Social Discrimination And Racism In The Film Do The Right Thing

Colonialism, Genocide, and Slavery have haunted the United States for ions as a result of its decision making and power exuded over others. Something that all of these can be related to is racism. Some believe that racism does not exist today and some believe that it is not the same racism of old as in the 1940’s and 50’s. In the film “Do the Right Thing” producer and actor Spike Lee conveys racism, prejudice and discrimination a pseudo neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York in the late 1980’s. Among the many other sociological concepts and theories that are heavily used throughout the film, social stratification and claimsmaking can help one understand the many stages that the neighborhood goes through within the film.

From slavery to desegregation

The social problem identified is through the view of the subjective approach or the approach where a social condition is deemed harmful to society and can and should be changed. The social problem then goes through a process of claims making to media coverage to public reaction then to clams making is the claim needs revision. Once gaining a large enough public base the claim then goes to the policy making stage then off to the social problems work stage and then to a policy outcome. The claim or policy may be refined in any stage to create for a better claim that will provide the correct outcome of change. In the film Buggin’ Out, a friend of Mookie, states that there is a problem will Sal’s famous Pizza shop. In the shop there is a wall of fame with only Italians/ white people on the wall. Being that the pizzeria is in a largely African American community, Buggin’ Out makes the claim that there should be African American people on the wall of fame since they are the ones who spend most of their money in the pizzeria (Warrant). During the social problems process Buggin’ Out goes from making the claim that there are no African Americans on the wall of fame at Sal’s (claimsmaking), to telling everyone in the neighborhood to boycott Sal’s since he will not change the wall (media coverage). Buggin’ Out wants people in the neighborhood to boycott under the ground that Sal has twenty or so pictures of famous Italian people but not a single African American on the wall. The public’s reaction is that they refuse to boycott Sal’s since he is the only pizzeria in the neighborhood, makes great pizza, and that he had been there for decades without any trouble. The redefining of the claim is usually the next step to get the most people that you can on board to support your claim but Buggin’ Out continues with his same claim until he finds one person who will stand with him, Radio