Question for Discussion: How does the film,
 Do the Right Thing, help us understand race
 and class divisions in American society in the
 1980s and 1990s?

Reading: McWhorter, "How Hip Hop Holds Blacks
Back" ; Dyson, "Gangsta Rap and American Culture" ;
Ebert, "1989 Review of Do the Right Thing";
Ebert, "2001 Review of Do the Right Thing";
Emerson, "Review of Do the Right Thing";
Berardinelli, "Review of Do the Right Thing "

Video: Scenes from Do the Right Thing (1989);
Frontline: O.J. Simpson Verdict 10 years later (2005)

Do the Right Thing (1989)

• Internet Movie Database: Do the Right Thing
  (1989)

• Roger Ebert's Review of "Do the Right Thing" (1989)

• Roger Ebert on "Do the Right Thing" (2001)

• Vincent Canby Review of "Do the Right Thing"
  
  
• Desson Howe's review of "Do the Right Thing"

• FilmHead review of "Do the Right Thing

• Jim Emerson review of "Do the Right Thing"

• Memorable Quotes from "Do the Right Thing"

• Roger Ebert's Review of "American History X"
  (1998)
  
  ---------------------------------------------------------------

The Black Underclass in Reagan's America

• Don't Be a Menace to South Central While
  Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996)

• Los Angeles Riots-Series of Reports
  
  
• Rodney King and the Los Angeles Riots
  
  
• America's Changing Face: Race in America
  
  
• Regarding Race in America
  

Do the Right Thing was released in the late spring of 1989. In August of that year, a gang of whites in Bensonhurst, Queens, murdered a young black man named Yusef Hawkins. By the time the film was in nationwide release, the Hawkins murder was referenced in the film. The heat on then-mayor Ed Koch grew more intense with the release of Do the Right Thing. Moreover, there are many observers who believe the film doomed Koch's re-election bid later that year. A black candidate, David Dinkins, defeated him. Indeed, the film closes with a not-too-subtle reminder by the deejay that Election Day is nearing, and the community needs to exercise its right to vote.
Shawn Drury, Filmhead. com

               Matt Heffernan, "Review of Do the Right Thing"

---

"Do the Right Thing" is not filled with brotherly love, but it is not filled with hate, either. It comes out of a weary, urban cynicism that has settled down around us in recent years. The good feelings and many of the hopes of the 1960s have evaporated, and today it no longer would be accurate to make a movie about how the races in American are all going to love one another. I wish we could see such love, but instead we have deepening class divisions in which the middle classes of all races flee from what's happening in the inner city, while a series of national administrations provides no hope for the poor. "Do the Right Thing" tells an honest, unsentimental story about those who are left behind."

Roger Ebert, Review of Do the Right Thing

---

Code words for the debate on race in
the 1990s:

Affirmative Action, Rodney King,
O. J. Simpson, Johnnie Cochran,
Mark Fuhrman, Tawana Brawley, Yosef
Hawkins, Jessie Jackson,  Minister
Farrakhan, Reverse Discrimination,
Racial Quotas, Quotas, Welfare Queen,
Reginald Denny, Gangs, Gangsta Rap,
Clarence Thomas, Malcolm X, Martin
Luther King, Inner-city ghettoes,
 Welfare cheats, the American
underclass, the Los Angeles Riots,
the Rodney King verdict, the Reverend
Al Sharpton, Poverty, the American
class system, Skinheads, David Duke,
neo-Nazis, Pat Buchanan, Rush
Limbaugh, welfare liberals, white
liberals, black conservatives, the
culture of poverty....

---

Lawrence Grossberg, professor of Cultural Studies at the University of North Carolina. "... O.J. is a kind of symbolic moment in the history of race relations in America. I think a lot of white Americans didn't believe in affirmative action and they didn't believe in integration and they didn't believe in the welfare state ... they didn't believe that black people were equal to white people. But they couldn't say it. They couldn't say it without being accused of being a racist. And O.J. gave them the ability, the trial gave them the ability, to say it. So in that sense ... it fulfilled a moment in history that was already there."
....Ralph Wiley, White Lies: HBO gets it half right

ROGER WILKINS: The problem of race in this country is so deep and so close to the center of American culture and so close to the psyches of so many people that it's going to take massive undertakings by a range of American institutions to wipe out what remains, and what remains is a pretty killing for lots of human beings.
...Regarding Race in America

"I too am disturbed by many elements of gangsta rap. But
I'm equally anguished by the way many critics have used its artists as scapegoats. How can we avoid the pitfall of unfairly attacking black youth for problems that bewitched our culture long before they gained prominence? First, we should understand what forces drove the emergence of rap. Second, we should place the debate about gangsta rap in the context of' a much older debate about "negative" and "positive" black images. Finally. we should acknowledge that gangsta rap crudely exposes harmful beliefs and practices that are often maintained with deceptive civility in much of mainstream society, including many black communities."

"While gangsta rap takes the heat for a range of social
maladies from urban violence to sexual misconduct, the roots of our racial misery remain buried beneath moralizing discourse that is confused and sometimes dishonest. There's no doubt that gangsta rap is often sexist and that it reflects a vicious misogyny that has seized our nation with frightening intensity. It is doubly wounding for black women who are already beset by attacks from outside their communities to feel the thrust of musical daggers to their dignity from within. How painful it is for black women, many of whom have fought valiantly for black pride, to hear the dissonant chord of disdain carried in the angry epithet "bitch."

"Equally troubling is the glamorization of violence and the romanticization of the culture of guns that pervades gangsta rap. The recent legal troubles of' Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and other gangsta rappers chastens any defense of the genre based on simplistic claims that these artists are merely performing roles that are divorced from real life. Too often for gangsta rappers, life does indeed
imitate and inform art."

"Much of' gangst makes voyeuristic whites and naive blacks think they're getting a slice of authentic ghetto life when in reality they're being served colorful exaggerations. That doesn't mean, however, that the best of gangsta rappers don't provide compelling portraits of real social and economic suffering."

"Gangsta rappers are not the first to face the grueling
double standards imposed on black artists. Throughout African-American history, creative personalities have sought to escape or enliven the role of race artist with varying degrees of success. The sharp machismo with which many gangsta rappers reject this office grates on the nerves of many traditionalists. Many critics argue that since gangsta rap is often the only means by which many white Americans come into ontact with black life, its pornographic representations and brutal stereotypes of black culture are especially harmful. The understandable but lamentable response of many critics is to condemn gangsta rap out of hand. They aim to suppress gangsta rap's troubling expressions rather than critically engage its artists and the provocative issues they address. Or the critics of gangsta rap use it for narrow political ends that fail to enlighten or better our common moral jives"

"When I testified before the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice, as well as the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, I tried to make this point while acknowledging the need to responsibly confront gangsta rap's problems. Censorship of gangsta rap cannot begin to solve the problems of poor black youth. Nor will it effectively curtail their consumption of music that is already circulated through dubbed tapes and without the benefit of significant airplay. "

"What Dole, Bennett, and Tucker shrink from helping us understand—and what all effective public moralists must address—is why this issue now? Dole's answer is that the loss of family values is caused by the moral corruption of' popular culture, and therefore we should hold rap artists, Hollywood moguls, and record executives responsible for our moral chaos. It's hard to argue with Dole on the surface, but a gentle scratch reveals that both his analysis and answer are flawed."

"To be sure, there have been severe assaults on American families and their values, but they have not come mainly from Hollywood, but from Washington with the dismantling of the Great Society. Cruel cuts in social programs for the neediest, an upward redistribution of wealth to the rich, and an unprincipled conservative political campaign to demonize poor black mothers and their children have left latter-day D. W. Griffiths in the dust. Many of gangsta rap's most vocal black critics (such as Tucker) fail to see how the alliances they forge with conservative white politicians such as Bennett and re plagued with problems. Bennett and Dole have put up roadblocks to many legislative and political measures that would enhance the fortunes of the black poor they now claim in part to speak for. Their outcry resounds as crocodile tears from the corridors of power paved by bad faith."

"But before we discard the genre, we should understand that gangsta rap often reaches higher than its ugliest, lowest common denominator. A misogynv, violence, materialism, and sexual transgression are not its exclusive domain. At its best, this music draws attention to complex dimensions of ghetto life ignored by many Americans. Of all the genres of hip- hop—from socially conscious rap to black nationalist expressions, from pop to hardcore—gangsta rap has most aggressively narrated the pains and possibilities, the fantasies and fears, of poor black urban youth gangsta rap is situated in the violent climes of post-industrial Los Angeles and its bordering cities. It draws its metaphoric capital in part from the mix of' myth and murder that gave the Western frontier a dangerous appeal a century ago. "

"Attacking figures like Snoop Doggy Dogg or Tupac Shakur or the companies that record or distribute them— is an easy out. It allows scapegoating without sophisticated moral analysis and action. While these young black males become whipping boys for sexism and misogyny, the places in our culture where these ancient traditions are nurtured and rationalized—including religious and educational institutions and the nuclear family—remain immune to forceful and just criticism."

"Corporate capitalism, mindless materialism, and pop
culture have surely helped unravel the moral fabric of our society. But the moral condition of our nation is equally affected by political policies that harm the vulnerable and poor. It would behoove Senator Dole to examine the glass house of politics he abides in before he decides to throw stones again. If he really wants to do something about violence, he should change his mind about the ban on assault weapons he seeks to repeal. That may not be as sexy or self-serving as attacking pop culture, but it might help save lives."

"This music has embarrassed mainstream society and black bourgeois culture. It has forced us to confront the demands of racial representation that plague and provoke black artists. It has also exposed our polite sexism and our disregard for gay men and lesbians. We should not continue to blame gangsta rap for ills that existed long before hip-hop uttered its first syllable. Indeed, gangsta rap's in-your-face style may do more to force our nation to confront crucial social problems than countless sermons or political speeches."

---

"We are gathered here this week to nominate a candidate and adopt a platform which will expand, unify, direct, and inspire our Party and the nation to fulfill this mission. My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised. They are restless and seek relief. They have voted in record numbers. They have invested the faith, hope, and trust that they have in us. The Democratic Party must send them a signal that we care. I pledge my best not to let them down.

"America is not like a blanket -- one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay, and the disabled make up the American quilt.

Even in our fractured state, all of us count and fit somewhere. We have proven that we can survive without each other. But we have not proven that we can win and make progress without each other. We must come together.

"We are bound by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Heschel, crying out from their graves for us to reach common ground. We are bound by shared blood and shared sacrifices. We are much too intelligent, much too bound by our Judeo-Christian heritage, much too victimized by racism, sexism, militarism, and anti-Semitism, much too threatened as historical scapegoats to go on divided one from another. We must turn from finger pointing to clasped hands. We must share our burdens and our joys with each other once again. We must turn to each other and not on each other and choose higher ground.

We must be unusually committed and caring as we expand our family to include new members. All of us must be tolerant and understanding as the fears and anxieties of the rejected and the party leadership express themselves in many different ways. Too often what we call hate -- as if it were some deeply-rooted philosophy or strategy -- is simply ignorance, anxiety, paranoia, fear, and insecurity. To be strong leaders, we must be long-suffering as we seek to right the wrongs of our Party and our nation. We must expand our Party, heal our Party, and unify our Party. That is our mission in 1984.

In 1984, my heart is made to feel glad because I know there is a way out -- justice. The requirement for rebuilding America is justice. The linchpin of progressive politics in our nation will not come from the North; they, in fact, will come from the South. That is why I argue over and over again. We look from Virginia around to Texas, there's only one black Congressperson out of 115. Nineteen years later, we're locked out of the Congress, the Senate and the Governor's mansion. What does this large black vote mean? Why do I fight to win second primaries and fight gerrymandering and annexation and at-large [elections]. Why do we fight over that? Because I tell you, you cannot hold someone in the ditch unless you linger there with them. Unless you linger there.

Our time has come. Our time has come. Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end, faith will not disappoint. Our time has come. Our faith, hope, and dreams will prevail. Our time has come. Weeping has endured for nights, but now joy cometh in the morning. Our time has come. No grave can hold our body down. Our time has come. No lie can live forever. Our time has come. We must leave racial battle ground and come to economic common ground and moral higher ground. America, our time has come. We come from disgrace to amazing grace. Our time has come. Give me your tired, give me your poor, your huddled masses who yearn to breathe free and come November, there will be a change because our time has come.

---

McWhorter, "How Hip Hop Holds Blacks Back" (2003)

"What struck me most, though, was how fully the boys' music—hard-edged rap, preaching bone-deep dislike of authority—provided them with a continuing soundtrack to their antisocial behavior. So completely was rap ingrained in their consciousness that every so often, one or another of them would break into cocky, expletive-laden rap lyrics, accompanied by the angular, bellicose gestures typical of rap performance. A couple of his buddies would then join him. Rap was a running decoration in their conversation."

"Early rap mostly steered clear of the Sapphires and Studds, beginning not as a growl from below but as happy party music. The first big rap hit, the Sugar Hill Gang's 1978 “Rapper's Delight,” featured a catchy bass groove that drove the music forward, as the jolly rapper celebrated himself as a ladies' man and a great dancer. Soon, kids across America were rapping along with the nonsense chorus:

I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie, to the hip-hip hop, ah you don't stop the rock it to the bang bang boogie, say up jump the boogie, to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat.

A string of ebullient raps ensued in the months ahead. At the time, I assumed it was a harmless craze, certain to run out of steam soon."

But rap took a dark turn in the early 1980s, as this “bubble gum” music gave way to a “gangsta” style that picked up where blaxploitation left off. Now top rappers began to write edgy lyrics celebrating street warfare or drugs and promiscuity. Grandmaster Flash's ominous 1982 hit, “The Message,” with its chorus, “It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under,” marked the change in sensibility. It depicted ghetto life as profoundly desolate:

"You grow in the ghetto, living second rate And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate. The places you play and where you stay Looks like one great big alley way. You'll admire all the numberbook takers, Thugs, pimps and pushers, and the big money makers."

Music critics fell over themselves to praise “The Message,” treating it as the poetry of the streets—as the elite media has characterized hip-hop ever since. The song's grim fatalism struck a chord; twice, I've heard blacks in audiences for talks on race cite the chorus to underscore a point about black victimhood. So did the warning it carried: “Don't push me, 'cause I'm close to the edge,” menacingly raps Melle Mel. The ultimate message of “The Message”—that ghetto life is so hopeless that an explosion of violence is both justified and imminent—would become a hip-hop mantra in the years ahead. "

"In the two decades since “The Message,” hip-hop performers have churned out countless rap numbers that celebrate a ghetto life of unending violence and criminality. Schooly D's “PSK What Does It Mean?” is a case in point:

"Copped my pistols, jumped into the ride. Got at the bar, copped some flack, Copped some cheeba-cheeba, it wasn't wack. Got to the place, and who did I see? A sucka-ass nigga tryin to sound like me. Put my pistol up against his head— I said, “Sucka-ass nigga, I should shoot you dead.”

The protagonist of a rhyme by KRS-One (a hip-hop star who would later speak out against rap violence) actually pulls the trigger:

"Knew a drug dealer by the name of Peter— Had to buck him down with my 9 millimeter."

Police forces became marauding invaders in the gangsta-rap imagination. The late West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur expressed the attitude:

"Ya gotta know how to shake the snakes, nigga, 'Cause the police love to break a nigga, Send him upstate 'cause they straight up hate the nigga."

Shakur's anti-police tirade seems tame, however, compared with Ice-T's infamous “Cop Killer”:

I got my black shirt on. I got my black gloves on. I got my ski mask on. This shit's been too long.

I got my 12-gauge sawed-off. I got my headlights turned off. I'm 'bout to bust some shots off. I'm 'bout to dust some cops off. . . .

I'm 'bout to kill me somethin' A pig stopped me for nuthin'! Cop killer, better you than me. Cop killer, fuck police brutality! . . .

Die, die, die pig, die! Fuck the police! . . . Fuck the police yeah! "

"Of course, not all hip-hop is belligerent or profane—entire CDs of gang-bangin', police-baiting, woman-bashing invective would get old fast to most listeners. But it's the nastiest rap that sells best, and the nastiest cuts that make a career. As I write, the top ten best-selling hip-hop recordings are 50 Cent (currently with the second-best-selling record in the nation among all musical genres), Bone Crusher, Lil' Kim, Fabolous, Lil' Jon and the East Side Boyz, Cam'ron Presents the Diplomats, Busta Rhymes, Scarface, Mobb Deep, and Eminem."

"The idea that rap is an authentic cry against oppression is all the sillier when you recall that black Americans had lots more to be frustrated about in the past but never produced or enjoyed music as nihilistic as 50 Cent or N.W.A. On the contrary, black popular music was almost always affirmative and hopeful. Nor do we discover music of such violence in places of great misery like Ethiopia or the Congo—unless it's imported American hip-hop. "

"The rise of nihilistic rap has mirrored the breakdown of community norms among inner-city youth over the last couple of decades. It was just as gangsta rap hit its stride that neighborhood elders began really to notice that they'd lost control of young black men, who were frequently drifting into lives of gang violence and drug dealing. Well into the seventies, the ghetto was a shabby part of town, where, despite unemployment and rising illegitimacy, a healthy number of people were doing their best to “keep their heads above water,” as the theme song of the old black sitcom Good Times put it.

"By the eighties, the ghetto had become a ruthless war zone, where black people were their own worst enemies. It would be silly, of course, to blame hip-hop for this sad downward spiral, but by glamorizing life in the “war zone,” it has made it harder for many of the kids stuck there to extricate themselves. Seeing a privileged star like Sean Combs behave like a street thug tells those kids that there's nothing more authentic than ghetto pathology, even when you've got wealth beyond imagining."

"Far from decrying the stereotypes rampant in rap's present-day blaxploitation, many hip-hop defenders pull the “whitey-does-it-too” trick. They point to the Godfather movies or The Sopranos as proof that violence and vulgarity are widespread in American popular culture, so that singling out hip-hop for condemnation is simply bigotry. Yet such a defense is pitifully weak. No one really looks for a way of life to emulate or a political project to adopt in The Sopranos. But for many of its advocates, hip-hop, with its fantasies of revolution and community and politics, is more than entertainment. It forms a bedrock of young black identity."

"Nor will it do to argue that hip-hop isn't “black” music, since most of its buyers are white, or because the “hip-hop revolution” is nominally open to people of all colors. That whites buy more hip-hop recordings than blacks do is hardly surprising, given that whites vastly outnumber blacks nationwide. More to the point, anyone who claims that rap isn't black music will need to reconcile that claim with the widespread wariness among blacks of white rappers like Eminem, accused of “stealing our music and giving it back to us.”

"Anyone who sees such behavior as a path to a better future—anyone, like Professor Dyson, who insists that hip-hop is an urgent “critique of a society that produces the need for the thug persona”—should step back and ask himself just where, exactly, the civil rights–era blacks might have gone wrong in lacking a hip-hop revolution. They created the world of equality, striving, and success I live and thrive in.