The heat is rising and so is the divide between communities

In the movie “do the right thing” one thing that is mentioned over and over again through out the whole movie is the weather. Every other seen was a character mentioning how hot it was and saying motherf*cker this ni**a that which is the norm in the hood. but there were specific scenes where certain lines and boundaries were crossed. For example, when buggin out was walking down his block and the white guy scuffed his jordans, buggin out went crazy because in his eyes it was not only disrespect to him but in a way to his role model,Michael jordan. Jordan was born in brooklyn which showed hope for the young living in that hood that they can have a chance to become a successful and be a respected person. if you recall in the 1989(the year this movie was made) http://www.nba.com/history/players/jordan_bio.html ,Michael Jordan made a huge name for himself as he entered the NBA eastern confrence finals for the first time vs detroit pistons. in the eyes of many young african americans this was the first of many huge steps jordan took to become a succesful basketball player but MOST of all a an American Idol, so when the white guy(idk his name) stepped on his shoes its not just because the shoes are for 120 dollars but its because this whtie man could not comprehend how symbolic of a figure jordan has become to millions of young adults. when you think about it lebron james, kobe bryant and tracy mcgrady are all incredible african american basketball players and their shoes are all 100 dllars or more (with the exception to the older makes of the shoes) and if you stepped on those shoes in the hood you wouldn’t have the same reaction. The inability for the white guy to understand the importance of Buggin out’s jordans basically meant that he didn’t want to even put an effort to TRY to understand buggin out which created a larger divide between white and af.americans.

Another important scene was when Pino and his brother (vito or something) were in a closest at the pizzeria wrestling. This scene is important because it is foreshadowing what actually happened in the end. Pino was telling his brother to choose either “us” or “them” and his brother couldn’t choose… he also warned that mookie is not on “their” side hes with “them.” which at the end proved to be true because mookie was the first one to vandalize the pizzeria. Hence the divide between the communities became bigger and uglier than it had ever been.

Yasmin Saleh

~ by english131blog on November 14, 2007.