Hip Hop y Spike Lee

Close-Up: Hip-Hop Cinema
“Fight the Power”: Hip Hop and Civil Unrest in

Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing
Casarae L. Gibson
Abstract
A pivotal scene in Spike Lee’s Oscar-nominated film Do the Right Thing (1989) happens
when the protagonist Mookie, played by Lee, throws a garbage can through Sal’s Famous
Pizzeria following the death of his friend Radio Raheem, who has been strangled by
three white policemen. The action made by Mookie incites a riot and causes a race war
in the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, neighborhood. Hip-hop, a cultural movement
spawned from the Black Arts and Power Movements that articulates social awareness,
consciousness of one’s identity, social enjoyment, and creativity, drives Lee’s narrative.
The signature song “Fight the Power,” performed by Public Enemy, is heard throughout
the film and dominates characters’ dialogue with one another. Most notably, Radio
Raheem utilizes the song as a protest speech against the lack of racial diversity and
respect among Sal, Pino, and Vito, who work at and own Sal’s Famous Pizzeria—a
business at which Black youth congregate frequently. This article contends that hip-
hop drives the narrative of Do the Right Thing in which Lee places at the center a ra-
cial uprising that embarks on a historical trajectory of Black Americans challenging
American democracy and inequality.
S pike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing is set during a hot summer in 1980s
Brooklyn, New York, following news of a riot erupting after three white
police officers kill a Black American teenager, Radio Raheem. The film fea-
tures dialogue about racial tensions among various characters in Bedford-
Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, revealing the interethnic tensions and civilian-police
conflict that led to the riot. It introduces Mookie (Spike Lee), a Black
American young father who navigates racial tensions between his Black
friends and his Italian-American employer and coworkers. At Sal’s Famous
Pizzeria where Mookie works, Sal (Danny Aiello), the owner, gets into an
altercation with customer Radio Raheem after a dispute over playing Public
Enemy’s hip-hop protest anthem “Fight the Power.” The song infuses samples
Casarae L. Gibson, “Close-Up: Hip-Hop Cinema: “Fight the Power”: Hip Hop and Civil Unrest
in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing” Black Camera: An International Film Journal 8, no. 2
(Spring 2017): 183–207, doi: 10.2979/blackcamera.8.2.11
This content downloaded from 140.234.253.9 on Mon, 22 May 2017 09:37:17 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
184 BLACK CAMERA 8:2
of James Brown’s 1968 hit “Say it Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud” and interpo-
lations of the Isley Brothers’ 1975 song of the same name. In the Isley Brothers
rendition, lead singer Ronald Isley complains, “I try to play my music / they
say my music’s too loud,” which suggests that the “powers that be” in Isley’s
world lack the appreciation of Black American music being a socially con-
scious force and vehicle used in Black youth communities in the mid-1970s.1
The same case is made for an updated version of “Fight the Power,” but in
this example, the grievance of Black American youth is endorsed on the big
screen. The combination of James Brown’s soul music and Public Enemy’s
resistance lyrics asserting, “Our freedom of speech is freedom or death / We
got to fight the powers that be / Cause I’m Black and I’m Proud / Power to
the People no delay” exemplifies Black Americans reconstituting expressions
of Black consciousness while critically engaging in American politics that
affect their communities.2 Thus, the song also made Black pride and love for
oneself critical, again. Black pride, as Public Enemy presented in many of
their songs, was the impetus to keeping the tradition of Black cultural aware-
ness relevant in a changing society; they believed it was the only way Black
America would advance socially, politically, and economically.
The fight between Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), a symbol of 1980s hip-
hop youth culture and Sal, a white, working-class pizza owner prideful of his
Italian heritage, platforms the emotional tensions surrounding racial-ethnic
interactions in a primarily Black American neighborhood. Radio Raheem’s
insistence on proving to Sal that hip-hop music, which he calls jungle and
African, is acknowledged in his pizzeria leads to his violent encounter with
the police and his premature death in their custody (fig. 1).
Figure 1. Still of Radio Raheem and his boom box, from Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee, 1989).
Casarae L. Gibson / “Fight the Power” 185
Lee’s Do the Right Thing examines the hip-hop generation of the 1980s’
response to civil unrest happening in the neighborhood. Lee acknowledges
that the riot scene (toward the movie’s end) articulates a resurgence of racial
tensions in an all-Black neighborhood that is becoming largely interracial.
Lee’s riot scene is analyzed carefully to interrogate the circumstances sur-
rounding hip-hop’s importance in the film, Radio Raheem’s death, racial in-
equality, police brutality, and the question of property rights versus human
rights. Together, I will explore the topics that alert our attention to complex
notions of national belonging and where Black Americans see themselves
within an emerging post–civil rights society. I contend that hip-hop drives
the narrative in Do the Right Thing, in which Lee places at the center a racial
uprising that embarks on a historical trajectory of Black Americans challeng-
ing American democracy and inequality.
In 2014, on the twenty-fifth-anniversary release of Do the Right Thing,
Lee posted a cringe-worthy video of his fictional character, Radio Raheem,
dying of a chokehold in police custody juxtaposed the non-fictive chokehold
committed by officer Daniel Pantaleo that killed Eric Garner.3 Lee’s video
mash-up, which went viral on social media and was featured in cover stories
in the Washington Post and New York Daily News, made a case for solidifying
the argument that the invalidation of Black life in the United States is very
real, and it is not a make-believe grievance uttered by Lee and other Black
Americans. Radio Raheem, a seventeen-year-old Black American youth,
blares Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” from his radio as a protest of racial
injustice. It also symbolizes the embracing of hip-hop as a cultural rejection
of Anglo-American popular music and culture of earlier decades that his
forefathers of the Black Power era rejected before him. His name is impor-
tant throughout the film because it signifies on a Black Nationalist tradition
and soul music ethos that continues to critically engage Lee in a conversation
about resolving race relations in the United States. Thus, Lee’s use of hip-hop
as a representation of his protest against police brutality offers a more critical
way to think about the music’s relevance in shaping Black youths; conver-
sations about racial inequality. Furthermore, Lee’s editing footage of police
brutality enacted onto the bodies of fictional Radio Raheem and real-life Eric
Gardner suggest a remaking of the same type of controversy Lee provoked
in Do the Right Thing with the inclusion of the riot scene.
In this pivotal scene from the film where Mookie throws a garbage can
through the window of Sal’s Famous Pizzeria after Radio Raheem’s death,
Mookie’s action incites a riot, causing Black men, women, and children to
burn down the pizzeria. The Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn community ral-
lies together to avenge the death of Radio-Raheem. Film executives such as
Ned Tanen of Paramount suggested to eliminate the riot from a movie that
was already racially charged, but Lee fought to keep it in the film.4 Journalist
Jay Carr claimed, “Depending on where you’re coming from, Do the Right
Thing is either an unflinching and cautionary look at race relations or an
incitement to riot.”5 Writer W. J. T. Mitchell asserts, “the film has routinely
been denounced as an incitement to violence, or at least a defense of riot-
ing against white property as an act of justifiable violence in the black com-
munity.”6 Lee believed that his riot scene would enlighten diverse audiences
about racism, police brutality, and interracial tensions in the United States.
Moreover, including the riot scene represented a dialogue of protest and re-
sistance among hip-hoppers that endured its shared experience of racial
inadequacies sparked by blatant civil rights injustices.
Do the Right Thing serves as an avenue to address racism in America, thus
provoking his audience to question “whether police were justified in taking
the Black life lost in the controversial police action that sparked the riot.”7
The riot that erupts after Radio Raheem’s death is as much about Italian-
American pizza owner Sal accepting hip-hop music in his restaurant as it is
about hearing and acknowledging the complaints of his Black patrons. The
character Buggin’ Out, played by Giancarlo Esposito, is a friend of Mookie
and frequents Sal’s pizzeria. In one scene, Buggin’ Out complains to Sal, ques-
tioning why Blacks are not represented on his Wall of Fame. Sal responds to
Buggin’ Out suggesting that he invests in his own restaurant and place Blacks
on the wall. Enraged, Buggin’ Out demands that Blacks must appear on the
Wall of Fame and petitions Sal’s customers who are predominately Black to
boycott. Sal becomes the dictator and yells to Mookie to escort Buggin’ Out
from his pizzeria. He then ridicules Radio Raheem a second time for playing
his rap music in the restaurant. This time, the conversation between Radio
Raheem and Sal proves fatal. Sal starts yelling, “Turn that jungle music off.
We ain’t in Africa.”8 Sal’s two sons Pino (John Turturro) and Vito (Richard
Edson), who also work in the pizzeria, have distorted racial views, and want
their father to relocate the pizzeria to Bensonhurst, an Italian-American
section of Brooklyn. Sal’s response to Radio Raheem harkens back to Pino’s
racist’s notions of Black Americans when he refers to them as “animals” in
an earlier scene. Sal’s comment proves to Radio Raheem, Buggin’ Out, and
the entire Black clientele that their music and culture are inferior. Moreover,
Blacks that support Sal’s business have to respect his rules and regulations,
even if it means the dismissal of hip-hop music and the refusal to place
prominent Black Americans on his Wall of Fame. Before burning down, Sal
displayed famous white Americans: Frank Sinatra, John Travolta, and oth-
ers on his “famous wall.” The Wall of Fame represents Sal’s American patri-
otism and Italian heritage. It also represented American icons that are widely
recognized for their contributions to American sports and entertainment.
Buggin’ Out says to Sal, “You’re closed alright, till you get some Black people
up on that wall.”9 In other words, Buggin’ Out makes the point that famous
Black Americans in sports and entertainment should also be included on the
Wall of Fame, especially since the majority of Sal’s clientele is Black. Radio
Raheem, Buggin’ Out, and Sal continue to argue as “Fight the Power” blasts
over the men’s voices. Sal grows so irate that he smashes the boombox with
his Mickey Mantle baseball bat juxtaposed with Mookie’s Jackie Robinson’s
Brooklyn Dodger’s jersey. In this particular scene, Sal’s re-enforcement of
white superiority affirms the representations of European heritage as the
dominant culture within American society.
Conversely, after Sal destroys Radio Raheem’s boombox, he screams,
“My music!” He pauses, and then pulls Sal over the table attempting to choke
him.10 Police officers Long, Ponte, and an unidentified officer pull Radio
Raheem off Sal and restrain him in a deadly chokehold. Radio Raheem fights
back, struggling to breathe, but dies as he falls onto the sidewalk. Lee brings
his audience’s attention to the controversial debate surrounding the use of
nightsticks as weapons used by police. The crowd looks on as Officer Long
and Ponte yell, “Get up! Get Up!” and “Quit faking”11 (fig. 2). Both officers
realize that they have killed Radio Raheem and quickly rush him into their
police car to eliminate any evidence that may insinuate their error in diffus-
ing the debacle. This death scene triggers relevant commentary about civil-
ian-police conflict and the manner in which Black lives are often violently
taken for senseless reasons. Do the Right Thing was released before the po-
lice chokeholds were made illegal in New York. However, Lee’s mash-up with
Radio Raheem and Eric Garner both dying of chokeholds illustrates the code
Figure 2. Still of Radio Raheem in a chokehold by police, from Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee, 1989).
of misconduct police officers engage in when detaining Black Americans

and the vulnerability men and women experience when in police custody.
Radio Raheem’s death is remembered near the end of the film when
Mister Señor Love Daddy, played by Samuel L. Jackson, plays a song in
his memory. The following credits use quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.
and Malcolm X that engage a conversation about protest and resistance.
King’s remark, taken from his 1964 speech, “Where Do We Go from Here?,”
argues against using violence in an impractical and immoral manner “as
a way of achieving racial justice.”12 He supports his claim stating that vio-
lence destroys the community and does not foster brotherly bonds and
“leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue.”13 On the other hand,
Malcolm X’s comment, from his speech “Communication and Reality,”
argues the opposite of King, suggesting Malcolm X is for utilizing vio-
lence in self-defense. Malcolm X supports his claim, asserting, “I am not
against using violence in self-defense. I don’t even call it violence when it’s
self-defense. I call it intelligence.”14 According to Lee, both quotations are
shown to represent the sacrifice that each man made in trying to eradi-
cate racial injustice within American society. Their combined perspec-
tives ease the tension illuminated in the riot scene and allow the audience
to understand “both men died for the love of their people, but had differ-
ent strategies for realizing freedom.”15 Malcolm X’s image integrated into
Lee’s film becomes a symbol of Black Nationalism for the hip-hop genera-
tion, particularly when addressing increased racial tension as a result of
state-sanctioned violence.
At the height of increased racial tension sprawling from the late 1980s,
rap music served as a vehicle of protest among Black America, addressing
their discontent with police brutality and harassment. A milieu of com-
mercially successful rappers including Public Enemy, KRS-One of Boogie
Down Productions, LL Cool J, and N.W.A. (Niggaz With Attitude) told
narratives of police harassment enacted onto them and individuals with
a distinct level of rage and anger that invited listeners to engage in their
protest, which raised awareness about aggressive policing that targeted
Black men and women. In “Who Protects Us from You” (1989), rapper
KRS-One criticizes law enforcement for its persistent harassment against
Black Americans. His acclaimed Boogie Down Productions album titled
Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip Hop uses historical signifiers, such as
Jim Crow segregation and white supremacy, to invoke a narrative that ren-
ders the long-standing racism within law enforcement and its force onto
Black Americans as a hallmark for the continuation of perpetual racism.
KRS-One raps, “Looking through my history book / I’ve watched you as
you grew / Killing blacks, and calling it the law . . . / Now you want all the
help you can get . . . / You were put here to protect us, but who protects us
from you?” 16 He historicizes police interactions with Black Americans over

time and claims that when white policemen kill Black people and call it
the law, they perceive their action as an act of self-defense rather than an
abuse of human rights. KRS-One makes a further claim that becoming a
Black police officer can pose as a paradox because, although the inclusion
of Blacks in law enforcement show progress has been achieved during the
era of integration, it does not make aware the level of racial discrimina-
tion and brutality he repeatedly insinuates when asking who will protect
Black people from the police. In so doing, KRS-One protests the incre-
dulity of racism as a perpetual construct that denies Blacks the privilege
to live in a country that truly sees their experiences as equally important
within mainstream society.
Similarly, Public Enemy’s song “Fight the Power” is a hip-hop protest
anthem that brings awareness of sociopolitical realities in Black communi-
ties to mainstream audiences. The sonic appeal created by Public Enemy’s
production company, The Bomb Squad, places civil rights attorney and ac-
tivist Thomas Todd at the beginning of the song. He vocalizes to his pre-
dominately Black audience that “yet our best trained, best educated, best
equipped, best prepared troops refuse to fight. Matter of fact it is safe to say
they would rather switch than fight.”17 Todd’s voice drifts into silence, and
the audience is left to make sense of his words. Public Enemy’s use of Todd’s
speech is a critique on the upper echelons of Black society that have finan-
cial, political, and social resources that can structurally change the socio-
political realities of Black Americans, but they refuse to fight and protest
the deteriorating material conditions affecting Black society. Public Enemy
boldly addresses this intraracial battle in Black America, and uses the civil
rights generation to influence a new generation (hip-hop) in the 1980s to
think about the revolving race and class oppression of Black Americans.
Todd’s speech stops and the music plays, directing the listeners’ attention
to synthesizing the chords, bass, guitar, and vocal samples of James Brown’s
“Hot Pants” (1971) looped through a drum break of “Funky Drummer”
(1970), which lead rapper Chuck D acknowledges when he starts to rap.
Chuck D, the leader and speaker of a post–Civil Rights generation, gains
his listeners’ attention stating, “brothers and sisters” who have “soul” should
fight against systemic forces that are ruining Black people in communities
across the nation.
Accordingly, Public Enemy exists at the emergence of hip-hop in the
late 1980s within mainstream musical outlets as a defining rap group who
reclaims Black Power to its people through reframing their experience of
incessant racism through a post-soul aesthetic that called Black people to
be in tune with their Blackness. In Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and
the Post-Soul Aesthetic, Mark Anthony Neal coins post-soul as a “popular
expression of African-American modernity” where “the political, social, and

cultural experiences of the African-American community since the end of
the civil rights and Black Power movements” defined their lives while com-
ing of age during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.18 Collectively, Public Enemy
uses a post-soul aesthetic within “Fight the Power” that examines America’s
complicated relationship with Blackness through a political message that
urgently calls for Black America to reclaim their power, strengthen their
families, and create an agenda that tackles racial discrimination, economic
inequality, and violence in vulnerable communities.
Hip-Hop and Public Enemy’s Inclusion in Do the Right Thing
Upon Do the Right Thing’s release, thirty-five years after Brown v. Board
of Education and twenty-four years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed
the Voting Rights Acts of 1965, the inception of hip-hop music and cul-
ture had only been recognizable for sixteen years. Its significance in 1989
was critical in the inclusion of a long-standing historical lineage of Black
American Civil Rights struggle. Hip-hop represented a countercultural
movement that affirmed Black youth were retaliating against several assump-
tions within American society such as highlighting class differences in Black
communities, challenging normative white middle-class values, and com-
menting on policy reforms related to criminal justice. In the aftermath of the
Civil Rights and Black Power movements, hip-hop in the early 1980s became
a staple for Black youth. At the same time, New York, like many other cit-
ies, became an urban renewal project funded by the United States govern-
ment, which dislocated many Black communities. Upon this restructuring
of the Black community, then President Ronald Reagan and his administra-
tion pushed tax laws and rules that created deeper wealth disparities between
the rich, the middle class, and the poor. In this time, “wealthy Americans
clearly benefited from Reagan’s tax cuts and other policies” that equated to
different outcomes for the working class and poor.19 Black Americans ex-
perienced an 18.9 to 22 percent unemployment rate in 1982 and the rise of
crack cocaine and violent crime.20 To reflect this reality, Spike Lee decided
to include violence in Do the Right Thing, but he consciously chose to leave
out drugs. Lee noted that “drugs is such a massive subject, it just can’t be
dealt with effectively as a subplot. You have to do an entire film on drugs.
This film was not about that. This film is about racism.”21 Lee received much
criticism about this comment (and others) regarding his selective choices in
the depiction of social and economic disparities mounting in predominately
Black neighborhoods.
Tricia Rose’s groundbreaking book, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black
Culture in Contemporary America, examines the historical trajectory of hip-
hop and its profound roots in Black American resistance music. She situates
Public Enemy’s conscious rap lyrics within a larger Black musical frame-
work, arguing that lead rapper Chuck D “keeps poor folks alert and prevents
them from being lulled into submission.”22 Public Enemy, which consisted of
Chuck D, Professor Griff, Flavor Flav, Terminator X, Bill Stephney, and Sister
Souljah presented a Black Nationalist platform in their music that revisited
Black Power Movement motifs, making them known as the “Black Panthers
of rap, reigniting the idea of a Black revolution as depicted in the turbu-
lent 1960s and early 1970s.”23 Many of their songs were pro-Black anthems,
and their wardrobe exhibited berets, black sunglasses, and military rega-
lia much like the Black Panthers. Chuck D’s booming delivery of each lyric
made both Black and white audiences aware of the racial tensions and injus-
tices presented in many minority communities in the United States. The
groups well-known albums Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987), It Takes a Nation
of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), and Fear of a Black Planet (1990) con-
fronted social and political issues of a post–Civil Rights and Black Power so-
ciety. Their songs’ themes included miscegenation, racial stereotypes of Black
people in mainstream Hollywood films, the increase of Black and Latino men
in U.S. prisons, South African apartheid, institutionalized racism, and white
on Black violence in urban neighborhoods.
“Fight the Power” playing on Radio Raheem’s boombox throughout Do
the Right Thing is a social critique of mainstream America rejecting Black
voices, particularly in the working class. When Radio Raheem asks for two
slices of pizza, Sal responds, “Mister Radio Raheem, I can’t even hear myself
think. You are disturbing me and you are disturbing my customers.”24 Radio
Raheem smiles and turns off the radio after Sal pulls his Mickey Mantle bat
from underneath the counter. Once the radio is turned off, he places his
Mickey Mantle bat underneath the table. Sal informs Radio Raheem, “When
you come in Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, no music. No rap, no music. Capisce?
Understand? This is a place of business.”25 In this scene, the disagreement
between Sal and Radio Raheem is as much about solidifying hip-hop as a re-
spectable musical genre as it is about the intensified racial tensions sprawling
in Brooklyn. Radio Raheem’s discontent with Sal in his rejection of “Fight the
Power” playing in his restaurant leads to Radio Raheem’s death. The dynamic
changes when Sal destroys Radio Raheem’s boombox with a baseball bat—he
kills the music. The atmosphere in the restaurant is silent as both men look
at each other with concern. Sonically, when Sal hears “Fight the Power,” in-
stead of listening to the message and possibly asking Radio Raheem what it
means, he hears noise. To the unfamiliar ear of one not privy to rap’s often
bombastic sound, “Fight the Power,” sounds like repetitive gibberish that is
hard to comprehend. Public Enemy’s sonic montage, which includes deejay
scratching, emcee lyrics, and soul music samples, is impressive creatively, but
at the same time jarring if one is not accustomed to hearing it regularly. For
example, Sal’s annihilation of Radio Raheem’s boombox happens because of
his inability to make sense of rap music. Sal’s destruction of Radio Raheem’s
property leads into a fight. Intently, Raheem is “fighting the powers that be,”
(a charge Public Enemy is advocating for) when he pulls Sal over the table.
Both men, enraged, snap, and start fighting each other while hip-hop music
plays, distinguishing a younger generation that uses it to express their reality
in the world, while the other tries to maintain power. Unfortunately, the fight
between the two leads to Raheem’s death in police custody.
Interestingly, Public Enemy’s music spearheaded a counterculture in
New York City where post-soul generations challenged normative perspec-
tives of American culture and identity. For instance, the group’s first album
Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987), addresses Chuck D’s criticism of capitalism
elevating white America’s success instead of Black America’s and directs law
enforcement to stop calling him a punk during a routine traffic stop. In
“Timebomb,” he raps, “The one who makes the money is white, not black,”
and in “You’re Gonna Get Yours” he maintains, “No cop gotta right to call
me a punk / Take this ticket / Go to hell and stick it.”26 Specifically in “You’re
Gonna Get Yours,” the opening sample of The Gap Band’s “Burn Rubber on
Me” (1980) incorporates the sound of a loud engine. Chuck D describes this
engine repeatedly as his 1998 Oldsmobile that he rides through the boule-
vard and is routinely stopped by cops.27 Chuck D raps about his experience
of a racial profiling encounter with the police over the metallic sounds of
Dennis Coffey and The Detroit Guitar Band’s “Getting It On” (1971)28 and
Captain Sky’s funky “Super Sporm” (1978).29 The Bomb Squad combines all
of these songs, reproducing an exaggerated heavy metal sound that accen-
tuates Chuck D’s narrative about his encounters with cops. His firm rhymes
over hardcore heavy metal and funk music provoked both Black and white
audiences, but also retained a popular backing from liberal and leftist white
America that parlayed them into mainstream notoriety. It is no coincidence
that Lee, still an emerging filmmaker, would include the militant rap group in
his controversial film to edify his didactic message about racism in America.
In so doing, Lee addresses in Do the Right Thing a specific class dynamic—
the Black working class and its youth—that reaffirms hip-hop’s grassroots
existence and popularity. bell hooks makes this point in “Postmodern
Blackness,” stating, “It is no accident that ‘rap’ has usurped the primary posi-
tion of rhythm and blues music among young black folks as the most desired
sound or that it began as a form of ‘testimony’ for the underclass. It has en-
abled underclass black youth to develop a critical voice.”30 hooks contends
that there is a need to find new ways of “transmit[ing] the messages of black
liberation struggle, new ways to talk about racism and other politics of domi-
nation.”31 The social consciousness of hip-hop that hooks refers to as a critical
voice for young Black men and women back in the 1980s and 1990s remained
fluid as hip-hop grew more accessible to worldwide audiences through art-
ist’s songs and public personas.
Although the emergence of hip-hop was a socially accepted art form
among Black youth of the time, generationally, critics were still resistant to
rap music. In a 1989 essay titled, “Do the Race Thing,” cultural critic Stanley
Crouch criticized Lee for including rap group Public Enemy on the movie’s
soundtrack. Crouch claimed that the rappers were “Afro-fascist race-baiters,”
based on their Black Power influenced rap lyrics and political commentary
about the racial climate in New York City in the 1980s.32 Clarence Page’s
Chicago Tribune article titled, “Spike Lee’s Warning about Race Relations In
America,” dubbed Public Enemy as the “angriest trio in rap music.”33 These
various narratives of Public Enemy demonstrate the difference in opinion
regarding their music and politics. Lee’s inclusion of hip-hop music and cul-
ture in his film also presents the disapproval of hip-hop among conservative
Blacks and non-Black bourgeoisie as a leading speaking voice for Black teen-
agers and young adults in their early twenties and thirties. However, hip-hop
creates a significant pathway for youth, like Radio Raheem, to express their
grievances about race relations in American culture that follows a tradition
of Black individuals challenging what it means being Black in a society that
sees them inhumane.
The Meaning of Being Human: Radio Raheem’s Death and

Hip-hop’s Version of the Bad-Man
Radio Raheem is a larger-than-life figure. He represents a population

of Black urban youth that are “the victim[s] of materialism and [have] a
misplaced sense of values.”34 His loud radio (boombox), “Bed-Stuy Do or
Die” T-shirt, brass knuckle rings, Nike Air-Force Ones, and high-top fade
employ a hip-hop aesthetic that encompass the stylish trends of the period
and qualify as street ethic—an attitude and communal awareness among
Black youth who speak forthrightly about systematic racism and capitalism
that they articulate in rap music. Seemingly, Radio Raheem embodies a bad-
man image. In From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and
Freedom (1989), by John W. Roberts, defines the bad-man image as an act of
breaking the law or promoting acts of lawlessness. This imagery is recapit-
ulated in African American folklore and redefines Black men as heroic fig-
ures resisting white oppression rather than seen as “bad men” defying the
law. Bad-man imagery is prominent in hip-hop culture and seen as resisting

against hegemonic norms of white superiority, but also asserting Black mas-
culinity rather than emasculating it by refusing to bow down to authority.
For example, Radio Raheem’s music battle with the Puerto Rican youth
suggests a familiar battleground where deejays in the hip-hop realm battle
other deejays for the top prize: best deejay. Radio Raheem mimics the same
action as he turns his music up directing the Puerto Rican youth to turn his
music down. The Puerto Rican youth tells Radio Raheem, “You think you
got it like that, bro?” and turns his music up as Radio Raheem turns his up
louder. Succumbing to Radio Raheem he says, “You got it, bro” signaling to
Radio Raheem that he won the music battle.35 Radio Raheem gratifyingly
walks down the street high-fiving a young boy. He asserts his bad-man image
by standing his ground, winning the music war, and securing hip-hop as an
extension of Black music that demands attention. In addition, embracing a
bad-man image “is not a corruption of Black identity but becomes a form
of resistance to indoctrination by mainstream society.”36 Although Radio
Raheem has limited speaking parts in Do the Right Thing, his bad-man per-
sona relies on that silence that he establishes among the “noise,” both liter-
ally and figuratively of his radio. The loud music iterates his philosophy about
life and his perspective concerning the racism he confronts in Sal’s Famous
Pizzeria. In a brief conversation with Mookie, Radio Raheem explains the
significance of his two brass knuckle rings with the words “love” and “hate”
written in gold. Radio Raheem begins his monologue with an overview of
what the rings explicate—the story of life and the tale of good and evil. Radio
Raheem argues that life is “STATIC! One hand is always fighting the other.
Left Hand Hate is kicking much ass and it looks like Right Hand Love is fin-
ished.”37 Radio Raheem determines that love wins and conquers hate, but he
is quick to explain to Mookie, “If I love you, I love you.”38 However, if Radio
Raheem hates a person Mookie understands the discontent that will emerge
from a major altercation with his friend. The brass knuckles are a reflection
of current fashion and materialism that Radio Raheem employs; however,
the message of love and hate and good and evil undergirds a dualistic con-
struction of morality that entraps him. Hate and evil become more potent in
his fight with Sal and following his fatal interaction with the police. Thereby,
I contend that Radio Raheem’s persona is reminiscent of the “bad-man” lit-
erary figure in African American folkloric tradition, which he embodies as
a contemporary manifestation connoted in hip-hop culture.
Roberts historicizes bad-men heroic figures by contending they were
“accused of breaking the law and became heroic because of their crimes—
their acts of lawlessness were conceptualized within a folk heroic creation
that Black Americans recognized and accepted as normative expressions of
their heroic ideals.”39 Railroad Bill, Stackolee, John Hardy, Devil Winston,
and Harry Duncan were considered bad-men who emerged in late

nineteenth-century mythology as conjure tales told by Black Americans in
the Southern states. Black bad-men rebelled against societal structures such
as Black code laws and Jim Crow, which kept Black men and women in
psychological and economic bondage, and further, prolonged their social
advancement in civil society.
Studies of the Black badman trope in Black-American folklore are
examined among scholars in hip-hop studies. In the introduction to The
Emergency of Black and the Emergency of Rap, Jon Michael Spencer argues
that the bad-man folk hero conveyed in From Trickster to Badman fits the
construction of rappers, like Public Enemy, who confront the law with pro-
test, as vocalized in their song “Fight the Power.” The rebellious anthem
is Radio Raheem’s theme song and simultaneously connects with his bad-
man resonance among his friends and acquaintances in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
According to Lee, “he’s alive, he’s bad” and no one confronts Radio Raheem
in a music battle, because he always wins.40 Radio Raheem’s bad-man status
is not one of breaking the law, but of contesting his superiors such as Sal and
the New York Police Department, which upsets the law. Radio Raheem (and
the music he listens to) represent pro-Black Nationalism, whose commitment
to spreading knowledge about “social jingoism (such as black stereotyping)
and civil terrorism (such as police-on-black crime)” exposes the effects these
conditions impart onto poor Black communities.41 Radio Raheem’s replay-
ing of “Fight the Power” is his protest speech, and coincidently, a protest an-
them that Buggin’ Out speaks over when boycotting Sal’s Famous. Buggin’
Out is also a bad-man demanding that Sal hangs pictures of Black Americans
on his Wall of Fame. His name connotes a willingness to act out and dra-
matize incidents that may or may not be of immediate concern to other
people. The name is also reflective of hip-hop slang popularly recognized
in A Tribe Called Quest’s “Buggin’ Out” on The Low End Theory (1991).42
Buggin’ Out’s actions are a useful opportunity to engage in hip-hop protest,
because his adamancy in demanding that Black people be represented visibly
in spaces where they spend a lot of money illustrates the hip-hop genera-
tion’s continuation of protest that was defined by the Civil Rights generation.
Buggin’ Out convinces Radio Raheem to participate in his boycott, and Radio
Raheem affirms, “Ya back is got.”43 An earlier argument with Sal about not
playing “Fight the Power” in his restaurant compels Radio Raheem to boy-
cott. In a conversation with Buggin’ Out, Radio Raheem explains his conflict
with Sal, asserting, “I almost had to yoke him this afternoon. Tell me, tell me,
Radio Raheem, to turn my music down. Didn’t even say please.”44 In Radio
Raheem’s mind, turning down the music means repressing his ability to ar-
ticulate Black America’s dissatisfaction with their oppressor. Sal’s dismissal of
Radio Raheem’s music and his resort to violence is his message of resistance,
which signifies white America’s discomfort with rap as a growing expression

for Black youth. A foreshadowing of Radio Raheem’s physical death, Sal’s
killing of his music also signifies a psychological death for Radio Raheem.
Radio Raheem wants to be acknowledged as a human being in Sal’s res-
taurant, hence his demand for Sal to say please after he turns the radio off.
Does Sal see Black youth who dine in his restaurant as fully human? Does
his overbearing and controlling responses suppress the freedom of speech
exhibited by Black youth such as Radio Raheem and Buggin’ Out? Sal’s dis-
missal and denigration of Radio Raheem’s radio insinuate that he and Buggin’
Out cannot win the fight they have just waged. Sal is in the minority, but he
is powerful, and has the backing of the New York City police department be-
cause he owns private property. Despite Public Enemy’s potent message, Sal
persists in his non-acknowledgment of Black resistance music of a younger
generation. The authenticity of the music for Sal is representative of a can-
cerous culture in the inner city that reproduces aspects of Blackness that are
inherently perceived as angry and dangerous. Nonetheless, Sal fails to under-
stand that the rap music of Radio Raheem’s generation exposes the racism,
poverty, classism, and sexism apparent in his restaurant, as well as other
places in the Black neighborhood he works in.
In “On the Question of Nigga Authenticity” (1994), author R.A.T. Judy
philosophizes the meaning of being Black and human post Civil-Rights.45
He explores the question by theorizing the usage of the word “nigga” in rap
music. To support his theory, he analyzes the bad-man and bad-nigger tropes
within African American folkloric tradition as articulated by Roberts. Both
bad-man and bad-nigger similarly represent a radical individual; one who
resists white oppression by challenging its hegemony. The bad-man is knowl-
edgeable in the degradation of Black subjectivity; however, the bad-nigger
represents “a threat to the survival of the community by giving the police
cause to attack.”46 Judy modernizes the African American folkloric tradition
to include the word “nigga,” arguing that its representation in rap music and
modern American society “poses an existential problem that concerns what
it means to be human.”47 The nigga trope signifies upon its predecessors bad-
man and bad-nigger and “defines authenticity as adaptation to the force of
commodification.”48 In other words, the question of nigga authenticity is an
ontological question, one in which the Black being examines the authentica-
tion of his existence in mainstream society. The nigga represents a dual iden-
tity, an amoral figure that is destructive to the human race, and one who is
critically aware of societal circumstances such as crime, drugs, and police
brutality that detrimentally affect Black communities.
In Do the Right Thing, Radio Raheem epitomizes two polarizing figures:
a bad-man and a nigger. In Radio Raheem’s neighborhood, he is “the man,”
as his friends Punchy, Ahmad, and Cee proclaim.49 Moreover, the world is
Radio Raheem’s, and “in a big way,” his broad stature and stern demeanor
make him a bad-man and a forerunner in the continued Black struggle for
liberation against systematic oppression.50 On the other hand, when white
policemen kill him, he becomes another nigger, a disposable Black body that
no longer poses a threat to white authority. Thus, sending a message to all
Black youth that their freedom to stand up for themselves comes at a high
price—death.
The Block Is Hot: Addressing Racial Injustice, Human Rights,

Police Brutality, and Property in Do the Right Thing
In the screen notes for Do the Right Thing, Lee discusses his vision of
using heat as a major backdrop in his film. Heat, Lee argues, “can spark major
conflicts” and make “everything explosive, including the racial climate of the
city.”51 He goes on to say, “Racial tensions in the city are high as it is, but when
the weather is hot, forget about it.”52 The heat acts as a double entendre—to
dramatize the racial tensions happening in Lee’s fictional Bedford-Stuyvesant
neighborhood—and as a metaphor for the audience to watch the racial con-
flict escalate on and offscreen. The heat also provokes the clashing tensions
between the Black community and the New York City Police Department.
According to Marcy Sacks’s, “black New Yorkers, alone among that city’s
diverse ethnic populations were singled out as targets of police enmity and
suspicion.”53 Police paying attention to more explicit crime control (which
meant greater surveillance for Blacks) disrupted the moral and social code
of elite (white) New York society. Blacks were presumed as a threat, and to
keep them in control, police were central in maintaining white New Yorkers
interests in keeping Blacks out of their neighborhoods.54
In Do the Right Thing, police patrol a large Black American population
that is increasingly becoming interracial. In one scene, the police threaten
Black youth in the neighborhood after they are reported to have sprayed
with water Charlie’s newly painted car. Charlie, a man driving through the
neighborhood, forewarns youth Ahmad and Cee asserting, “It’s going to
be a lot of fucking trouble if you get this car wet.” Despite the youth assur-
ing Charlie that his car will not get sprayed with water, they retract their
statement and spray the car. This confrontation escalates, leading to police
interference. Charlie complains to the police and demands the teenagers
be arrested immediately. The policemen ask what happened, and Charlie
responds “two black kids, they soaked me with a fire hydrant they ruined my
car.” Officers Long and Ponte chuckle at Charlie’s comment, asking him to
provide evidence; Ponte walks over to fix the fire hydrant and threatens the
kids, asserting, “This hydrant better not come back off again or there’s going
to be hell to pay.” Ponte’s threat emphasizes that the youth will experience
greater discipline if police are to return to the neighborhood to respond to
another complaint, which connotes a thread of harsh discipline the youth re-
ceive. That discipline, unfortunately, happens when Officers Long and Ponte
choke Radio Raheem to death.
After Radio Raheem is killed, the crowd of Black and Puerto Rican
Americans yells,
THEY KILLED HIM

THEY KILLED RADIO RAHEEM
IT’S MURDER
DID IT AGAIN
JUST LIKE THEY DID MICHAEL STEWART
MURDER
ELEANOR BUMPERS
MURDER
IT’S NOT SAFE
NOT EVEN IN OUR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD
IT’S NOT SAFE
NEVER WAS
NEVER WILL BE.55
In this particular scene, the camera centers on Radio Raheem’s peers yelling
several racially motivated incidents that took place in New York City. Radio
Raheem’s death becomes the catalyst in the crowd’s forceful disposition to
address the police misconduct. Lee suggests that “the audience should feel
like it’s suffocating,” in reaction to the drenches of sweat falling off the bodies
in the crowd.56 Lee’s critique of police brutality, as depicted in the aftermath
of Radio Raheem’s death, is centralized through the riot scene. Journalist
Marlaine Glicksman, asks Lee during an interview, “And are you advocat-
ing the riot at the end?”57 Lee responds, “I don’t think that blacks are going
to see this film and just go out in the streets and start rioting. I mean, black
people don’t need this movie to riot.”58 Rather, Do the Right Thing’s fictional
riot scene mirrors the racial uprisings happening in Black American cities,
such as New York, in response to policemen killing people unjustifiably.59
Lee further claims that the movie is inspired by the racism that the riot pur-
ports—a dialogue about race in America that is real and illustrates a call for
dialogue among United States citizens.
After Radio Raheem is pronounced dead, his body is carried into a po-
lice car and never seen again. The Black and Puerto Rican residents of the
community, as well as Sal, Pino, and Vito, stand in silence for several sec-
onds watching the police car drive out of the neighborhood. The residents
suddenly look at Sal, Pino, and Vito and voice their concerns about Radio
Raheem’s death:
WON’T STAND FOR IT

THE LAST TIME
FUCKIN’ COPS
THE LAST TIME
IT’S PLAIN AS DAY
DIDN’T HAVE TO KILL THE BOY.60
The residents perceive Radio Raheem’s death as an act of injustice. His murder
breaks the silence on matters of police brutality and addresses the effects of
racism in the rising genocide claiming Black American lives. Radio Raheem
died believing that the “Boycott Sal’s Famous” protest he joined with Buggin’
Out would lead Sal to overturn his decision of not placing Black Americans
on the Wall of Fame. His attempt to “Fight the Power,” or demand that Sal
represent Black Americans who patronize his restaurant, exemplifies the con-
sciousness of Black youth in addressing race relations in American culture.
Intentionally, Lee’s point of addressing racial injustice and police bru-
tality in Do the Right Thing critically engages a discussion about acts of
violence exhibited by the police against Radio Raheem. Moreover, Lee’s il-
lustration maintains the point that a critical assessment of racial tensions
between the Black community and their white counterparts in marginalized
spaces such as Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, where there is minimal Black autonomy.
The rage among Black and Puerto Rican residents surges as Sal, Pino, and
Vito are defenseless and seeking a safe area outside the crowd’s periphery. Da
Mayor, an elderly Black man in the neighborhood, pushes the Italian family
out of the crowd’s way. Mookie (observing the anger and rage depicted among
the crowd) screams the word “hate” and then throws a garbage can through
Sal’s Famous Pizzeria’s window. The crowd follows Mookie’s lead, vandalizing
Sal’s property and burning his restaurant to the ground. Although Mookie
works at Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, his allegiance to the neighborhood’s decry-
ing of injustice is far greater. The entire depiction of the racial uprising that
ensues after Radio Raheem’s death calls for much analysis regarding contro-
versial debates surrounding the value of humanity over the value of prop-
erty, and vice versa. In Black Reconstruction (1935), W. E. B. DuBois stated
that “profit, income, uncontrolled power in My Business for My Property and
for Me—this was the aim and method of the new monarchial dictatorship
that displaced democracy in the United States.”61 What DuBois means is that
newly freed Black Americans, after emancipation, understood the rules of
democracy, related to owning and accessing property. However, the stringent
racial discriminatory practices in the Southern states (alongside the passive
racial segregation allowed in Northern states) did not give some free Blacks
the opportunity to access or own property, as afforded to ethnic Whites
(Irish, German, English, Italian, Jewish). Lovalerie King would go on to argue
that “because American identity was racialized from its inception, ‘race’ be-
comes an important factor in examining the relationship between property
rights and ethics in American culture.”62 Property rights over human rights
becomes a subplot in Do the Right Thing, which forecasts a looming con-
flict between the Black residents who occupy the neighborhood, and Sal,
Pino, and Vito who occupy the Italian-American restaurant. Thus, property
rights become more valuable than human life, which recapitulates the link-
age between the devaluation of Black life in the neighborhood and within
the state.
The burning of Sal’s restaurant comes at the expense of a Black youth’s
death. The value of human life is called into question regarding the circum-
stances of Radio Raheem’s death at the hands of unruly policemen, but also
the decision of the crowd to direct violence in Sal, Pino, and Vito’s direction,
thus igniting harm or death. The harming of the Italian-American family
poses greater consequences for the Black individuals who are enraged, but
Mookie’s decision to start the riot by vandalizing Sal’s property explains the
crowd’s insistence to harm his white boss and coworkers. In fact, one spec-
tator responds to Mookie’s action by arguing, “Mookie did the right thing
by throwing the garbage can through Sal’s window. Mookie shattered the
window to help Sal rather than to offend.”63 The spectator’s rationale was that
if Mookie did not throw the garbage can through Sal’s window, the crowd’s
anger could have manifested into a violent bodily attack against Sal, Pino,
and Vito. Instead, the crowd releases their rage toward the restaurant. Lee
explains in an interview with Marlaine Glicksman that the residents “felt
better about it [destruction of Sal’s pizzeria], though. They felt that for once
in their lives they’d taken a stand. And they felt that they had some [agency]
They felt powerful.”64 The power that Lee alludes to is what Imani Perry
terms “the social economy of race.”65 Perry’s exploration of race and human
capital makes a case for articulating a concept that examines the limited
access to property, goods, and jobs for Black owners and consumers, com-
pared to that of their white counterparts. Sal, for example, owned his piz-
zeria for twenty-five years before it was burned down. Retrospectively, Sal
would have bought his restaurant in 1964—a pivotal year for race relations
in America. Black Americans demanded change and protested through ac-
knowledgment of civil rights policies; however, race riots also occurred and
tensions between Black residents and their white counterparts about renting
and owning property ensued. Bedford-Stuyvesant is an immigrant commu-
nity whose first inhabitants were German, Irish, and English.66 The grow-
ing influx of Black Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities took
precedence in the early 1940s.67 Black residents were sold subprime hous-
ing, or rented at higher costs than the original white occupants, to make
a profit off diminishing real estate property. By 1964, 400,000 Black resi-
dents lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which created “a simple model of white
flight” as the “role of slum clearance and public housing” changed “the ra-
cial composition of the area.”68 To this end, the Bedford-Stuyvesant com-
munity depicted in Do the Right Thing is representative of a Black populous
that is historically significant to the changing conditions of the Brooklyn
borough. In addition, Sal’s Famous Pizzeria is the last consumer business,
other than the Korean grocery store, to survive the racial shift.
The circumstances surrounding Sal’s property become a greater (if not
larger) talking point among critics and spectators of Do the Right Thing.
Gene Siskel interviews Nick, a white male restaurant owner, after a film
screening. Nick sympathizes with Sal and discusses his reaction to the
movie. He states, “I’ll be honest with you. I completely forgot about that
kid dying. This Spike Lee is brilliant. He put so much violence in the de-
struction of the restaurant that I didn’t think about the kid. He died for no
reason.”69 Toward the interview’s end, Siskel states that Nick and another
male participant “had focused on the destruction of the restaurant but not
on the death of the young black man.”70 The spectator’s comment and Siskel’s
analysis harkens back to the politics of property versus human life. Though
Radio Raheem’s life is acknowledged as a senseless occurrence, the property
owned by Sal proves to be more valuable and important to the white males.
Sal’s pizzeria connotes value and is contingent upon the historical legacy of
white ownership as being the acceptable and profitable form of capital over
Black ownership. Furthermore, white ownership and consumer credibility
are “preferences that sustain inequality by minimizing opportunities to de-
velop greater human capital in communities of color.” 71 This point is evident
when the three-man chorus Coconut Sid, ML, and Sweet Dick Willie debate
about the lack of Black owned businesses in their neighborhood. ML points
across the street to the Korean fruit and vegetable stand and argues that the
lack of Black businesses in the neighborhood means that either “Koreans are
geniuses or we Blacks are dumb.”72 Emigrating from the Caribbean to New
York, ML insinuates the lack of capital as the reason Black people are not
purchasing the once boarded-up building that the Korean-American family
rents. What ML does not consider is that although Black businesses are not
receiving the value or growth in his neighborhood, the Korean-American
grocery store owners also face racial discrimination because of their lan-
guage barrier and culture. The family’s relocation to the predominately Black
neighborhood could be examined as a space for ethnic placing and be-
longing in a highly xenophobic society. According to Jenny Hsin-Chun Tsai,
in “Xenophobia, Ethnic Community, and Immigrant Youths’ Friendship
Network Formation,” xenophobia is an “irrational hatred or fear of for-

eigners.”73 Tsai also explains that hatred or fear “defines the social boundary
between immigrant and American youth.”74 The Korean-American family
depicted in Do the Right Thing is marginalized just as much as the Black
and Puerto Rican families. In the riot scene, the Korean clerk assumes that
his store is the next to be destroyed when ML, Sweet Dick Willie, Coconut
Sid, and an angry crowd approach the Korean-American vegetable and fruit
stand. To prevent the store from being burned, the Korean clerk shouts, “Me
no white. Me no white. Me Black. Me Black. Me Black.”75 ML, Sweet Dick
Willie, and Coconut Sid accept his plea and leave the scene. The Korean-
American family making profit in the neighborhood is not tied into the
whiteness as property debate discussed by Cheryl I. Harris, but much more
aligned with being a marginalized subset within the mainstream American
workforce due to language barriers and cultural insignificance.76
Meanwhile, the photos of white Americans on Sal’s Wall of Fame are
burned in the fire and are replaced by a photo of Martin Luther King Jr.
and Malcolm X. According to Mitchell, in “The Violence of Public Art: Do
the Right Thing,” Smiley’s placing of the iconic Civil Rights leaders on the
burning wall accounts for “the public spaces in which black athletes and
entertainers appear, rarely owned by Blacks themselves; they are reminders
that Black public figures are largely the ‘property’ of a white-owned corpo-
ration.”77 In other words, the photos are indicative of a long-standing racial
divide among the perceived notion of value in property or value in human
rights. Smiley’s placing of the photo is a protest in respect to life and some-
what ends the conflict between Black Americans and Italian-Americans.
In spite of Sal’s Famous Pizzeria burning to the ground, Mookie walks
to his former place of employment wearing his work uniform and demands
that Sal pay him his weekly salary of $250. Sal, in disbelief, remarks, “Don’t
even ask about your money. Your money wouldn’t even pay for that window
you smashed.”78 Mookie refutes, “Motherfuck a window, Radio Raheem is
dead.”79 The conversation between owner and employee recapitulates the
property rights over human rights debate. Mookie is less concerned about
Sal’s property than about his friend’s dying . . . and about being paid. Though
he acknowledges that Radio Raheem is dead, Sal’s primary concern is the
restaurant. The conversation between the two men shifts to a dialogue about
money and property. Mookie is given his $250—doubled. Sal throws the
money at Mookie and claims, “Christmas came early.”80 When Mookie asks
Sal if he is going to rebuild the restaurant with his insurance money, Sal
replies no. Instead, he is going to enjoy a day at the beach—one he has not
enjoyed in fifteen years.81 Mookie, however, has to find new employment so
that he can “make dat money” and be paid.82 Their conversation ends cor-
dially. Radio disc jockey Mister Señor Love Daddy plays a song dedicated
to the memory of Radio Raheem. Upon the movie’s end, the conversation
between Sal and Mookie raises questions about the stability of the residents
living in the neighborhood and the opportunities they may or may not ex-
perience. For instance, Lee states, in “Spike Lee Spotlights Race Relations” by
Jay Carr, “Sal loses his pizzeria, but insurance will replace it. The chief suffer-
ers are the residents in that block.”83 The Black residents suffer because they
have to worry about the next time their neighborhood is invaded by rogue
policemen that do not value their lives. Mister Señor Love Daddy points
out that government officials are examining how to prevent further upris-
ings from happening, rather than detailing the circumstances surrounding
Radio Raheem’s death. The teenager’s death becomes an afterthought, remi-
niscent in the real life murders of Eleanor Bumpers, Michael Stewart, and
Michael Griffith—Black lives that are remembered in the ending credits of
Do the Right Thing.
Conclusion
Do the Right Thing is a critical film that encapsulates the hip-hop gen-
eration’s response to racism and police brutality through acts of resistance.
The discontent among the hip-hop generation raises a continued debate
about Black Americans and their idea of national belonging in a society that
truly wants to see itself as postracial. Lee presents a spectrum of Black life
that places special emphasis on the hip-hop generation’s handling of impor-
tant matters concerning racial inequality, economic sustainability, and po-
lice misconduct. Mookie, Radio Raheem, and Buggin’ Out feed off a Black
Power ethos that lends credibility to their consumption of rap music and
their protest and resistance toward Sal, Pino, and Vito’s heteronormative
thinking on race and civil inequality. The racial uprising becomes the re-
sponse the hip-hop generation makes as a last resort to express their dismay
regarding Radio Raheem’s death. This act of resistance poses an ongoing
representation of rebellion that makes intelligible certain disjointed narra-
tives in American history such as a racial uprising that are often dismissed
as violent and disorderly. The solution to sever the death of Black youth at
the hands of law enforcement and the rebellion it sparks is a continuous
cycle that has yet to be resolved. Lee, however, in Do the Right Thing sheds
light on tense racial matters that continue to reappear in our American
imagination, using hip-hop music and culture to drive the narrative.
Casarae L. Gibson is Assistant Professor of African American Studies

at Syracuse University. Her research examines recent conversations sur-
rounding civil unrest in the United States and how literature and artistic
expression found in the works of Henry Dumas, Sonia Sanchez, Anna

Deavere Smith, and Spike Lee play an undeniable role in shaping our
national consciousness about protest and resistance.
Notes
A special thank-you to my dissertation advisor, Dr. Venetria K. Patton, and co-advi-

sors Dr. Bill V. Mullen and Dr. Marlo D. David for believing in my work. Thank you to Dr.
Regina Bradley and the editors at Black Camera for their encouragement and sound ad-
vice regarding the revising of this essay. Finally, yet importantly, thank you Spike Lee for
making a timeless movie that resonates with each generation in a newly profound way.
1. The Isley Brothers, “Fight the Power,” The Heat Is On (T-Neck, Epic, 1975).
2. Public Enemy, “Fight the Power,” Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam Recordings,
1990).
3. Soraya Nadia McDonald, “Spike Lee Splices Footage of Eric Gardner’s Death with
Radio Raheem’s in ‘Do the Right Thing,’” Washington Post, July 22, 2014.
4. Both Paramount and Touchstone Pictures decided to not invest in Lee’s screen-
play. The reason came down to the final scene when white policemen kill Radio Raheem,
and a riot scene that takes place thereafter in response to his death. Spike Lee discusses
this conflict in Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint, written with Lisa Jones.
5. Jay Carr, “Spike Lee Spotlights Race Relations,” Boston Globe, June 25, 1989.
6. Ibid.
7. Clarence Page, “Spike Lee’s Warning about Race Relations in America,” Chicago
Tribune, 1989.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Martin Luther King Jr. “Where Do We Go from Here?” Stride Toward Freedom:
The Montgomery Story (New York: Harper, 1964), 213.
13. Ibid.
14. Malcolm X, “Communication and Reality” in Malcolm X: The Man and His Times
1969, ed. John Henrik Clarke (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 313.
15. Spike Lee and Lisa Jones, Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint (New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1989), 282.
16. Ibid.
17. Public Enemy, “Fight the Power.”.
18. Mark Anthony Neal, Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul
Aesthetic (New York: Routledge, 2002), 3.
19. Lauren Tarshis, “The Legacy of Reaganomics,” New York Times, March 6, 1992.
20. Jeffery O. G. Ogbar, Hip Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2009), 145.
21. Marlaine Glicksman, “Spike Lee’s Bed-Stuy BBQ” in Spike Lee Interviews 2002,
ed. Cynthia Fuchs (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), 21.
22. Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America
(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 99.
23. Marcus Reeves, Somebody Scream! Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the
Aftershock of Black Power (New York: Faber and Faber Inc., 2009), 80.
24. Ibid., 192.
25. Ibid., 193.
26. Public Enemy, “You’re Gonna Get Yours” and “Timebomb,” Yo! Bum Rush the
Show (Def Jam Recordings, 1987).
27. The Gap Band, “Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me),” The Gap
Band III (Mercury Records, 1980).
28. Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band, “Getting It On,” Evolution (Sussex
Records, 1971).
29. Captain Sky, “Super Sporm,” The Adventures of Captain Sky (AVI Records, 1978).
30. hooks, bell. Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Cambridge, MA: South
End Press, 1990), 27.
31. Ibid., 25.
32. Stanley Crouch, Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979–1989 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 239.
33. Clarence Page, “Spike Lee’s Warning about Race Relations in America,” Chicago
Tribune, June 25, 1989.
34. Ibid., 78.
& Schuster, 1989), 205.
36. Kehinde Andrews, “From the ‘Bad Nigger’ to the ‘Good Nigger’: An unintended
legacy of the Black Power Movement,” Race & Class 55, no. 3 (2014): 22–37.
37. Ibid., 191.
38. Ibid.
39. John W. Roberts, From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and
Freedom (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 173.
& Schuster, 1989), 210.
41. Jon M. Spenser, “Introduction,” The Emergency of Black and the Emergence of
Rap 5, no. 1 (1991): 7.
42. A Tribe Called Quest, “Buggin’ Out,” The Low End Theory (Jive Records, 1991).
& Schuster, 1989), 239.
44. Ibid., 238.
45. Ronald Judy also known as R.A. Judy or R.A.T. Judy is Professor of Critical and
Cultural Studies in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh. His 1994
essay, “On the Question of Negro Authenticity” theorizes the usage of the term “Nigga” in
hip-hop music, traces it back to its racist’s origins, and situates the term as a form of resis-
tance for Black male rappers while also critiquing its attachment to capitalism.
46. R.A.T. Judy, “On the Question of Negro Authenticity” Boundary 2 21, no. 3
(1994): 226.
47. Ibid., 230.
48. Ibid., 229.
49. Lee and Jones, Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint, 134.
50. Ibid., 134.

52. Ibid.
53. Marcy S. Sacks, “‘To Show Who Was in Charge’ Police Repression of New York
City’s Black Population as the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” Journal of Urban History 31,
no. 6 (2005): 800.
54. Ibid., 799–819
55. Ibid., 247.
56. Ibid., 24.
57. Glicksman, “Spike Lee’s Bed-Stuy BBQ,” 19.
58. Ibid., 19.
59. During an interview with Marlaine Glicksman, Lee responds, arguing, “Just
look at what happened in Miami the week before the Super Bowl, when those cops killed
people. Now some people be killed in New York City in summer by the cops, and this
movie’s not going to help” (ibid., 16).
61. W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part
Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880
(1935; reprint, New York: Russell & Russell, 1962), 586.
62. Lovalerie King, Race, Theft, and Ethics: Property Matters in African American
Literature (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007), 24.
63. Brenda Cooper, “The White-Black Fault Line: Relevancy of Race and Racism
in Spectators’ Experiences of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing,” Howard Journal of
Communications 9, no. 3 (1998): 215.
64. Glicksman, “Spike Lee’s Bed-Stuy BBQ,” 21.
65. Imani Perry, More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence
of Racial Inequality in the United States (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 165.
66. See Janet Abu-Lughod’s Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los
Angeles (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
67. Ibid., 161.
68. Ibid.
69. Gene Siskel, “The Picture’s as Good as ‘The Godfather,’” Chicago Tribune, June 25,
1989.
70. Ibid., 145.
71. Perry, More Beautiful and More Terrible, 165.
72. Lee and Jones, Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint, 172, 174.
73. Jenny Hsin-Chun Tsai, “Xenophobia, Ethnic Community, and Immigrant Youth’s
Friendship Network Formation,” Adolescence 41 (2006): 293.
74. Ibid., 293.
76. See Cheryl I. Harris’s, “Whiteness as Property,” in Critical Race Theory: The Key
Writings That Formed the Movement, ed. Kimberlé Crenshaw et al. (New York: The New
Press, 1996).
77. W. J. T. Mitchell, “The Violence of Public Art: Do the Right Thing,” Critical
Inquiry 16, no. 4 (1990): 111.
78. Lee and Jones, Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1989), 260.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., 262.
81. Ibid., 263.
82. Ibid.
83. Carr, “Spike Lee Spotlights Race Relations.”
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