It’s Not a Matter of Black, White; It’s Strictly Black

Film director Spike Lee has let it be known that if I, and others like me in at least one respect, were to request an interview with him, he would turn us down. The reason: We’re not black.

Let it be known also that Lee is out to hype his new film, “Malcolm X,” a $35-million project to be released this month, and that the man is nothing if not a raconteur in service of the bottom line.

Which he is to be admired for, don’t get me wrong.

Only in America can the masses, regardless of race, aspire to fork over $375 for a leather jacket with an X on the back. Pick it up at Spike’s Joint West on Melrose Avenue in L.A. or at a selected store near where you live.

But, hey, this is simply the way things go. Certainly, the Hollywood groupies--and don’t be fooled just because their X might appear as a discreet gold lapel pin--understand this well.

The media, too, are in on the gig, having long ago perfected the art of back-scratching without so much as a batting an eye. “Free” movie publicity is supposed to work something like this:

The interviewer gets to spend some time with The Star up close, the public gets a vicarious thrill, newspapers and magazines sell, TV ratings jump, and everybody associated with the film makes big bucks.

And judging by the months-long buzz over the latest Lee project--perhaps you remember the director’s exhortation that blacks skip school and work to catch “Malcolm X” on its opening day?--the scenario is right on track.

Meantime, Warner Bros. publicity department has been busy stacking up requests for interviews with the director from around the globe.

But Lee’s a guy with standards, after all. So the man has spoken: African-Americans only, please.

(For the record, The Times said it wouldn’t change its plan to have a white reporter talk to Lee, so the interview was canned. In reaction to a spate of negative publicity, Lee later issued a statement saying that he would prefer to talk with an African-American, but that it wasn’t a hard and fast rule.)

The reason for all this: Lee says he’s tired of answering “stupid” questions from whites, like about whether he has any close friends who are fair of skin. A white woman writing for Esquire magazine asked him this not long ago and in her piece, Lee came off like a rude and arrogant jerk.

Lee says he was annoyed by the writer’s attempts to prove to him that she was politically correct on the issue of race; she’d once had a black boyfriend and was a pal of black writer James Baldwin.

He was also irate over the title that the Esquire editors picked: “Spike Lee Hates Your Cracker Ass.” Lee hasn’t publicly mentioned the contents of the story itself.

I read the piece as soon as it came out. And as a white woman, I felt mooned by the director up close.

Which is apparently part of the problem, far as Lee’s concerned. He told the editor of Esquire that he’d been “damaged” by the magazine’s piece. Whites see his movies too, and there’s no separate entrance at his stores for those of a different race.

(Price flash: $60 for the latest “Malcolm X” baseball jersey, the one with Ballot or the Bullet on the sleeve.)

An African-American, Lee suggests, would have never written a story like the Esquire piece. He believes that blacks are innately more receptive to the messages of his films.

And in the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt (who insisted that only women cover her news conferences), Lee says what he’s really doing with his newfound interview selectivity is advancing the careers of journalists who are black. As a celebrity interview subject, Spike Lee is a catch.

So give this man some points for honesty. Big shots routinely try to manipulate the media; many of them succeed. Everybody wants the best writers and those most sympathetic to their cause.

But subtract more points for bigotry. On the scale of tolerance and open-mindedness, I think Spike Lee clocks in around minus 10.

This isn’t just a black thing. It’s about humans all around. Prejudging somebody on the basis of their skin color is flat-out wrong, and amazingly stupid too.

P.S. Spike, I do like your films. Sorry, guy, I know you don’t give a damn.