Spike Lee accuses Clint Eastwood of racism.

Director Spike Lee accused director Clint Eastwood of racism for not having any black marines portrayed in Eastwood’s movies “Flags of our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima.” I am constantly amazed by African-Americans accusing everyone of being racist for often ridiculous reasons. Historical records show that as many as 225,000 soldiers participated in the battle of Iwo Jima, of which approximately 900 were African-American. How was Clint Eastwood supposed to have accurately portrayed such a tiny percentage? Should he have cast one African-American marine and shown him for just a few seconds? Would that have satisfied Spike Lee? Or would Spike have been satisfied if Clint Eastwood departed from trying to be historically accurate and made one of the main characters an African-American? If Clint Eastwood had chosen the first option Spike Lee probably would have complained about the one actor just being a token. The second option would not have provided an historically accurate movie. The comment by Spike Lee that Clint Eastwood deliberately choose to exclude African-Americans from the movies is simply absurd. Is Spike Lee a mind reader now?

The second movie, “Letters from Iwo Jima”, was shown from the Japanese perspective and very few whites were portrayed. I guess Clint Eastwood should have cast one of the Japanese soldiers as an African-American. Clint Eastwood has cast African-Americans in many of his movies. How about Morgan Freeman in the 1992 movie “Unforgiven?” Maybe Spike Lee should be criticized for under representing whites in his movies. Spike Lee should reserve his complaints of racism for true cases of racism, of which there are unfortunately many. Clint Eastwood and his two movies about the battle of Iwo Jima are not deserving of such complaints.