Spike Lee urges Academy Awards audience to "do the right thing" after winning Oscar for Adapted Screenplay

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      An ebullient Spike Lee delivered some memorable comments after he and the cowriters of BlacKkKlansman won the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay.

      Lee was wearing two knuckle rings—one saying "LOVE" and the other saying "HATE"—when he showed up at the Oscars.

      In his acceptance speech, he discussed the choices facing Americans in the 2020 presidential election.

      He noted that 2019 was the 400th anniversary of the time when "our ancestors" were brought to Jamestown, Virginia, as slaves.

      Then he praised his grandmother, who was a Spleman College graduate even though her mother was a slave.

      "My grandma who saved 50 years of social security cheques to put her first grandchild—she called me Spikey-poo—she put me through Morehouse College and NYU grad film," Lee said. "NYU! Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who all built this country."

      Watch Spike Lee's speech at the Oscars.

      Then he added a comment about the genocide of the Native people.

      "The 2020 presidential election is around the corner," Lee said. "Let's all mobilize. Let's all be on the right side of history.

      "Make the moral choice between love versus hate," he continued. "Let's do the right thing. You know I had to get that in there."

      Barbra Streisand called BlacKkKlansman a "masterpiece" and "an unflinching look at race relations".

      It was Lee's first Academy Award after an illustrious career—and one in which many people think he should have won the Oscar for Best Picture for Do the Right Thing, which was released in 1989.

      The winner that year was Driving Miss Daisy, which was a far safer film about race relations—and Do the Right Thing wasn't even nominated for Best Picture.

      This year, the winner for Best Picture was Green Book, another road film.

      Lee quipped afterward that everytime someone's driving somebody, he loses.

      "But they changed the seating arrangement," he said.

      Watch Spike Lee's comments afterward, when he quips that everytime someone's driving somebody, he loses the Oscar.

      Lee was then asked what his reaction was to Green Book winning Best Picture. 

      "Let me take another sip," he said. "Next question."

      Then he added: "I thought I was courtside at the Garden and the ref made a bad call. Whoa."

      On a more serious note, he credited the #Oscarssowhite hashtag, its creator April Reign, and the two-term president of the Acadmey of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, for making it possible for him and other African Americans to win Oscars this year.

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