Spike Lee says ‘Confederate statues need to come the f*** down’

‘Do the Right Thing’ filmmaker also likened the Confederate flag to the swastika

Spike Lee has voiced his support for campaigns to tear down Confederate statues and iconography.

Speaking on a forthcoming episode of Luminary's Black List podcast (transcribed by Variety), the Do the Right Thing filmmaker also condemned the use of the Confederate flag by sections of the US far right.

“F*** that flag,” he said. “That flag, to me, [makes me feel] the same way my Jewish brothers and sisters feel about the swastika…

"And them motherf***ing Confederate statues need to come the f*** down," he added.

Lee has often tackled racism in his body of work, which includes films such has 2018's BlackKklansman and recent Netflix release Da 5 Bloods.

Statues of racist historical figures have been recently removed across the US and elsewhere, following a wave of Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd.

In the same podcast episode, Lee also touched on the legacy of his seminal 1989 film Do the Right Thing. “It’s like the film was made yesterday,” he said. “So, there are two ways to think about it. That it’s still unique. It’s still new. And then also, black people are still being murdered [and] dying. If you’ve seen Do the Right Thing, how can you not automatically think of Eric Garner, and then king George Floyd?

“It’s never been about how [black people] respond to it,” he continued. “It’s been about how our white sisters and brothers respond to it. And have you been watching CNN like I have? People are marching all over God’s Earth chanting, yelling [and] screaming ‘black lives matter,’ and they’re not black… That’s the big difference.

"You see a young generation of my white brothers and sisters [and] they are out there in full effect. I mean, forget about the rest of the world for a second. White folks are marching in Salt Lake City [and] Des Moines, Iowa, where there ain’t no black folks for a minute.”