I remember well the reaction people had when Mookie threw the garbage can through Sal’s window in DO TGE RIGHT THING. I remember it because, in 1989, it was my 19-years-old dumbass reaction. Texas white kid, too stupid and ignorant to know better. (1)

But I watched it again. And again. There was an urgency and a universality to DO THE RIGHT THING that was undeniable. And Spike does something simple, and yet perfect: you spend 90% of the movie just living these lives. All of them. Mookie. Sal. Buggin’ Out. Radio Raheem. (2)

The empathy for everyone in DO THE RIGHT THING is off the charts. People do things you laugh at. They also do things you don’t like. No one is perfect. But in knowing them, you understand them. And then things escalate, and Radio Raheem is brutally murdered by the NYPD. (3)

Then the NYPD cowardly leave the naighborhood, and the community there rages in fury, frustration, and powerlessness. What can they do? Every day. The same bullshit.

Mookie throws the garbage can because there is no other choice. Nothing else has worked. (4)

Mookie did the right thing. It took me a few years to figure that out. But I eventually did.

America asking the question of whether Mookie did the right thing is absolutely the wrong question. The question America should be asking is: why do we keep doing the wrong things?