Sal, when he was being choked out by Radio Raheem. If the cops hadn't shown up it would have been a completely different story. I feel no sympathy for Radio Raheem. He was willing to take another man's life by choking it out of him, so when ironically he shares the same fate it is completely deserved.
shareI feel no sympathy for Radio Raheem, either. His own actions led to his death.
shareYou have to feel a little bit of sympathy but obviously the blacks (I'm black so it's not racist) were in the wrong. Radio Raheem wore the LOVE and HATE on his knuckles and that played into it. Sal destroyed Raheem's main love so all Raheem had left was hate. The cops had his feet off of the ground, hanging him though. That was overboard
shareI agree.
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By the time the fight left the restaurant, it was a free-for-all. However, in the restaurant, you can see some of the black kids try to pull Radio off Sal.
shareWell, Radio Raheem shouldn't have had his ghetto blaster turned up, but this was how he shielded himself against the world, which to him was crummy. Maybe if Sal had just turned the radio off and not smashed it, RR wouldn't have gotten enraged. To him, the radio is more important to him than people.
shareMaybe if Radio Raheem didn't come into the restaurant for a second time with the getto blaster turned up, he wouldn't have gotten it smashed.
shareWere you paying attention? Before the cops showed up, all the extras were shouting things like "Get off him, Radio, you're gonna kill him," and stuff like that. Both of Sal's sons were trying to pull Radio off the whole time before the police showed up. He's a huge guy, there was nothing they could do.
I don't think Spike Lee meant to portray Raheem as a hero at all. The police obviously had to pull him off, but they didn't have to kill him. That action escalated the situation past the breaking point. The point of the scene is that he becomes a symbol to the crowd by default of being a black man killed by the police, not because of anything he'd done. That whole climax is a messy, brilliant *beep* that shows how the racial tensions that laced New York society at that time brought out the worst in a whole community. It wasn't about either the blacks or the whites being "right."
A crowd that large would certainly be able to restrain Radio Raheem, they just chose not to.
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Also, I think it's worth pointing out that the short cop is trying to stop his friend from killing Radio Raheem. He keeps shouting "That's Enough!"
shareYou're wrong, the crowd didn't try to pull Raheem off. The martin lawrence group actually pulled Sals sons off from Raheem every time they tried to save their dad. They actually wanted Sal to die because he said the N-word when Raheem and Buggin were screaming at him.
They said something like "Oh we're N****s now?!" They were stupid and naive and thought that Sal "betrayed" them.
You're an idiot, dude.
SackofIdiocy is a more apt description.
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When we're thinking about our own brain, would that be a mental paradox??
Reality: I just proved you wrong and now you're simply pissed off. I know it sucks but sometimes you just gotta accept reality, little boy
shareI don't think it's fair to say he deserved to die, but, yeah, it's more than foul to try to KILL someone for smashing your radio... no matter how much you loved it. Especially considering Raheem just stormed into Sal's Famous with the music blasting and refused to turn it off - yeah, 'cos asking someone to turn off loud, obnoxious music on their personal property is just SO wrong...
shareIt's not the police's job to set punishment or whatnot for breaking the law, so they had no business taking Radio's life. Initially, they had him restrained so he was not a threat to anyone else's life. There was absolutely no need for them to go to that extreme, and they knew they were wrong which is indicated in their actions after.
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Did Radio have any business trying to take Sal's life? If he hadn't been stopped, he would've kept on choking him.
Sal was a human being as well, who was an Italian American who owned an Italian American pizzaria, and had every right to adorn the walls with famous Italians.
Double standards...
I don't see how it's a double standard at all. Had Sal been killed, Raheem would have done a bid in prison. With Raheem dying, the incident becomes larger than some punk kids who want pictures on a wall. The police have once again killed a young black male in his own community and the likelihood of there being any justice for it is slim to none. The crowd to me is coming to the realization that even in their own community, they have no voice, no power, and are not entitled to any justice. Attacking Sal's business might not necessarily be fair but I feel it's a realistic outcome of the outrage these people feel.
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No, it doesn't but once the kid is killed, all bets are off. In a rational and calm scenerio, none of these things had to happen but the heat is up and tempers are flaring. None of the behavior is excuseable in my eyes. The boys aren't right to invade Sal's business. Sal isn't right to destory Raheem's radio and curse him with a racial slur. The violence that follows isn't acceptable but the characters have run out of solutions and pride and anger are in the forefront. I think there's some weird idea that the destruction of Sal's is portrayed as a moral victory for the community when I don't feel that it is.
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Since when do police arraive at a crime scene, kill the suspect and not even stick around to take statements or calm down the growing crowd of people outside the store.
Totally unrealistic in that way.
Yes, it was pretty unrealistic having the cops all leave, but then this movie was pretty anti-police.
As for nobody caring about Sal, what would have happened had the cops not arrived and Sal had in fact been choked to death?
Pretty sure most people outside of the 6 in the shop when it started would've been pissed at Raheem and revolted(in a way) against him since the neighborhood respected Sal UNTIL this situation.
shareSince 1980's New York?
There was a documented case of cops busting drug apartments where all business was transacted through the mail slot and simply setting themselves up on the inside of the door and continuing the enterprise. A couple of cops choking somebody out and then bailing when things got hectic (both to avoid bodily harm and to avoid administrative repercussions) seems reasonably realistic to me.
WTF! You are basically saying: Oh, if Sal died, that would have been okay bacause the black community wouldn't really care about it but since it was a black guy, they had every right to loot the place of the people who did nothing wrong (except destroying a *beep* radio but thats not an excuse)
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