"Jews Will Not Replace Us!" Understanding BlacKkKlansman's Final Scene

BlacKkKlansman’s an interesting film. Despite centring around a black detective infiltrating The KKK in the 70’s, it throws shade on current politics in The US. It highlights how little progress we’ve made when it comes to bigotry, reminding us that director Spike Lee still has the magic decades after Do the Right Thing. While its Best Picture nomination was definitely contentious, due in-part to the liberties it takes with its story, I also think it has one of the greatest film endings in recent memory.

The scene begins with Ron Stallworth and Patrice Dumas, having reconciled their differences, hearing a knock on their apartment door. Nervous, the two of them grab their guns and open it. We watch as they’re “dolly zoomed” to a field. And in that field is a KKK cross burning, complete with haunting music by composer Terrence Blanchard. This alone is enough to make a statement: that racism didn’t die from Stallworth’s actions. If anything, it’s alive and kicking, getting stronger with each day. Stallworth might’ve won his particular battle, fooling The KKK in the process, but he’s yet to win the war. And a war is coming, as evidenced by a close-up of one of the hooded figures.

From here, we hear the chants of neo-Nazis, transitioning to the Charlottesville rally in 2017. We see a montage of white supremacists, their eyes blurred, shouting “Jews will not replace us!” while holding Tiki torches in the dead of night. We then witness the clash between them and Antifa, culminating in the death of Heather Heyer and Donald Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” speech. The movie ends with a memoriam image of Heyer, followed by an upside-down American flag.

There’s a lot to unpack, but I doubt it’s accidental that the cross burning and Charlottesville were linked. For one, the movie’s focus was on pulling the wool over David Duke’s eyes, and here was an older Duke with neo-Nazis. And two, it highlights how racism’s still alive in The US. If anything, it’s growing under the current administration. That alone is concerning.

This speaks to me as a Jew. Antisemitism takes many forms, some covert, but this kind’s pretty telling. This is the Jew-hatred that got Hitler elected. It’s the Jew-hatred that led to Jews being gassed. It’s also the Jew-hatred the world knew about, yet ignored. Yet here it is again, in full-swing, on American soil in the 21st Century.

We shouldn’t be too surprised, given The US’s history with racism. The country, after all, was founded on the backs of black slaves, and The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t automatically fix the damage done by that. The US still had The Jim Crow laws, which severely limited Black Americans, until the 1960’s, when blacks were finally able to vote. Even then, there was a reactionary backlash to that, one which persisted into the 1970’s.

Essentially, racism never disappeared, but merely morphed. And it’s important that we recognize this. It’s important because it shows how stubborn bigotry is, as well as how intersectional it is. The KKK might lay its groundwork on hating black people, but the Charlottesville protestors were shouting about Jews. They were shouting about the Jewish experience being one of assimilation, and how that “weakens” the white race.

There are other points that are worth appreciating. The most-obvious is the clash between Antifa and the neo-Nazis, and how intense it became. It’s not uncommon for even peaceful protests to have troublemakers, but this was a full-on clash. This was a fight between two versions of The US: the old-fashioned, nostalgic, racially-coded US, and the modern, forward-looking, racially-diverse US. It happened in the same city, and in The South. It also happened in a former-slave state, one routinely confronting its racist past. And it happened in a place where the past and the future are constantly butting heads.

Permeating this scene was Trump’s speech. Trump’s a mess on his own, but his words shown alongside chaos and carnage speaks volumes. He might’ve embellished the truth, but it didn’t matter: his message still came across. He routinely speaks to the bigot, dog-whistling with coded language, and it reaches its target audience. He sometimes isn’t even subtle about it, as evidenced by his attacks on Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. He speaks, and the bigots listen.

By showing Trump in this final scene, Lee’s making a statement. He’s shining a mirror in our faces, suggesting that we have a long way to go. He’s insisting that we not turn a blind eye to real injustices in our own backyards, as-sooner or later-it hurts all of us. Because remember, Heather Heyer was white. White supremacy starts with minorities, but in the end it always hurts white people.

That this is incredibly-disturbing only drives the point home. Witnessing that car run over that crowd of people is unpleasant to watch. Listening to that woman scream is harrowing. Hearing that Heyer didn’t survive the incident is agitating. This is all shocking stuff!

But it works! It highlights how effective cinematic storytelling is at getting people to think. If the theatre I was in was indication, then this is a moment that gets everyone to pay attention. It’s a moment that’s as much worth telling now as in the 70’s, when the majority of this film takes place. It’s the definitive movie moment of the Trump era. This is Spike Lee’s scenic masterpiece, even if it’s not necessarily his best film.

So yes, this movie was worthy of a Best Picture nomination. I don’t know if it was the best movie of 2018 to deal with racial tensions, that honour still belongs to The Hate U Give, but at least it got somewhere. At least it showed people were listening. That alone is why Lee still knows what he’s doing. And that alone encapsulates why BlacKkKlansman works so well.