New York City is a melting pot. Everyone knows that, right? As a native New Yorker, I can say that this is certainly true. Everywhere you look in NYC you see people of all nationalities.
But even though we may all live harmoniously together (for the most part), there is a lot of stereotyping and prejudice alive and well in the city. Spike Lee shows this in his film Do The Right Thing by highlighting the tension between the black and white community in the Bed-stuy neighborhood where the film takes place.
Spike Lee initially takes a comical approach to showing the absurdity of the stereotypes of ethnic groups in the city. For me, this aspect of the film really captured the madness of stereotyping people based on what they look like. In the city, it seems like everyone has something to say about someone else without really thinking about how silly it is to characterize someone based on your prejudgments about them. NYC may be a melting pot, but there is definitely a lot of stereotyping and prejudice that goes on in the city.
Another main reason why the film affected me so much was because of how accurately it depicted racial tensions in the city. Even before the shocking death of Radio Raheem at the end of the film, Lee began generating instances of tension between the black and white community. In one of these instances, a white man is badgered by Buggin Out and his crew for scuffing his sneakers and moving into their “all black” neighborhood. In another, a group of black kids playing with a water hydrant wet the car of an Italian man.
In both of these instances, Spike Lee really demonstrated the tension in NYC neighborhoods. While watching the film you are made to feel as though at any moment things could explode, and the tension brewing comes to a violent head. Today, this feeling still persists, although not at the same level as depicted in the movie.
Towards the end of the film, all of the tension that Spike Lee carefully created finally erupted on a sweltering day in Bed-Stuy. The death of Radio Raheem was eerily similar to the death of Eric Garner this summer. When I watched the film, I thought it was crazy that something made 25 years ago about race relations could still be relevant in 2014. Police brutality is a constant topic in the news, and over the past few years issues of racial violence splashes the headlines way too frequently.
Just watching the film made me wonder where we are as a society, considering the film actually depicted the same type of mentality that is prevalent in the city today. In our city especially, we have been battling racial tension for so long, that it seems like it will never end! To an outsider, it may seem crazy that in a NYC could be so afflicted by these issues. But Spike Lee does an incredible job showing the racial tension between the black community and the white community. Even though we all live together, it’s clear that we don’t always get along.
