Do the Correct Thing

Ottotino Cappelli borrows from my “homie,” (fellow Brooklynite), Spike Lee, to start “The Race Debate in America and Italy”, by asking “Should We Do the Right Thing?” My reply is, “What is the “Right” thing to do? Sal's  (Danny Aiello) answer was “you gotta do what you gotta do.”, just before Mookie (Spike) threw a trash can into his Pizza Parlor window. Our debate is neatly framed by Maria Laurino asking if Italian-Americans could back Barack Obama in the next US Presidential Election, and Bill Dal Cerro asking whether Lee called the kettle black by complaining about Clint Eastwood (Hollywood’s) biased portrayal of Blacks given Spike’s own limited palette when it comes to Italians. Finally, Capelli asks if, given the recent “outburst of racism in Italy, "Have Italians-in-Italy learned any lessons from the troubled story of their own migration?" The honest answers to all three of these questions may not matter for, as did Mookie, they will do what they must whether it is correct on not.