By Ryan Lo

Most American films don’t even mention or tackle racism head-on especially during the 80s, where most American films don’t or even have Black American representation. That makes Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing” released in 1989 even more remarkable. The film portrays an intergenerational multi-ethnic community in Brooklyn, New York but with an explosive climax, fueled by racial tensions, economic disparity, and rising tensions on the hostess day of years. Lee’s illustration of this film continues to demonstrate racial tension in the US through the dynamic relationship of characters of different races. Issues that he tackles are still very much alive today, even though the film was created 32 years later. 

One of the earliest issues that Lee makes apparent in the film is the income inequality throughout the neighborhood. Lee does this through an Omniscient viewpoint where it follows multiple black characters that demonstrate a wealth gap between the races. He set up the setting of the neighborhood to where all the store owners in the neighborhood are owned by non-blacks and have Blacks in the neighborhood work for them or not even have a job at all. We first see this at the beginning of the movie when it follows a young black male named Mokie going to work at Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, a neighborhood staple owned by Sal, an Italian, run with his two knuckleheads sons Pino and Vito. Throughout the film, Sal and Pino keep bossing Mokie to work faster and complain that he doesn’t work hard enough, with Pino being a racist toward him and even suggesting to fire Mokie. 

This creates a strong dislike for each other leading up to the last scene of the movie Mookie went back to Sal to get paid and Sal threw the money at Mookie’s face, where then Mookie had to pick it up from the floor like a dog. That scene creates a feeling of shock and anger because it showed how White Americans have dominated the economy over the decades and while Black Americans would need to pick up the leftover crumbs off the floor to survive. This addresses a major issue that still goes on today and that is the wealth gap that systematically holds back Black people from economic opportunities like owning their businesses. Based on a 2016 consensus the net worth of white families is 171,000 and 17,100 for Black families. This gap is deeply rooted back in the oppression of slavery where the generation to generation monetary inheritance creates a large wealth gap. These include Jim Crow Era’s “Black Codes” that limit opportunity in many southern states which creates systemic racism where people who are born Black are at a significant disadvantage from prospering like their non-black counterparts. This also causes a dominos effect causing degree gap like in 2019 29% of black held a degree compared to white who 45% held degrees because Black families can’t afford college for their kids which cause more black people to have lower-paying jobs and stuck in the same loop. Which causes Black Americans to struggle to survive. We see this struggle of survival throughout the movie. These characters like The Major an old black male that offers Sal to sweep in front of his street for two dollars, Coconut Sid a middle-aged black man with no job who wishes that he could have his store saying the reason is that he is black, and Mookie who delivers pizza to support his son while he can barely survive on his own which is made apparent when his girlfriend Tina says he doesn’t even pay the bills.

The most major issue that Lee tackles are racial resentment throughout the neighborhood. These tensions include Buggin who didn’t like Sal for not having any Black American representation of his Hall of Fame in his Pizzeria,  Sal scolding Radio Rasheed for playing Black hip hop in his store, and Pino screaming at Vito who has autism to get away from the store for selling pictures of Martin Luther King.  This tension leads Buggin, Radio Rasheed, and Pino to confront Sal to have a Black American representation in the Hall of the Fame. Other racial resentments include White Cops who patrol the neighborhood yelling at the Black People for turning on the fire hydrant and a Korean supermarket that are rude to black people thinking they never have money. But Sal’s refusal to accepting Black culture and representation causing him to smash Radio Rasheed’ss boom box with a baseball bat symbolizing a heavy need for violence toward black and using the n-word leads us to the climax of the story. Which is a violent confrontation where the races started to fight each other, where the white police were called in to stop the fight where they arrested Buggin and they let out their racial resentment toward blacks by choked Radio Rasheed to death. When the police leave when Black people and Hispanic start to burned down Sal’s pizzeria and almost let out their racial resentment toward the Koreans by burning their store too.

Much of this racial resentment is very apparent today, with the height of Black Lives Matter by the awakening of George Floyd’s death. Lee’s film foreshadowing George Floyd being choked to death and violence that soon ensued throughout the country with riots gives this film huge relevance today. Because George Floyd’s case wasn’t an isolated incident with 1 to 1000 Black men would be killed by police which is two times the national average of 1 to 2000 males killed by cops. This demonstrates that there is still a high level of Black resentment through the police system costing thousands of lives. Other racial resentment includes Asians which was caused by the covid pandemic, with a report number of 2800 reports of violent hate crimes in Asian Americans. Lee also foreshadows this by almost burning down the Korean supermarket to demonstrating what is to come of Asain resentment in the future. Cases like Xiao Zhen Xie 75-year-old Asian American woman who was attacked leading her both-eyed bruised have sparked movements of Stop Asain Hate.

Lee’s Masterpiece of the film is the most relevant film that demonstrates the state of our country. Lee’s use of character relationships throughout the film shows racial tension in the US today. By revisiting this film 32 years ago is the spark to finally addressing and work together as a community to move forward to make a change in dissolving racial tensions and economic equalities. This is through cultural accepts and understanding between each race which will cause equal rail representation throughout all the races. We need to also help the less fortunate to be able to drive in our society which causes fewer tensions between races. If we stand to do nothing the cycle of rasim and death will be forever permant on the streets and that why we need to the do the right thing.

Citation

1. McIntosh, K., Moss, E., Nunn, R., & Shambaugh, J. (2020, February 27). Examining the Black-white wealth gap. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/.
2. Factsheets. PNPI. (2020, June 12). https://pnpi.org/african-american-students/.
3. Edwards, F., Lee, H., & Esposito, M. (2019, August 20). Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex. PNAS. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793.
4. BBC. (2021, May 21). Covid ‘hate crimes’ against Asian Americans on rise. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684.