Quotes from lee spike

My people, my people, what can I say; say what I can. I saw it but didn't believe it; I didn't believe what I saw. Are we gonna live together? Together are we gonna live?

I swear before God ... and four more white people! This is the last time!

A lot of stuff that's on today is coonery and buffoonery, and I know it's making a lot of money ... and breaking records, but we can do better.

If you weren't fine, I wouldn't even bother with you.

I decided to be a filmmaker between my sophomore and junior years at Morehouse. Before I left for the summer of 1977, my advisor told me I really had to declare a major when I came back, because I'd used all my electives in my first two years. I went back to New York and I couldn't find a job. There were none to be had. And that previous Christmas someone gave me a Super-8 camera, so I just started to shoot stuff.

We grow up with white images all the time, in TV, in movies, in books. It's everywhere; you can't get around it. The white world surrounds us. What do white people see of black people? Look at the shit they have us do in movies: "Right on, jive turkey!"

'Cause mo better makes it mo better.

Racism is when you have laws set up, systematically put in a way to keep people from advancing, to stop the advancement of a people. Black people have never had the power to enforce racism, and so this is something that white America is going to have to work out themselves. If they decide they want to stop it, curtail it, or to do the right thing ... then it will be done, but not until then.

I don't think racism can be eliminated in my lifetime ... or my children's or grandchildren's. But I think it's something we have to strive for. I'm going to keep working toward that day coming.

Baby, you're so fine, I'd drink a tub of your bath water.

I don't think my films are going to get rid of racism or prejudice. I think the best thing my films can do is provoke discussion.

I've never seen black men with fine white women. They be ugly. Mugly dogs.

Those that'll tell don't know, and those that know won't tell.

We've got to turn this backward thinking around where ignorance is championed over intelligence. Young black kids being ridiculed by their peers for getting A's and speaking proper English: that's criminal.

I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten.

I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night.

I'm an independent filmmaker with complete creative control of my films. I hire who I want. I have final cut. But at the same time, I go directly to Hollywood for financing and distribution. I find it's best for me to work within the Hollywood system.

As a writer I want everybody to get a chance to voice their opinions. If each character thinks that they're telling the truth, then it's valid. Then at the end of the film, I leave it up to the audience to decide who did the right thing.