Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, two authors, two activists who advocated different strategies to achieve a shared end, have since their deaths, transcended the local, pragmatic potency of their respective narratives of African-American resistance (Garrow, 1991). The film 's use of the metonymic figures “King” and “X” as well as the ethically divergent meta-narratives of which they are the cultural signifiers suffuses its dramatic structure with the ideological tension generated by the trope of “double-consciousness” (Garrow, 1991). The vehicle by which Do the Right Thing represents the black community reminding itself, so to speak, of the presence of these figures is the ubiquitous Smiley, a young man with cerebral palsy who earns money selling photographs of African-American heroes to his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbors. The film calls attention to one image in particular: the famous photograph of King and Malcolm X shaking hands and smiling during their first and only meeting. While King had focused on loving our enemies, Malcolm X called us back to ourselves, acknowledging that taking care of blackness was our central responsibility. Even though King talked about the importance of black self-love, he talked more about loving our …show more content…
Our guide is Mookie (Spike Lee), a pizza delivery boy who lives with his sister Jade (Joie Lee). He also has a son with his girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez), who chides him for not coming around often enough. Mookie cares for his girlfriend and his son, but most of his time is taken up at Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, run by Sal (Danny Aiello), who proudly displays famous Italian Americans on his wall, and his two sons, the racist Pino (John Turturro) and the open-minded Vito (Richard