SYSK’s Summer Movie Playlist: The True Story of BlacKkKlansman

26:43But it was still the Ku Klux Klan. Like, there was still plenty of times when he was wearing robes and stuff. He just never did in public. So during this time, he was the national director, the Grand Wizard of the Klan. And when Ron Stallworth didn't get his application pushed through fast enough, he picked up the phone and called the national headquarters and ended up talking with David Duke and saying like, hey, my application is taking a while. Is there anything you can do about it? And this kicked off like what Ron Stallworth would later characterize in a weird way as a friendship between him, a black undercover detective in Colorado, and David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

27:26Yeah, and by the way, I don't want to get angry emails from David Duke supporters. He was a Republican Louisiana state rep. He was not governor. But I think he ran for some high office. Oh, he did. He ran, he was a candidate for the Democratic presidential primaries in the late 80s and then the Republican primaries in 92. He ran as a Democrat and then a, I could see that solid South kind of thing. Yeah, and I think he ran for state Senate and lost, U.S. Senate and lost, U.S. House and lost, and he did run for governor of Louisiana, but he lost. Gotcha, okay. And you may be – if you didn't grow up in the 80s, you may have heard his name more recently because he fully endorsed Donald Trump's campaign.

28:16And after Donald Trump won, he – this was his quote on Twitter. Make no mistake. Our people have played a huge role in electing Trump. So he was in the news again more recently. Well, he was also in Charlottesville, if not leading the rally to Unite the Right, definitely a big speaker at it, a big part of it. And Spike Lee uses some of his footage from that rally to kind of get across that, you know, this stuff is still going on. This isn't from the 70s or earlier. How great was Topher Grace? He was wonderful. He was so good. and he looks a lot like David Duke of the 70s. He really does. Unfortunately for him.

29:02The stash and the three-piece suits and all that. Yeah, he did a good job. So, yeah, in the movie Topher Grace from that 70s show, he will always be from that 70s show. Yeah. He plays, what do you want me to say? Like he had a bit part in Ocean's Eleven or something? I don't know. Brad Pitt's character was teaching him to play poker, I think. I forgot about that. You know, that guy. No, he's that 70s show, of course. So he plays David Duke in the movie, and this is—it's really funny. Like Spike Lee added stuff that just you would think like, well, yeah, of course, it's totally believable, like Chuck being Jewish in real life.

29:41Right. And he actually wasn't. That's fabricated by the movie. So you would just not even think twice about that, but it turns out that's not true. The stuff that seems the least true is actually the stuff that actually happened. And for a very long time, well, at the very least over the course of this nine-month investigation, there were multiple phone calls that were very cordial and friendly where Ron Stallworth would call David Duke and posing as a white Klan member and pump him for information. They would talk about, you know, David Duke's family and like just have normal conversations that would inevitably turn back to racism and the weakening of the white race at the hands of, you know, the Jewish media and all the minorities who are taking over.

30:25And so it would inevitably turn disgusting. But he said later, I think in the book and in interviews where if you could separate that stuff out, he was actually a pleasant person to talk to. And that's where that weird friendship that he characterized it as kind of developed from those conversations. But there is— Like he couldn't make this stuff up, you know? Exactly. But there is at least one video of David Duke basically admitting that, yes, he had conversations with this guy. He tries to downplay it. Sure. But he does basically verify that, yes, that's true. That really happened. Well, and Duke's probably like, I can't remember every phone call I had with every random racist over the years.

31:06Right. There were a lot of them. Even this guy posing as one. All right. Well, let's take another break. And we're going to go, we're going to talk a little bit more about this weird David-Duke relationship right after this.

31:31New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.

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32:45We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience, helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.

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34:08All right. So he's buddying up with David Duke on the phone. He's fooling everybody. And he even, like you get the sense that he does have a little bit of sense of humor, Stallworth, because at one point he even goaded him on the phone a little bit. And this is in the movie, and it was totally true. He said, you know, Mr. Duke, have you ever worried about like a black man posing as a white man and infiltrating your organization? And Duke said no. And he said, and this is from the NPR interview with Stallworth. He said, I can tell you're white because you don't talk like a black man. He said, you talk like a very smart intellectual white man.

34:49And I can tell by the way you pronounce certain words. And he said, you know, give me an example. And he said, black people tend to pronounce the word R, Ara. And I can tell by listening to you that you're not black because you do not pronounce that word in that manner. It's science. Case closed. Oh, boy. He was so easily duped. I love it. And then they also did, in fact, meet in person. That part is true as well. Duke came to town and was having lunch. It was not a big ceremony like in the movie, but he came to town to have lunch, and the department assigned Stallworth to protect him. And so he goes there to the restaurant, introduces himself to protect him.

35:35Duke says, all right, I appreciate you, them, you know, sending someone my way. and Chuck is undercover there as well. And he does, in fact, Stallworth pose with David Duke and gets a Polaroid with him. So this sounded to me like what was going on here? Like, I mean, like you've got this investigation going. This takes place during this undercover investigation that Stallworth's conducting. You have a guy who's already like putting himself out there, Chuck, as the white Ron Stallworth. and then the chief says, oh, yes, by the way, you, the only African-American police officer in our entire squad, you go be David Duke's bodyguard for the day while he's in town in Colorado Springs.

36:22Like, that was just bizarre. And not only do it, do that, that very, like, obvious overt act, slap in the face to David Duke, which was great, but it could have jeopardized, like, this whole thing because you also, you had the guy portraying Ron Stallworth in the same room at the same lunch. It just seemed really strange. And again, that was one of those things where when you watched the movie, you would think like, well, that's just made up. No, that actually took place, at least according to Ron Stallworth's memoirs. And that Chuck was in the room, was asked to take a picture by Ron Stallworth with David Duke and the Grand Dragon, I guess, who must be like the head of the state in Colorado.

37:07And then at the last second, when he was counting down, he put his arms around the shoulders of the two Klan guys and then got his hands on the picture. Apparently all of that was the case, but he's since lost the picture. Yeah, and Duke really did try to get it back. And Stallworth got to it quicker and said, basically, if you try to take this thing, I will have you arrested for assaulting a police officer. Don't do it. Don't think about it. Right. So he said he lost it in a move. He wished he had taken better care of it. But the idea that it was like, that's just so nuts. It tells you a lot about the investigation, though, to me.

37:45Like, it makes you say like, OK, how seriously were they taking this investigation at the time? If Stallworth later said, all right, this is just another job to me. When I started it, I did the job, and then when it was done, I moved on to another job. The fact that he didn't talk about it much until—I think he spoke about it to the press once in 2006 in a Deseret News article. And then didn't talk about it again until 2014 when his memoirs came out. It was just like a thing that they were doing that other people were doing other stuff to. And then to have, like, that part of it, the idea that you would jeopardize it in that way, just makes it seem like they weren't taking it as that big of an operation as, like, the movie would like to believe.

38:34I'm not sure. Well, I think in real life, it was an information-gathering investigation. Like, it was never, we're going to take down the Klan in Colorado. it was let's infiltrate and get as much information and fact finding as we can and in the end after eight months that's kind of what happened it was he considers stalworth considers it a success in that they fulfilled their mission they did prevent three cross burning ceremonies during that eight month span or a nine month span right and they did identify clan members who worked at NORAD right who apparently they said they I mean these days They would be fired probably, but they said they reassigned them to like Greenland or something.

39:21Right, because they had access to nuclear weapons. Apparently they had very high level clearance at NORAD. Which is scary. It is. And then they also found plans that they didn't act on. Like the whole bomb plot in the movie was made up for dramatic purposes. But they did find links between for a plan to bomb a gay nightclub and another plan to steal automatic weapons from an army base, like an inside job. So it was, you know, it was valuable work they were doing for sure. It just wasn't like we're going to take the Klan down. Like I don't think it was the department's big job at the time. No, certainly not.

40:00And in the memoirs and in the movie, too, the reason that's given for the undercover operation to end is because it started to become successful. Ron Stallworth was nominated to lead the Colorado Springs chapter of the Klan. Like Ken O'Dell basically said, you should take my job. Everybody likes you. You're really good at this. You're smart. You should lead the Klan here. And the police chief of Colorado Springs said, that's it. Close it down. Burn all the evidence of this investigation. He apparently was worried about what a PR nightmare it would be if it got out that some of his detectives were in the Colorado Springs Klan.

40:41But at the same time, what strikes me as odd is that the FBI wasn't like, oh, well, geez, this guy is like being nominated to lead the Colorado Springs Klan. He's talking to David Duke. Like really this could not be kind of blown up into a larger investigation or a larger sting or something like that. And then secondly, and Ron Stallworth himself addresses this. there's a very frequently a criticism of, well, if this was such a big operation and they found all this stuff, why wasn't anyone arrested? Why weren't there any arrests? Well, that's what David Duke says. Right, not just David Duke. Stallworth says also that in law enforcement, two people question that, like why wasn't anyone arrested?

41:25And he said it was an intel investigation and that's what they did is they gathered stuff. But then he very rightly points out, like you said, like the fact that they prevented cross burnings alone makes it a worthwhile and valuable operation. I think just some people on the outside are saying, well, why wasn't Moore done? Why didn't Moore come out of this, you know? And I'm not quite sure what they're driving at, but Stallworth brings that up in an interview I read with him, that people do ask that and wonder about that. Yeah, and Stallworth is very proud of the fact that with the cross burnings, he was like, no, I can't remember the quote, but he said something about no children in Colorado Springs, got to, you know, no young black kids had to see crosses on fire during that eight or nine month period.

42:10And he's very proud of that as he should be. Yeah, for real. So I mentioned the voice earlier and the fact that he had a different voice, obviously, than Chuck. And he said one time, only one time. And I think this was in the movie, wasn't it? Or was it? Yeah, it was actually. No, it was. I remember. Yeah. So one time in the whole investigation did someone say like, wait a minute, you sound different. Chuck had just been at an in-person meeting, came back, and then Stallworth wants to follow up on the phone with Ken O'Dell about something right afterward. So he had just heard Chuck's voice for whatever, this whole meeting, and was talking to him.

42:50And he was like, wait a minute, you sound different. What's going on? And he just pulled it off. He coughed and said he had a sinus infection. and Ken O'Dell was like, oh, well, here's how you clear that up and gave him some good sinus medication advice. Yeah, that definitely appeared in the movie. I mean, you could not make this thing up, you know, it's crazy. No, for real. Apparently, for a long time, Stallworth was saying, like, yeah, it was just another job, it was just another operation. And I guess he told some fellow, like, law enforcement friends or whatever about it, and they're like, dude, this is a movie.

43:24You need to write this down. You need to get this out there. This is a one in a million story. Yeah, I wonder one reason it didn't go bigger operation-wise was because the sort of hackneyed way they got into it. Like, he's the voice, but they're sending a white man. I could see that. I'm surprised he pulled it off for that long. Yeah, I could totally see that. One final thing that did not happen in real life, but did happen in the movie, and this is when you usually will change real life, is to get a more satisfying ending. But Stallworth did not, unfortunately, reveal his true identity to David Duke like he does to hilarious effect in the film, unfortunately.

44:08No. I'm sad to learn that. He was saying, like, yeah, he didn't really talk about it until the 2000s. So David Duke didn't know until, I guess, the memoirs came out. Yeah, and, you know, well, I guess we should talk about Spike Lee getting criticized. Boots Riley, director, who I had on Movie Crush, by the way. I know. What was his movie? Sorry to Bother You was his film that he made. No, I mean his pick for Movie Crush. His pick was a movie called Mishima, A Life in Four Chapters. Okay. Yeah. It was a great film, and his knowledge on movies was deep. He turned me on to a lot of cool things. I thought for a very terrible second you were saying his pick was his own movie.

44:54No, no. But he, you know, Boots does not hold back on what he thinks. And while you would think that he would be like, oh, no, I'm going to be a champion of Spike Lee and telling the story, he came out very publicly on Twitter and very intelligently criticized it. He didn't just bag on it. He wrote a big, long statement on exactly what he thought was wrong with it. Yeah, he basically said, look, man, if you take away all the embellishments that Spike Lee added to this movie, what you have is a guy who's probably biggest assignment. And I'm not sure where he got this, but he focused on that Stokely Carmichael thing and the fact that Ron Stallworth had worked undercover to infiltrate the Black Power movement in Colorado Springs and that he had worked on that for like three years and that this Klan thing was just like a nine-month thing.

45:51And he also criticized Spike Lee for making it, making the movie seem like law enforcement and the Black Power Movement came together to fight racism. Right. And that was a larger point or that that was historically accurate or something like that. It was really interesting. It was like a three-page essay that he posted on Twitter that made some good points. He basically said, from what I can tell, it looks like Ron Stallworth was working for COINTELPRO, which is the FBI's, it was their program to undermine groups, including black power groups, which we mentioned it in the Black Panther episode we did.

46:31And COINTELPRO definitely deserves its own episode. Yeah. And it was ended officially in 1971, but I think Boots Riley's point was, it may have been officially ended, but the work was still going on. And if this guy was infiltrating Black Power groups in Colorado Springs, he was almost certainly trying to break them up one way or another, probably using COINTELP practices. And Ron Stallworth, he had a pretty great quote in response to it. He said, I pray for my demented, dissolute brother in response to Boots Riley. and Spike Lee has no comment about it whatsoever. So who knows? But you make a good point that he's not just giving blind allegiance to anything.

47:21Sure. Well, Spike did comment eventually. Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah, he was in an interview, and the first thing he said was like, hey, I'm a young man of 61 or something like that. Young me might have kind of gotten into a war of words, but he's just not into that anymore. But he did say briefly something about, listen, I'm not going to come out and say that all cops are racist and all cops do bad things because they don't all do bad things. There's a lot of great cops. There's also bad cops. And he kind of just couched it in that and then was like, but, you know, I'm not going to be really talking about this anymore.

48:01Right. Yeah, I hadn't seen that he'd even had that comment. Yeah. So it's interesting stuff. And it's a good movie at the very least. Oh, for sure. You know? Yeah. I think Ron Stallworth's like, man, they made a movie about my story. That's pretty awesome. And at the very least, it's a pretty great movie. How about that? Totally. Totally. So if you, you got anything else? I got nothing else. If you want to know more about Black Klansman, you should probably go see that movie. And I guess we probably should have said at the outset, this episode is not an ad. No, of course not. We just like the movie a lot, right?

48:36Yeah, I mean, you could say it's an ad, but, like, no one gave us money or asked us to do this. Sure. But I am endorsing it. Okay, there you go. I am endorsing it as well. It has two thumbs up, as it were. Yeah. Rest in peace, Roger Ebert. And Gene Siskel. Two thumbs. Okay, so if... I already said that. How about some listener mail? Yeah, I'm going to call this ping pong response from a former pro. Oh, nice. Hey, guys, want to commend you on the job you did. covering a sport that you didn't have an extensive knowledge of. I'm a professional table tennis coach and former player. I started playing in college, thought I was really good, until I was coerced to go to a tournament at Princeton University about 20 years ago, and I got destroyed.

49:21I didn't like that, so I sought out to coach, and the rest is history. You guys clearly did a lot of research to highlight the things that most novice players aren't aware of, but there were a few things I couldn't help but point out. Josh, you mentioned the components of the modern racket. You said the pimpled sign, those are called pips, are for spinning the ball, that the smooth side is for defensive play. But the opposite is actually true. Oh, no. I didn't catch that because I would have pointed that out. I thought everyone knew that. Thank you for that. You get good spin on that smooth side.

49:54For real? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's grippy. All right. He said the smooth side is very tacky, as in sticky. Oh, I see. And that combined with the sponge underneath allows the ball to sink in just enough so that the tacky surface grips the ball and generates a lot of spin. Also, you can really have any combination of rubber that you want as long as it's ITTF approved. Players are not restricted to having one smooth side and one with pips, but one side does have to be red and the other black. Most defensive players use pips on their backhand because pips vary the spin that is coming back at you and is very hard to read.

50:31Also, Chuck, you mentioned that defensive players are called chiselers. They're actually called choppers as they chop the ball back with varying backspin. I've never heard the term chiselers. I'm wondering if it is extremely outdated. Maybe. I bet you that was the case. Yeah. I had old research. Chiselers. All right. That's what they call it in the 20s. He said if you guys are ever in the Dunnellan, New Jersey area, stop by. Where are they right now? Stop by the Lily Yip Table Tennis Club, and I'll gladly hook you guys up with a lesson. I will gladly humiliate you in person. And that is Thomas from Philly.

51:09Thanks, Thomas. Much appreciated. We like it when we are gently corrected because we like to be right. So thanks for that. If you want to get in touch with us, let us know, I don't know, something we got wrong about Black Klansmen. Let us know. You can find all of our social links on stuffyoushouldknow.com. And as always, send us an email to stuffpodcasts at howstuffworks.com.

51:39For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

51:53Hey, it's Joel and Matt from HowToMoney. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money. the most important issues to focus on and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight.

52:39You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything but gay but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Palk story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year and on the podcast Health Stuff we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know what we don't know and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? Health stuff is about learning, laughing and feeling a little less alone.

53:22Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.