way my Jewish brothers and sisters feel about the swastika… And them motherf-cking Confederate statues need to come the f-ck down.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Lee spoke on Do The Right Thing, which is celebrating its 31-year anniversary this July. The film shows the racial dichotomy in Brooklyn between Black kids and an Italian-owned pizzeria. Towards the end of the movie, Radio Raheem’s character gets killed after being put into a chokehold by NYPD– which shows how little race relations and police brutality has changed in the three decades since the movie was premiered.

“It’s like the film was made yesterday,” Lee said. “So, there are two ways to think about it. That it’s still unique. It’s still new. And then also, Black people are still being murdered [and] dying. If you’ve seen ‘Do the Right Thing,’ how can you not automatically think of Eric Garner, and then king George Floyd?”

The podcast episode drops tomorrow, July 2.