Director and actor Spike Lee portrays his interpretation of the relationship between races in his movie Do the Right Thing. This movie takes place in the 1980's in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York, a mainly African American community. This film displays the discrimination between the races and how this can lead to violence. Spike Lee's character, Mookie, is a young black man who lives with his sister, and works at a pizza restaurant. Sal is the owner of the pizza restaurant and father of Vito and racist Pino. Jade, Mookie's older sister, wants him to get a real job and start taking care of his own responsibilities. One of Mookie's friends is Radio Raheem, an intimidating man who rarely speaks but blasts his favorite song "Fight the Power" a rap by Public Enemy, on his boom box everywhere he goes. Another of Mookie's friends is Buggin' Out; a man who is infuriated with Sal for not having any "brothers" on the wall at Sal's restaurant. Buggin' Out starts a boycott and recruits Radio Raheem, on a day where tensions are already at a high, this leads to very dangerous consequences. Mookie has a very difficult part in this movie; he has to choose which side he should take in all of these racial altercations. During the credits, Spike Lee chooses to display two quotes, one by Martin Luther King, Jr. and another by Malcolm X.
Nearing the end of the movie, Buggin' Out and his partner Radio Raheem confront Sal as he is about to close his store. Radio Raheem deems it okay to walk into his establishment with his boom box turned up very loud, and starts a verbal fight with Sal. Sal is not a very calm man and so he decides to shout back at Radio Raheem using a racial slur, and threatening him with a baseball bat. After a while of them fighting back and forth, Sal breaks the boom box and that crosses the line for Radio Raheem. This breaks out into a physical fight which leads outside where Radio Raheem starts chocking out Sal.