Do the Right Thing, Bigger

In the process of creating their characters both Richard Wright and Spike Lee used their life experiences as molds for who they wanted these people to be.  Wright wrote about his experiences with people who did not care to obey the law, who preferred to live life the way they wanted to rather than succumb to the restraints set upon them by the white man.  Some defied Jim Crow, others fought those who oppressed them directly and physically.  Out of these actions came the birth of Bigger.  Lee created the characters Buggin' Out and Radio Raheem from whom he saw were the rebels of his time.  They wanted equality and would not accept life any other way than as autonomous to the white man.  The only way Buggin' Out knew how to get what he wanted (pictures of a black man or woman on the wall of fame) was through boycotting Sal's pizzeria.  But he could not do it alone, so he sought out reinforcements.  He found a partner in Radio Raheem and together they barged into Sal's to revolt.  These characters fought for what they believed was right, not what society told them was right.

A lot happened at the end of the movie: Radio Raheem was killed by the police, Mookie threw a garbage can into Sal's window, and the pizzeria was burned down.  The initial aspect I did not understand was why the policeman did not let go of Raheem as soon as he went limp or when he lost most of his strength.  Just because he was in the moment of defending Sal did not give him a reason to kill Raheem.  The policeman knew the possibility of him and continued anyway because his prejudices came to life when he observed Raheem on top of a struggling Sal.  Soon after he was killed Mookie threw a garbage can into Sal's window while yelling "HATE".  At first I could not comprehend why he would do such a thing, especially after Sal told him that he was like a son to him.  Then I began to consider the idea that Mookie saved Sal and his sons by doing so.  The only thing that didn't fit was that if Mookie did not throw the can through the window, the shop may still have been in tact.  In one swift act Mookie saved Sal, Pino, and Vito, and led to the destruction of the pizzeria.  He did what he believed was right, but it diverged into a positive outcome and a negative outcome.  Sal was innocent in the whole situation, but destroying the radio was not entirely necessary.  Radio Raheem was defending what he believed in when he died, but in the same token he died for minuscule reasons.  Buggin' Out was in the wrong for verbally abusing Sal for not having any black individuals on his wall of fame because the wall was reserved for Italian Americans, not whites specifically.  In the end not much right was done, but the chaos was necessary to teach the community the necessity of understanding and respect.

Robert Kennedy and the Assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

After King’s assassination Senator Robert Kennedy stated, “it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.” What did Kennedy see as the solution to the moral and political crisis in the wake of King’s assassination?


In the time immediately after King's death, it was necessary for the people of the nation to be kept under control.  At a rally for his presidency, Robert Kennedy, brother of John F. Kennedy, was given the job of presenting the horrifying news of King's assassination to the crowd.  "Just as an audience of nearly one thousand gathered, (John) Lewis learned of King’s assassination in Memphis. The staff agreed that Senator Kennedy would break the news of the tragedy to the predominantly black crowd."  Kennedy did his best to soothe the crowd in such a time of chaos.  He said "We can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend,and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love."  The citizens chose to express their grief in awful manners.  Many turned to violence in mass riots throughout the country.  It was sad for those pushing for peace because these riots went against everything King, as well as many others, stood for.  With the death of King, came the loss of peace.

Beloved - Memory, Rememory, and the Power of the Past (Chp. 9)

It seems as though one can never truly get away from one's past.  As a result of Beloved's extreme curiosity Sethe is constantly going back through the stories of her past as well as those of her relatives.  In an effort to clear her mind as well as regain some order in her life Sethe takes Denver and Beloved to the Clearing where Baby Suggs had preached.  She begins to feel calm until she felt the hands of Baby Suggs massaging her back.  While at first it felt good, it quickly turned bad when the hands began to strangle her.  Her past, she so readily became attached to, was causing her to suffer.  As Sethe was being strangled Beloved ran over to her and tried to calm her down by lightly placing her hands on Sethe's neck.  This frightened Sethe because Beloved's hands felt exactly like those of Baby Suggs.  Even more, Beloved had the scent of the dead baby which scared Sethe to no end.  Bringing back the past can lead to great pains if not filtered and controlled as demonstrated throughout the story.  Beloved is someone to truly pay a great deal of attention to because of her odd similarities to past relatives of the family.  We can only learn as the story unfolds.

Where Individuals Place Themselves in Society

On pages 24 and 25 of Self-Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson states, "Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh.  To be great is to be misunderstood."  He is saying that one does not need to "fit in" to be a contributing member of society, but rather the opposite; the less understanding people have of you, the greater amount of potential one may have to succeed in life.  According to Emerson, to be too much a part of society is to lose oneself among the rest.  This does not mean that one should make it a point to separate oneself from the rest of society.  One can live and even thrive in any environment alongside a multitude of other people, but to be sucked into one constant state of thought leads one to leave creativity and individuality behind.  To live as a conformist is to live someone else's life.  Be who you want to be, and no other.

Burning the Quran...?

After the radical Muslim attack on the World Trade Center, many Americans were quick to become patriotic.  Nine years later it has turned one man in particular into an American radical.  Reverend Terry Jones is an American preacher who seeks to put a quick end to the building of a Muslim mosque on ground zero.  He believes that burning the Quran will send a message to all Muslim Americans as well as those in the rest of the world.  In his mind, because the Quran is not the Bible, it is wrong.  "He cited his belief that the Quran is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims."  I understand where he may come off saying such a thing, but burning one book will not prevent people from reading it in other parts of the world.  Destroying the holy book would only enrage extremists to another level and add unnecessary violence to the equation.  While I do not agree with the construction of a mosque on/near ground zero in New York, I think that Jones is taking the wrong route to preventing it from happening.  The Twin Towers were brought down by Muslim extremists in the name of Islam and to build a monument that is preaching the same faith in the same area does not make any sense to me.  It is disrespectful to those who have lost loved ones in the crashes.  In conclusion, neither Reverend Terry Jones nor the people who want to build the mosque is correct.  Peace, in this case, can only be found through respectful inaction.

"The American Crisis" by: Thomas Paine

As I read the exerpt from Paine's writing I quickly realized just how much he cared for the situation his country and, of course his fellow American citizens, were forced into by Great Britain.  He states "Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but 'to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,' and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there no such a thing as slavery upon earth."  While I do not agree with his choice in similies, I am able to better understand just how much torture it must have been to live under British authority.  The main reason that I find his comparison to slavery incorrect is because there were still many black slaves at the time this piece was published; to bring up British enforcement of "slavery" on Americans and not American enforcement on blacks is undoubtedly hypocritical.  While I do not yet know how Paine felt about black slavery, I believe that he contradicted himself when he compared the American people to slaves.  To continue, Paine believed that if one does not fight, one shall perish.  "It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all."  Not only did he want people to fight for their freedom from the British, he believed that any and all who didn't would be stricken with evil by G-d himself.  The power behind his words is what persuaded many into battle.  I am sure that his mantra (had he used one) would have been "you have to fight for your right to be free".  Do you agree with this?