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A Relevant Outsider or an Awkward In-between:
Assessing the Koreans in Do the Right Thing and in American Racial Conflicts
In his remarkable emsemble film Do the Right Thing(1989), Spike Lee portraits a diverse community in Brooklyn with White (Italian), Korean, Latino, and predominantly African American population. Within a hot summer day, multiple conflicts and dialogues happen among the residents and reach their climax when Radio Raheem was stifled and Sal's Famous Pizzeria was burned. While the complexity and depth of the movie enables a wide range of deliberation on racial and social issues, I found the Korean (and his family), an often neglected character in academic commentaries or public deliberations, contains great potential in the discussion. The image of the Korean not only provides an alternative for the framed binary discourses, but also functions as a mirror to reflect the validity and insufficiency of certain statements.Bartley (2006) examines the Malcolm-Martin polarity by addressing Mookie as a “wavering hero” between the two forces and the movie as an American historical romance. I argue that inDo the Right Thing , the Koreans is a relevant outsiders in the dialogues and Universalist community which Dr. King promoted and an awkward middle ground in the violence and confrontations from Malcolm X's perspective.
Do the Right Thingjuxtaposes two possible struggling methods against the ingrained racial inequality for African Americans: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s criticism on violence as “impractical and immoral” and Malcolm X's proclaiming on the emancipatory power of violence. I argue that by choosing Dr. King's position, one emphasizes on articulating the community. As Bartley (2006) suggests, communities with historical foundation and maintaining social stability and unique personals of its members requires cultural differences to be decentered and universally insignificant. While one can argue that the subject's actual split has been covered by the master signifier, constant dialogues secures the harmony of the community in the state of dynamic antagonism. Daily and peaceful dialogues are the center to Dr. King's conception on community. In fact,when Buggin' Out called for a boycott on Sal's Famous, most of the residents, aiming for sustaining the workable community, disagreed with him in various ways.
While the social interactions of the community are derived from and shaped by historical antipathy, they are also adjusted to the practical needs of sustaining the stability and balance of the community. For example, while Sal as a White person represents the suppressing power in the wider society on African Americans, his pizzeria was also welcomed by the neighborhood for 25 years; when Mookie smashed the glass, difference-blind universals are exposed.
The Koreans, however, don't have a history in terms of new immigrants to the United States (ie a year) and a marginalized ethnic group. Except for operating the grocery store, to some extent like a vending machine, they are out of the conventional social interactions that have happened and evolved for hundreds of years in America. Indeed, even when Bartley describes the unified attitude and actions of “the nonwhite community” after Radio Raheem's death, the Koreans, who clearly are not white, were ignored from this category. This awkward middle ground or outsider situation almost leads to a woeful submission which will be discussed later.
Although Buggin' Out, Radio Raheem and Smiley perhaps come to Sal's Famous for a progressive and agitating dialogue, its escalation to violence inevitably draw a cleavage, where dialogues becomes impossible and everyone has to choose side. The key question is, where does this cleavage lie? In fact, introducing the preferable cleavage is the techniques of many successful cases of identity politics. For example, by opposing abortion as a moral rather than a public health issues, President Regan and the Republican Party since then attracts more votes from Christian population . Malcolm X's advocation on violence as a disruptive force and a measure of self-defense also points to the importance of identifying the confronting groups and “the enemy.”
As Bartley (2006) fairly puts, “this is movie about choice.” While the characters are making choices at significant or inconsequential moments, the audiences have to individually determine if Mookie has done the right thing in the end. When Radio Raheen was choked to death by the policemen and the atmosphere was demanding for justice, Mookie must choose between letting it be and expressing his anger, and he throws the trash can and initiated the disturbance. More importantly, Mookie lives with his actions. For instance, if he chose the former option, he becomes a member of Sal's camp rather than rejoining to the other, whatever does that mean. In the Hysteric's discourse, the subjects make the master signifier more accessible so that they could revolutionaryly reject it, and thus they choose motion , thus erasing distances, over stasis,which reestablishes distance.
After the community sets fire on Sal's Famous, they turned to the Koreans' grocery store to “clean out”. The Korean man desperately waves a mop to defense his wife, his son, and their home. Firstly he shouts “I no White, ” and the crowd continues on moving towards them; then he hilariously and pathetically shouts “I'm Black.” (1:40:15). When ML responds to him, the Korean man said, “You, me, same.” The dramatic disparity of power at the moment puts the Korean family in the position that they have to choose the “black side.” Although, as mentioned before, the Korean family, as individuals or ethnic group, is not responsible for the historical conflicts between the White population and African Americans, their constant silence, while can be argued as indifference, implying their struggling efforts to avoid the situation of taking sides. Moreover,the language barrier of the Korean family makes them “half-man,” as Habermas describes the pre-Enlightenment women and children comparing to literate man in his famous work on the public sphere. Fanon also points out that the colonizers always treated and talked to the colonized people as if they are children. The grown-ups do the talking, and children simply accept their decisions. The hidden implication is, the Korean family doesn't have the right or the capacity to make alternatives for themselves.and children simply accept their decisions. The hidden implication is, the Korean family doesn't have the right or the capacity to make alternatives for themselves.and children simply accept their decisions. The hidden implication is, the Korean family doesn't have the right or the capacity to make alternatives for themselves.
In contrast to the insufficient voicing up, there is an over-expressiveness of voice and anger among the African American population. In the movie, almost every conversation carried out by Black characters, even if there are only two of them or they are families, were shouted out with extensive body languages. Similar to Roy Cohn in Angles in America , movements functions as a method to escape from dissatisfaction (McGowan, 2007). Has McGowan (2007) suggests, the failure of motions to deliver jouissanceindicating that “something…remains a transcendent beyond.” While the Black youth were hanging out g with friends, playing water by the fire hydrant, or chatting with each other on the street, they are still clouded by an invisible juggernaut of some lacks, either the meaning or practical objects such as proper employment, as Radio Raheem and Smiley constantly reminding them through music and photos. While American “road films” demonstrate the concept of the car rushing on highways as a way of running away from dissatisfaction, the motion of destruction in Do the Right ThingWhether the interesting juxtaposition on voice and motion indicates a manifestation of the reality that the Koreans and Asians in general are even weaker minorities (eg Bill AB1726) or the rebelling tactics and attitude of African Americans that Asians need to learn from, is beyond the capacity of this article on the movie itself.
Despite his recognition on the uncertain consequences of each choice, Bartley (2006) still matches the binary opposition of choices with the two sides of if being justice. Historical romance presents a negotiation between pre-revolutionary circumstances and future possibility (ibid), and Mookie either heroically refuses to compromise with the past reign or destructively caused hatreds and instability. However, as Lacan's social bonds demonstrate, different master signifier positions in different webs of relations to other signifiers, where they generate different meanings. The master discourse varies across times and spaces, dynamically making the same actions welcomed or inappropriate. For example, in 1950s and 60s, guerilla tactics, similar to violence in Malcolm X's sense, were widely adopted in decolonization movements of the Third World,while today, hit-and-run and sometimes civilian-targeted attacks are considered terrorism.
Nevertheless, who is “the enemy” of African Americans in the community? The racist cops, Sal and his sons, or the Koreans? There are at least two obvious qualities available that are always come in pair: well-being and whiteness. If Korean family was targeted exactly because of their relative well-being alone (eg at 39:10), then most black celebrities that Pino liked and Buggin' Out's potential candidates on the Wall of Fame at Sal's Famous, except for a few social activists, have to be “the enemy” as well. If “the enemy” is all about skin color, then Dadabhai Naoroji has to be excluded from the First Pan-African Conference in 1900, and Chinese people should have rejected Norman Bethune. On the other hand, White big bourgeois are unreachable to them, resulting in Sal's Famous as the only handy target as white people who owns a business.The ambiguity of “the enemy” in American racial conflicts contrasting to, such as liberating a country from the hand of imperialists, affirms the powerlessness and the lack of direction among the black people in “fight[ing] the power.”
The Korean family lies in a strange situation: they don't have the historical burden as the African Americans have, but they also are the minority and the suppressed population in terms of voice and wealth; they run a small business, but they didn't t accumulated their wealth in the White people's sense. However, for an either/or binary mindset, there doesn't exist a middle ground. There is no implication that the Korean family appreciates white privilege; their grocery store doesn't establish on exploiting the Black people; the Korean man was even the last person to let go of the police car which carries Radio Raheem's body (1:36:00). Regrettably, they are still framed in the conflict, while violence vigorously simplifies the situation.The position of Asians in the dynamic dialogue or physical antagonism between White Americans and African Americans needs to be thoroughly deliberated and properly confirmed, so that the racial justice of the US can be approached in a meaningful and productive way.
Work Cited:
Bartley, William. “Mookie as 'Wavering Hero': Do the Right Thing and the American Historical Romance”. Literature/Film Quarterly , XXXIV, 1, 2006, pp.9-18. FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals .
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