The 10-year anniversary of the Los Angeles riots passed last week and I initially didn?t think much about it. It wasn?t until I watched Spike Lee?s film “Do the Right Thing” in preparation for a film class that I started to remember the pointlessness of the whole affair.

Lee?s film predated the riots by three years, but his film dissects the anatomy of the mob mentality that takes over in moments of emotional pain, distress and frustration. The primary difference is that the character in the film who falls victim to police brutality dies, while Rodney King lived.

I can remember the riots clearly. I was a junior in high school, confused even then about the riots. I understood why they happened, but couldn?t comprehend how burning and looting your own neighborhood was a way to get back at the jury that freed four police officers who nearly beat King to death.

Like the characters in “Do the Right Thing,” the participants in the riots failed to realize that the shop and business owners were, in fact, part of their own neighborhood. They weren?t just destroying the shops of the Korean or Asian owned stores; they were destroying a part of themselves. There is a scene at the end of “Do the Right Thing,” where the Korean shop owner looks on as the angry mob destroys an Italian pizzeria and then turns toward him. He looks at the mob that is filled with vengeance and hate and says, “I am you. I am black.” The mob looks at him and it finally dawns on them that the Korean is right. He is like them, just trying to carve out a life for himself and his family.

And apparently, 10 years later, some of the citizens of South Central Los Angeles have still not learned. In a Reuters article, a motorist driving by the intersection of Florence and Normandy, where white truck driver Reginald Denny was beaten by an angry mob, was quoted as shouting, “Burn the corner down again! Ain?t nothing?s changed!”

Maybe nothing has changed and your neighborhood still has its problems, but what would you solve by burning it down? The message of Lee?s film is to choose your battles wisely and fight for what is right, not what?s wrong.

It was right to fight for justice concerning the beating of King. Most people would agree that no one deserves to be beaten like that, regardless of whether or not they lead the police on a high-speed chase or are high on PCP. It?s clear from the video, rivaled in notoriety only by the Zapruder film, that King wasn?t fighting back when the officers were kicking him and wailing on him with nightsticks.

But you don?t fight for justice in streets. You fight for it in the courts of justice and public opinion, you don?t destroy a neighborhood to prove a point. Sometimes it?s tougher to wait for the anger to subside and do the right thing.

Do the right thing. E-mail Matt Wagar at [email protected].

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