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: PBS, "When Work Disappears: Interview with
William Julius Wilson" ; Noguera, "Responding to the
Crisis facing Black Youth" ; L.A. Times, "Three Days of
Hell in Los Angeles"

Video: Scenes from Do the Right Thing (1989)
O.J. Simpson in Black and White (2002) ,
American History X (1998)

Do the Right Thing (1989)

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

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

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

• 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)

The Rodney King Los Angeles Riots in
1992

• Los Angeles Riots-Series of Reports
  
  
• Rodney King and the Los Angeles Riots
  

"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."

               Matt Heffernan, "Review of Do the Right Thing"

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"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

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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....

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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