Lee Daniels Talks Racism: “I Became Very Angry at White People”

The Coen brothers‘ Inside Llewyn Davis won Best Feature tonight at the fourth annual IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards but lost some of the spotlight to presenter Lee Daniels, who made some eyebrow-raising remarks. {snip}

After telling the Gothams crowd to STFU, Daniels shared high praise for friend and collaborator Whitaker. “When I did research for The Butler I became very angry at white people. That shit ain’t funny because it’s not funny what happened. . . . The lesson I learned when I did The Butler was that Forest told me to keep my anger in, to not be a stereotypical angry black man. Because if I were angry and I saw racism, then it became real. I had to step above it and pretend it wasn’t there. How do you tell your 17-year-old son that you can’t go into a 7-Eleven because you’re African-American and a dude? But Forest helped me through that. He taught me a lot.”

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