Remember the 1986 film, Soul Man? For those who aren’t familiar with it and it’s controversy, it was a film about a White dude who dressed in blackface, to pose as a Black student at Harvard University. The premise behind his Black ambitions was so he could earn a scholarship that was only intended for African Americans.

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Though the film was somewhat of a small change success- produced for $4.5 million, but grossing $27 million at the box office- the controversy it sparked was intense. As y’all can imagine, many African Americans, organizations such as the NAACP, and director, Spike Lee, had much to say about the blackface, the cultural appropriation, racial insensitivity, etc…and understandably so.

On the flip side, there were also many who enjoyed the film and the love story within it. That brings us to actress, Rae Dawn Chong, who played actor, C. Thomas Howell’s, ‘love interest’ in the movie. She apparently was pissed off with Spike Lee when he first spoke his mind about Soul Man decades ago, and 30 years later, during a 2016 interview with The Wrap, her anger was just as potent.

See What Spike Lee Said To Cause Chong To Go Off

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Spike Lee’s Conversation With Pres. Obama Re-ignited Chong’s Anger Years Later
Spike Lee once revealed in an interview, that he and our forever President, Barack Obama, became cool, and that during one of their conversations, Obama made a confession. He told Spike about his first date with former First Lady, Michelle Obama, which once again prompted Spike’s honest opinion:

“Actually, Barack told me the first date he took Michelle to was ‘Do The Right Thing.’ I said,
Thank God … otherwise you would have taken her to ‘Soul Man’,” Spike recalled.

That did not sit well with Rae Dawn Chong, and she made that VERY clear in her interview…

Rae Dawn Chong Slammed Spike Lee For “Soul Man” Backlash
At the time of “Soul Man’s 1986 release, Spike apparently spoke out against it back then as well…and Rae didn’t like that whatsoever.

Via The Wrap: “It was only controversial because Spike Lee made a thing of it,” she said during a recent interview. “He’d never seen the movie and he just jumped all over it,” she added, recalling that it was a time when Lee was coming up in his career and making headlines for being outspoken.

“He was just starting and pulling everything down in his wake,” Chong asserted. “If you watch the movie, it’s really making White people look stupid. … It is adorable and it didn’t deserve it,” said Chong of the movie.

BUT PEEP What Else Chong Had To Say About Spike…And the NAACP…

Chong Accuses Lee Of Calling Her ‘Too White’ In The Film
Chong- who’s mother is Black-Canadian and father (actor, Tommy Chong) is Chinese and Irish- also accused Spike Lee of taking jabs at her lack of ‘Blackness’ at the time that Soul Man was released:

“I always tried to be an actor who was doing a part that was a character versus what I call ‘blackting,’ or playing my race, because I knew that I would fail because I was mixed,” she explained. “I was the black actor for sure, but I didn’t lead with my epidermis, and that offended people like Spike Lee, I think. You’re either militant or you’re not and he decided to just attack,” she told TheWrap.

Why She’s ‘Never Forgiven’ Spike

“I’ve never forgiven him for that because it really hurt me,” said Chong. “I didn’t realize [at the time] that not pushing the afro-centric agenda was going to bite me. When you start to do well people start to say you’re a Tom [as in Uncle Tom] because you’re acceptable.”

Chong Disses NAACP For ‘Following Spike’s Lead’…
Chong says she firmly stands up for pro-Black causes and such. However, as far as the NAACP’s public bashing of Soul Man, Chong blames them for following Spike Lee’s lead back in the day:

“The NAACP — trust me, they’re so spineless. We have so many problems. Where the f— have they been for 60 years?”

Ouch!

The post Decades Later, “Soul Man” Actress Oddly Blasts Spike Lee Over Film’s Black-Face Backlash appeared first on I Love Old School Music.

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Though Tommy and Rae Dawn Chong share the same last name, most fans never knew that “Squeak” from The Color Purple a.k.a. “Harpo’s” high pitched voiced wife- was related to Tommy. She and her Pops are very close though…so close, that he defended her controversial bashing of her Color Purple co-star, Oprah Winfrey.

A few years ago, Rae caught major flack for the way she dragged Oprah Winfrey in on Matty P’s Radio Happy Hour internet radio show, as she recalled the tension between them and she took several low blows.

NOW See Why She Called Oprah A “House Ni&&er”

“Miss Sofia” & “Squeaky” Had Beef Real Life?…

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Rae Dawn Chong said everything was all good between her and Oprah Winfrey while filming the 1985 classic, The Color Purple, but that Oprah turned into a “total bee-yotch” after Rae filmed her next big movie, Commando, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger- also released in ’85:

“I starred in Commando. And she just wasn’t having me. She’s competitive. She didn’t like me. She just wasn’t having me.”

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During her slamming of Oprah, she called her everything from a “brown noser,” to a “fat chick” who would have been a “field nigger” instead of a house nigger during slavery…

– “If you look at the way [Oprah] looks, she looks like 60 years ago she would have been a house keeper luckily. She would have not been a house n**ger she would have been a field n**ger.”

– “She’s so enormously insecure. If you wanna distill Oprah Winfrey down to like her most basic components. She wants to be beautiful.”

-“Imagine being [Oprah]. She has all of the world. All the power in the world … and she only wants something that is only chemical, purely impossible.”

That Ain’t All She Had To Say Though

Rae Dawn Chong continued with more jabs…

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– “The thing that’s really great about Oprah that you can’t take away from her, is that she’s a great brown-noser. … If you were in a room with her, she would pick the most powerful person and she’ll become best friends with them.”

– “When we worked with her the one thing about Oprah, she was that fat chick that was the wannabe cheerleader in school, that was the student council president that was best friends with the principal.”

Rae also gave Oprah a nice-nasty compliment for being a self-made mogul:

“No matter how vile she is, you kinda gotta go, ‘hello hats off’ like, you’ve done an amazing thing you have actually shifted the DNA of the universe.”

After Backlash, Rae ‘Clarified’ Her Comments…

Following the backlash, Rae Dawn and her Pops spoke out in her defense and to offer further clarity into why she went at Oprah so hard.

In a now private Youtube response, Rae said she “regrets” some of her remarks about Oprah, but not all of them:

R.D. Chong: “I told my story about my experiences with O… Will I have to live under armed guard for ten years because of this? You know people think I just sat back and called O a bunch of ugly names and blasted her just because? It just isn’t true.”

Tommy Chong’s Response…
Tommy Chong also said his daughter’s statements were “taken out of context”:

“If you think of what [Rae Dawn] said, she said back in the day Oprah would be working in the field because she’s not that beautiful…whereas if you’re beautiful, you’re part of the master’s bedroom,” stated Tommy Chong.

Moral of the story: Don’t say something you may regret later…unless you’re bold enough to stand by it, no matter the consequences.

The post Cheech&Chong Star Defends Biracial Daughter Who Called Out Her Co-Star Oprah As A “Field N****r” appeared first on I Love Old School Music.

Remember the 1986 film, Soul Man? For those who aren’t familiar with it and it’s controversy, it was a film about a White dude who dressed in blackface, to pose as a Black student at Harvard University. The premise behind his Black ambitions was so he could earn a scholarship that was only intended for African Americans.

Embed from Getty Images

Though the film was somewhat of a small change success- produced for $4.5 million, but grossing $27 million at the box office- the controversy it sparked was intense. As y’all can imagine, many African Americans, organizations such as the NAACP, and director, Spike Lee, had much to say about the blackface, the cultural appropriation, racial insensitivity, etc…and understandably so.

On the flip side, there were also many who enjoyed the film and the love story within it. That brings us to actress, Rae Dawn Chong, who played actor, C. Thomas Howell’s, ‘love interest’ in the movie. She apparently was pissed off with Spike Lee when he first spoke his mind about Soul Man decades ago, and 30 years later, during a 2016 interview with The Wrap, her anger was just as potent.

See What Spike Lee Said To Cause Chong To Go Off

Embed from Getty Images

Spike Lee’s Conversation With Pres. Obama Re-ignited Chong’s Anger Years Later
Spike Lee once revealed in an interview, that he and our forever President, Barack Obama, became cool, and that during one of their conversations, Obama made a confession. He told Spike about his first date with former First Lady, Michelle Obama, which once again prompted Spike’s honest opinion:

“Actually, Barack told me the first date he took Michelle to was ‘Do The Right Thing.’ I said,
Thank God … otherwise you would have taken her to ‘Soul Man’,” Spike recalled.

That did not sit well with Rae Dawn Chong, and she made that VERY clear in her interview…

Rae Dawn Chong Slammed Spike Lee For “Soul Man” Backlash

Via The Wrap: “It was only controversial because Spike Lee made a thing of it,” she said during a recent interview. “He’d never seen the movie and he just jumped all over it,” she added, recalling that it was a time when Lee was coming up in his career and making headlines for being outspoken.

“He was just starting and pulling everything down in his wake,” Chong asserted. “If you watch the movie, it’s really making White people look stupid. … It is adorable and it didn’t deserve it,” said Chong of the movie.

BUT PEEP What Else Chong Had To Say About Spike…And the NAACP…

Chong Accuses Lee Of Calling Her ‘Too White’ In The Film
Chong- who’s mother is Black-Canadian and father (actor, Tommy Chong) is Chinese and Irish- also accused Spike Lee of taking jabs at her lack of ‘Blackness’ at the time that Soul Man was released:

“I always tried to be an actor who was doing a part that was a character versus what I call ‘blackting,’ or playing my race, because I knew that I would fail because I was mixed,” she explained. “I was the black actor for sure, but I didn’t lead with my epidermis, and that offended people like Spike Lee, I think. You’re either militant or you’re not and he decided to just attack,” she told TheWrap.

Why She’s ‘Never Forgiven’ Spike

“I’ve never forgiven him for that because it really hurt me,” said Chong. “I didn’t realize [at the time] that not pushing the afro-centric agenda was going to bite me. When you start to do well people start to say you’re a Tom [as in Uncle Tom] because you’re acceptable.”

Chong Disses NAACP For ‘Following Spike’s Lead’…
Chong says she firmly stands up for pro-Black causes and such. However, as far as the NAACP’s public bashing of Soul Man, Chong blames them for following Spike Lee’s lead back in the day:

“The NAACP — trust me, they’re so spineless. We have so many problems. Where the f— have they been for 60 years?”

Ouch!

The post Actress Rae Dawn Chong Angrily Blamed Spike Lee For “Soul Man” Black-Face Backlash Decades Later appeared first on I Love Old School Music.

Remember the 1986 film, Soul Man? For those who aren’t familiar with it and it’s controversy, it was a film about a White dude who dressed in blackface, to pose as a Black student at Harvard University. The premise behind his Black ambitions was so he could earn a scholarship that was only intended for African Americans.

Though the film was somewhat of a small change success- produced for $4.5 million, but grossing $27 million at the box office- the controversy it sparked was intense. As y’all can imagine, many African Americans, organizations such as the NAACP, and director, Spike Lee, had much to say about the blackface, the cultural appropriation, racial insensitivity, etc…and understandably so.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtviEFAH7tg/

On the flip side, there were also many who enjoyed the film and the love story within it. That brings us to actress, Rae Dawn Chong, who played actor, C. Thomas Howell’s, ‘love interest’ in the movie. She apparently was pissed off with Spike Lee when he first spoke his mind about Soul Man decades ago, and 30 years later, during a 2016 interview with The Wrap, her anger was just as potent.

See What Spike Lee Said To Cause Chong To Go Off>>>

The post Actress Rae Dawn Chong Angrily Blamed Spike Lee For “Soul Man” Backlash Decades After It Released appeared first on I Love Old School Music.

Most of us, Old Schoolers, remember when Cheech & Chong cracked us up, while getting high as a kite in their comedy movies back in the day. They were free spirits on camera and in real life, Tommy Chong is also a free spirited, outspoken dude. Apparently, he raised his daughter/actress, Rae Dawn Chong, the same way. That couldn’t be more evident after the brutal opinions she gave made about Oprah Winfrey.

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Though Tommy and Rae Dawn Chong share the same last name, most fans never knew that “Squeak” from The Color Purple a.k.a. “Harpo’s” high pitched voiced wife- was related to Tommy. She and her Pops are very close though…so close, that he defended her controversial bashing of her Color Purple co-star, Oprah Winfrey.

A few years ago, Rae caught major flack for the way she dragged Oprah Winfrey in on Matty P’s Radio Happy Hour internet radio show, as she recalled the tension between them and she took several low blows.

NOW See Why She Called Oprah A “House Ni&&er”>>>

The post Cheech & Chong Star Defended Biracial Daughter Rae For Calling Her Co-Star Oprah A “Field N****r” appeared first on I Love Old School Music.