Do The Right Thing

Over our Thanksgiving we were told for Project Renaissance to watch the movie Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee. In addition we had to read the book Why White Kids Love Hip-Hopby Bakari Kitwana. Both give a clear view of how racism is still around and how we have begun to look beyond it. In the movie the main character Muki is a regular working guy with a wife and kid. His boss is a guy named Sal who owns the local pizza place. Sal is a good guy who doesn’t really let color make a difference. The conflict in the movie is that Sal has a wall of fame that has photos of famous white actors and actresses. Now on one of the hottest days of the year a customer comes in and orders a slice, but ends up dissatisfied. While he’s eating he notes that there aren’t any black people on the wall and stirs up a verbal dispute. As the day ends more and more racial tension is stirred up and in the end, Sal’s shop that he worked hard to build is burned down by the local neighborhood. In reality this movie seems to take it to the extreme a little but has a lot of truth in it. Now racism is not openly displayed but it still exist. Now the book is about how now many white kids listen to hip-hop music and the black culture is being assimilated by white society. Which is true.

Now our newest blog for Proj. Ren is on the story and movie Brokeback Mountain. In actuality I think it’s an interesting story. It’s about to cowboys out in rural Wyoming who are herding sheep on a mountian and begin realizing that they have feelings for each other. What happens next is that since the general feeling around the area is homophobia they hide their feelings from the world. The next few scenes  are about how it has been four years since they last met and they now both have wives and children. Which I never thought would happen in the story. Then it goes on and you find out that one of the characters dies in an accident, and now it’s up to the other to fullfil the wishes of the deceased. In a sense the story kind of portrays the world around us. Now a days you hear about how the church is strongly against same sex marraiges and so is the government. But as the newer generation becomes more open and tolerant, I’m guessing that all these barriers are going to fall.