As many of you are no doubt well aware, over the past few weeks there has been a major “dust up” between film directors Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood over Clint Eastwood’s two Pacific War films “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “Flags of Our Fathers.” It seems Lee took issue with the fact that there just weren’t enough blacks in the films. There were none, but to have black faces in either for just the sake of having black faces would be an insult to the actual history. There are a number of films which depict black contributions to America’s military history—The Tuskegee Airmen and Glory being two examples as well as Spike Lee’s own film “Miracle at St. Anna” set for release in the fall of this year. I suspect his comments against Clint had more to do with getting free press for his little film than true outrage over Clint’s portrayal of blacks.

Now off to the films in question. Lee’s opening salvo was these gems “He (Clint Eastwood) did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films…”

"Many veterans, African-Americans, who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version."

Does Lee expect if I did a film on the Battle of Pingxingguan that I should have blacks in that movie too? I am unaware that either the PLA’s Eight Route Army or the Army of the Empire of Japan had a great deal of blacks in their ranks. I also am unaware that the Japanese Army that defended Iwo Jima had blacks in their ranks either. The same foolish criticisms have been leveled at Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun” for how the Chinese were portrayed and the main character’s attitude about the Japanese and “Gone with the Wind” for its portrayal of blacks. Empire was not a dissertation on film about the Second Sino-Japanese War nor GWTW on slavery. And these films aren’t about American blacks at Iwo Jima. If Lee wants to make a film about them, feel free to do so. He can call it “the 900” or something.

“Letters” was a story about Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective. It mainly centered on a Japanese conscript by the name of Saigo. Almost the entire movie was in Japanese—the few exceptions was a flashback by Tadamichi Kuribayashi played by Ken Watanabe when he was serving as deputy military attache in the late 1920s and the flashback was at his farewell dinner when he was presented a mother-of-pearl handled M1911 .45 before his return to Japan by an American officer. There were few black officers in 1928 (if any) and even if any existed none would have be flying in the high circles Kuribayashi was flying in. Would Spike Lee had been more pleased to see a black busboy cleaning up the table in this scene? Or insult history and have a black officer at the table with him? There was also a scene where an American marine named Sam was shot and captured by the Japanese and was treated well on the orders of Takeichi Nishi. Another scene where the Americans were involved was the illegal killing of Shimizu (a former member of the Kempeitai) who had deserted along with another Japanese and both had surrendered to the Americans. The Marines who were ordered to guard them didn’t want to “fool with them” and they simply murdered them both instead. Would Spike Lee had been pleased to have blacks protrayed in the film as war criminals? The final scene where there were Americans involved was at the very end when Saigo was captured. I believe Saigo was fictional, but of the 21,000 defenders of Iwo Jima only 216 got off the island alive.

In the movie “Flags” which was from the American perspective, the film was about the five Marines and one Navy corpsmen who raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi, none of which were black. Of the 110,000 Americans at Iwo Jima only 900 were black. If not a single one had been there it would not have impacted the results of the battle in any way, shape or form, their presence there was insignificant and inconsequential. The 900 represented 0.82% of the total American forces involved—if you were to have picked 100 Marines at Iwo Jima at random, you would have expected to find zero blacks in that sample. Sorry Spike Lee, they simply didn’t matter. The people that won Iwo Jima were white. I know this makes you want to cry, but these are the facts. While everyone contributed to the war effort—the 442^nd Infantry regiment made up mostly of Japanese Nisei some of which were former internees for example and I am unaware of a film being made about them and if so, it never got the play of Glory or the Tuskegee Airmen or the play Miracle at St. Anna will get once released. The 442^nd was the most decorated unit of its size in the history of the US armed forces. It was a Nisei that translated the broken Japanese code, which enabled the Americans to shoot down Yamamoto in 1943 and on and on, but the war was fought and won (on the American side) by white males, again, sorry Spike Lee. That may not be your version, but that is the true version. Putting black faces on a film about Iwo Jima would be an insult to history. Clint is right and you are wrong (as well as being stupid) and to paraphrase him, you need to shut your face. I know also you have problems with white people and like to give white guys dating black girls the evil eye when you see them. Jealous Spike? Perhaps with all the millions you have made-- much of it paid to you by whites--you can afford to buy some hours with a psychologist who can help you get over your white derangement syndrome. In short Spike, let Iwo Jima and Clint Eastwood go. This is not a hill you need to die on. Oh and in case any of you cared, Iwo Jima basically translates as Sulfur Island and it is named well.