Spike Lee's 'Da 5 Bloods' & The African-American Vietnam Experience

Set Image from Da 5 Bloods. Director Spike Lee to the left.

Picture this: It’s June 2020. The United Kingdom has been in full national lockdown for three months, but the end is seemingly in sight (or so we foolishly thought). Football has returned and the pubs will be following on not long after. It’s the middle of the summer and things are looking up... 

 Across the Atlantic Ocean however, the blistering midsummer heat was matched only by the fiery racial unrest that was going on in the United States. The killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis P.D. sparked national (and then international) outrage at the institutionalised racism and excessive police brutality that had been put on display to the world. Amongst all this, Spike Lee’s latest project Da 5 Bloods released on Netflix in the middle of June. A story of four black Vietnam veterans returning to their former battleground to honour their fallen comrade, this timely release was an excellent tale to tell - and Lee was the perfect person to tell it. His extremely provocative, confrontational, and downright uncomfortable style of filmmaking amplifies his message and enthrals the audience even further. 

The first important scene which exemplifies the traditional African American view on the war is when the characters arrive in Ho Chi Minh city. Upon being glared at by two elderly Asian men, the characters’ tour guide informs them they are also veterans of the war – but on the side of the North. Though they expect hostility, instead they receive hospitality and a formal welcome.1  With this, Spike Lee is referring to the somewhat symbiotic relationship between conscripted black American soldiers and their enemies, this is exemplified by the Muhammad Ali quote which he uses as a cold open for the film: ‘Shoot them for what? They [the Vietnamese] never called me ‘nigger’. They never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, didn’t rob me of my nationality.’ Ali’s argument was simple; how can the Vietnamese be an enemy, if the white man in America was already hostile? There is evidence within the draft boards and military to support this: There was only one African American on Kentucky’s (Ali’s home state) draft board (0.2%), despite making over 7% of the State’s population. As the ground war began, 23% of American fatalities in Vietnam were African American – significantly well over the proportionate population.

Paul (Delroy Lindo) sporting his MAGA cap.

 Special attention should be paid to the character Paul,   played by Delroy Lindo. Paul is unlike his fellow Bloods –   paranoid, aggressive, and notably a staunch Republican   and avid supporter of President Trump. Through Paul,   Lee creates a veteran filled with bitterness and rage – a   vessel to show the consequences of years of systemic   racism, extreme emotional trauma and the daily ‘wearing   down’ that is covert racism. This is both a commentary on   the war as well as on the black experience in America.   Lee deftly weaves the modern and flashback scenes   together – and in doing this shows how the anti-Vietnam   sentiment lives on so strongly today.

 

                                               

 Liam McKerral

Sources

Harrison, Benjamin T., ‘The Muhammad Ali Draft Case and Public Debate on the Vietnam War’ Peace Research Vol. 33, No. 2 (2001) pp. 69-86

kaotikkalm, ‘Muhammad Ali on the Vietnam War-Draft’, YouTube video, 2:37, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeFMyrWlZ68

Lee, Spike, dir., Da 5 Bloods, New York, 40 Acres and a Mule Productions, 2020

Stith, Kelly, ‘Da 5 Bloods Review’, Australasian Journal of American Studies Vol. 39, No. 1 (2020) pp. 241-244 (p. 243)

Westheider, James E., The African American Experience in Vietnam: Brothers in Arms (New York: Roman and Littlefield, 2008)