Lee, whose recent film Do the Right Thing portrayed the era’s block-by-block racial strife in his native Brooklyn, was in shock. “Well, I certainly don’t agree with that garbage that Donald Trump said, that if he could be reborn or reincarnated, he’d want to come back as an educated Black, because we start off . . .” his voice drifted off. “I didn’t believe he said that, that’s crazy.”

