Do the Right Thing

I want to start this post by saying I thought the movie was great.  It really did a good job of discussing race relations in the late 1980s/early 1990s. 

The part of the movie I would really like to focus on is the role of the Korean shop owner.  I thought it was very interesting throughout the movie how all of the characters treated the store owner and the store itself.  I thought one of the most telling parts of the movie came when one of the three old men that sit outside and just talk about all the things going wrong in the world brought up the store.  One of the men said it was good that the Korean man had managed to become successful and find a business that he could operate, but immediately one of the other old men became angry because it was a Korean who owned the store and not a black man.  I thought it was particularly interesting that even though the Korean was not white and was likely just as oppressed as those three black men, he was still upset simply because it wasn't a black man who had started a successful business.  Though the neighborhood complains of the racism that Sal commits, they themselves are just as racist and do many of the same things that Sal does.

I also thought it was very interesting in the end of the movie that after destroying Sal's they go to the store owned by the Korean man and start to think about destroying, but after thinking about it for a little bit they decide that it would be wrong of them to do.  They have no problems with him because he is being oppressed, but who is he being oppressed by.  Not any Italian-Americans or white people, but instead they are the ones doing the oppressing and they have no problems with it.