Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” Is Not About the History of Black America but Its Future

Any Black person who watches this film will be channeled back through thinking and being conflicted about their families’ histories and the sacrifices made so that they could have a better life.

I’m sitting here with mixed emotions trying desperately to get through Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” on Netflix. I’m thinking about the proud, beautiful, strong Black men in my family who fought in wars for this country, the United States of America. One of them, my uncle, my father’s brother, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He won two purple hearts; served two tours in the Vietnam War. As I watched this reprisal of racism, regret, and pain, I wondered how many of his brethren, ‘bloods,’ lie in this cemetery with him.

How much have African Americans, especially men, given up for this country? In the fight for freedom? How many times have they been denied freedom for themselves? It’s as if an empty, unspoken promissory note is made on behalf of the government regarding a pending post-slavery contract and a broken American Dream: “If you do this for us, we will do this for you.” But what rewards are garnered at the end of all of the bloodshed and death, both physical and spiritual, which never seem to add up to much? There is more debt and more grief.

We talk about reparations for slavery, but are African Americans owed for all of the wars — violent and non-violent — that they have fought in order to risk their lives for a country that pays no dividends?

“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” -James Baldwin (As Much Truth As One Can Bear, New York Times)

Some vets, like my father, were able to find work full-time; he did this while, initially, helping to raise two kids, all the while attending school in the evenings and earning his Bachelor of Science degree in Business. He used the G.I. bill, and it worked for him. But he died sick, without much savings due to his illness and inability to work. And he gave up way earlier than that. And I like to think that his life was worth more. I know that it was: He deserved more.

My father became the first African American man to hold a position as a buyer in one of the companies in which he worked. When my mom went to work as an assistant director of nursing, she was the first African American woman to hold an administrator’s position at her company. I have worked in many departments in which I have been the only Black faculty member. What does this mean? It comes with a degree of suffering, knowing that you have left your brethren, “da bloods,” behind.

The truth is that African American women are outpacing the men, and it’s costing us our families. There’s unhappiness on both sides.

What is the great equalizer in an equation in which Black culture has been woefully underserved but is required, and always expected, to continuously overgive— constantly, literally, sacrificing our mental, emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual health for a cause that sometimes seems like it’s not worth fighting for?

This so-called American Dream is a pipe dream for most African American families because their ability to exist depends mostly on survival; that is our way to overcome. Anything beyond the “sticks” and it will cost you. And it will cost you dearly. And because so many of our Black men are imprisoned, denied adequate health care, damaged from conflicts, haunted like wild animals, and never had the support they needed to begin with, it is sometimes redundant to hope against hope.

To me, the American dream is starting to look like an overfed bear, drooling from the politics of who gets what but dying of thirst from never, ever being satisfied — always looking for the next victim.

When I think about this illusion of achieving all that we desire, including the desire for equality and freedom from tyranny and oppression, a particular image comes to mind.

This big hairy giant, with his paws on the glass, holding a huge American flag, looks into a big empty house, in disbelief, through the window of this old decrepit mansion… Yes, some folks used to live here, but they left when they realized the promissory note could be paid only with great sacrifices, and sometimes with their lives, and with the lives of generations to come.