Meeting the famous Spike Lee in Italy

Written by Mayowa Laniran, Foster undergraduate

Today was a very interesting day to say the least. Spike Lee, one of the greatest American filmmakers visited our university today to talk about cinema and sports. But those topics only lasted a little while, as many of the Italian students began asking questions about the issue of police violence against blacks in America. High profile cases of Mike Brown and Eric Garner were revolving around the world news, and Spike Lee used this platform as a forum to discuss the issues. After showing the moving video of Garner’s death, many Italian students wanted to know how they could help speak up and raise awareness about the issue. It was a cool event showing that students from all around the world wanted to invest their time to fight racism. Eventually the conversation turned to discussing racism that exists in Italy and all over Europe. Afterwards, I got the opportunity to speak with Spike for a few minutes and had to snap a picture for the record.