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Do the Right Thing: What Can I Add?

Do the Right Thing: What Can I Add?

Last updated on: August 18, 2026 at 4:38 pm by Chase Padusniak

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Do the Right Thing: What Can I Add? 2026-08-18T16:38:55-04:00 Chase Padusniak

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Spike Lee
Source: Wikimedia (Danny Norton)
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I’m late to the party. What else is new? Spike Lee is a strange figure for someone of my age and background. Raised white, suburban, and semi-conservative, I can’t say Spike had much of a role in my upbringing. I’m not sure he came up much. But, if he did, I imagine it was much in the way Al Sharpton did. And, well, my mom isn’t around to ask anymore. But she had strong, strong thoughts on the Reverend Alfred Charles Sharpton, Jr. Given Sharpton’s relationship with Roger Stone, maybe she would have come to understand him differently in time. We’ll never know.

And, as an adult, I’ve had little reason to love Lee either. When I think “Spike Lee,” his crypto ATM commercial comes to mind. Remember that? The one where he dishonestly argues that the limited bank access among African Americans means they should give themselves over the great crypto scam? Speculate, speculate, speculate.

Naturally enough, I put off watching Lee’s magnum opus Do the Right Thing (1989). Let’s get this out of the way: it’s a good movie. I don’t mean to tell tales out of school or whatever. But the reports are right; Mr. Lee did a damn good job. By the end, I had tears in my eyes. Even knowing where it was going, I couldn’t help myself. He builds slowly, develops complicated characters far beyond the racial stereotypes my mom might have imagined. I’m a fool; I should have listened. Hats off to Spike.

But none of that is all that surprising, at least I wouldn’t guess it is. People have been telling me to watch this movie for years. What can I say (exhausted and in my undershirt after work as I am) that shed any new light on a modern classic?

Not much. What I can do (and seem to be doing more often lately) is offer a reaction: what’s up with the ending? Juxtaposing the MLK and Malcolm X quotes feels powerful—I admit it. It grasps at some essential truth about what we’re now calling “Woke I,” the simultaneous recognition that unrest, looting, and destruction have reasonable roots but unreasonable consequences. I get that. But in light of the crypto commercial, I don’t know. I detect an emptiness there too, a kind of both-sides-ism, or at least an inability to make up his mind. Banks bad…so crypto good? MLK and Malcolm X both good but also bad? I don’t know exactly.

My brain is giving out. Good movie. Weird ending.

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