Black Music and Violence

Spike Lee's 1989 production of Do the Right Thing has created an outburst of controversy and debate over the past two decades. Certainly, when the film was released, it attracted a large number of negative responses from critics and viewers alike, but this would soon be argued by Lee who supported his production as a film about black people through the black perspective. Through the discourse on black music and violence, the black culture and identity is represented. In an environment where black people are continually oppressed, their rap music serves as a tool against the power blocks in that community. While there is a center point from which violence emerges (the “Wall of Fame), there are also tools available to combat that violence, ultimately ending in a bitter brawl between the oppressed and oppressor.

According to W.J.T Mitchell in his article titled “The Violence of Public Art: Do the Right Thing,”

The film elicited disapproval from critics and viewers as well. It was denounced as an incitement to violence and even as an act of violence by viewers who regarded its representations of ghetto characters as demeaning (Mitchell 891).

In the footnote of the same article, Mitchell notes that Lee was accused of being “ignorant of African-American history and guilty of low opinion of his own people” in Murray Kempton's review (891). However, not all critics were as harsh as Kempton's. Spike Lee himself took on a defensive position about the misconceptions surrounding the motivations behind producing the film.

In Philip Hanson's article titled “The Politics of Inner City Identity in Do the Right Thing,” Lee states that the film “will be told from a Black point of view . . . to express the views of the Black people who otherwise don't have access to power and media” (Hanson 54). In the film, Lee is able to give the black people access to power by portraying Radio Raheem's character as a sort of icon against the dominating white establishment in the neighborhood. Through the most increasingly popular commercial musical form of black rap, Radio Raheem carries around his gigantic boom box playing Public Enemy's “Fight the Power.”

In Victoria E. Johnson's “Polyphony and Cultural Expressions: Interpreting Musical Traditions in Do the Right Thing,” “music is used to orient and hook the spectator, from assisting in emphasizing visual cues to monitoring or manipulating physiological reactions to the film” (Johnson 18). Lee uses the aural tool of rap music to enhance the visual aspects of the film. In one scene, before Radio Raheem's physical features are introduced to the viewer, his giant boom box is exaggerated by the close-up camera effect. The camera then travels upwards to reveal his massive frame (Johnson 24). The entire character of Radio Raheem, including his ghetto stereo system, serves as a public manifestation that fights against the dominating power figures in the community. The music that he plays over and over again is a way of the “young black males to talk back to the establishment” (24). In the film, the police act as the controlling and over-powering image.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, black rap tended to comment negatively on police behavior in black neighborhoods. The song that Radio Raheem constantly plays relays the “unwelcome, social criticism from young, urban, black, male perspective” (28).

While the black man's sweatin'
In the rhythm I'm rollin'
Got to give us what we want
Got to give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is the freedom of death
We got to fight the powers that be
To revolutionize make a change
What we need is awareness
Power to the people, no delay

What the lyrics do here is it gives Radio Raheem a voice to express the general feeling of the black community towards racial injustice. The emphasis on the word “fight” as echoes in the title of the song, in a sense echoes the feeling of need to retaliate against the white regime in society. However, not all black characters in the film agree to boycott Sal's pizzeria for not hanging up “brothers” on the Wall of Fame. Not all black characters are willing to take violent measures to solve the problem of racial injustice that persists in every black community. Mookie's sister, Jade, refuses to participate in the boycott planned by Radio Raheem and Buggin' Out; instead, she opts to contribute something good to the community. Even though she may be aware of the racial tensions that exist, like many others in the community, she chooses to ignore and put them behind.

Mitchell specifies the “Wall of Fame” to be the center of violence in the film. It is the point from which violence bursts out of its shell in a heated racial argument. The Italian-American owner, Sal, refuses to hang up any pictures of black people on the wall when Buggin' Out creates commotion, “How come there are no brothers up on the wall?” The wall is an important symbol that serves as the driving point from which violence emerges. One of the first scenes of the movie opens up to a bright sunny day in a black neighborhood in Brooklyn New York. The hardworking lifestyle of some of the black characters are depicted-Mister Senor Love Daddy making a living out of being the host of the neighborhood's radio station, We Love Radio 108 FM, and Mookie making a living out of being the pizza-delivery boy at Sal's pizzeria. Racial tension is in the air, but it is not until Buggin' Out visits the pizzeria one afternoon and realizes that he has a problem with Sal's “Wall of Fame.” The Wall is important to Sal because it not only depicts famous Italian-Americans like Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, Liza Minelli, Mario Cuomo, but it represents these people as being the ones who made it possible for Italians to be recognized as full members in the American public sphere. On the contrary, for Buggin' Out, the Wall signifies the exact opposite, the black people's exclusion from the white public sphere (Mitchell 894).