New York Magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote, “If Lee does hook large black audiences, there is a good chance that the message they take from the film will increase racial tensions. Among some mainstream critics and pundits, the general concern was that the film would contribute to racial tensions. Produced after the well-publicized deaths of Michael Stewart (after an arrest by New York City transit cops), Eleanor Bumpers (in a forced eviction by New York City police), and Michael Griffith (hit by a car running from a racist mob), Do the Right Thing captured the rage experienced by Blacks, not just in the New York area, but nationally. Two years before the videotaped beating of Rodney King, and a full generation before personal handheld devices captured the police killings of Garner, Philando Castile, and Oscar Grant, Jr., Radio Raheem’s cinematic death in the film Do the Right Thing (1989) gave witness to the over-policing of Black communities and the coming crisis of gentrification.
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