Before Cellphones And Dashcams, All We Had Was Radio Raheem

It is now common knowledge that cops regularly choke or shoot the hell out of black people for minor offenses, or no offense at all. Technology has forced white people to witness what “protect and serve” looks like to Black America.

It’s not new. That white people have suddenly become aware of it doesn’t mean that the problem is new. In related news, North America was here all this time, long before Europeans “discovered” it.

African-Americans tried to make this point to their white friends and neighbors. Their colleagues. Their fellow Americans. And one of the most powerful versions of the reality of Black America is captured in the movie Do The Right Thing. The most famous Spike Lee joint is a fiction, but it could be treated as a dramatization of life in some neighborhoods.

Bill Nunn played “Radio Raheem” in that movie. His character used to walk around with a boombox, playing his music loudly (Dear Millennials: magic phones that carry around the entire history of recorded music are, kinda, new). This would piss off the white people, but Radio Raheem was generally harmless. In the movie, after a dispute, Danny Aiello destroys Raheem’s boombox. They get into a fight. The cops show up. They choke Raheem to death.

Nunn died today. He was an accomplished character actor. But his death is giving a lot of people the opportunity to talk about Radio Raheem, and the character’s relevance to today’s climate. From the Washington Post:

“Ironically for these times one of Bill’s most notable roles is Radio Raheem the [black] man who died from police brutality,” tweeted Morehouse College President John Silvanus Wilson. Nunn was an alumnus of the college.

“Bill Nunn’s depiction of Radio Raheem in ‘Do the Right Thing’ illuminated the murder of black men by police before recent real life videos,” actor Wendell Pierce tweeted.

Lee himself has highlighted the relevance of Radio Raheem today, particularly following the 2014 death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Staten Island man who died during a police takedown caught on bystander video.

That’s a fine narrative, but my truth is somewhat different. What strikes me on this occasion is how hard it seems to be for white people to just believe us. You can’t spend five minutes talking about racism or prejudice in this country without some white person asking you to “prove” it… and prove it only with facts that they acknowledge as relevant. You always have some white person who would rather explain away racism than confront it. Somehow, just listening when black people are trying to explain it to you is never enough.

People don’t believe us. Now, everybody can see how the cops operate. But still there are those who want to act like those are isolated incidents. What is Spike Lee’s prize for being absolutely accurate about this mess in 1989? Does that make you more inclined to listen to him now? Probably not. What’s the next thing that black people are trying to tell you that you won’t believe until you see incontrovertible video evidence of the effect?

R.I.P. Bill Nunn. You tried to tell people what time it was.

Bill Nunn, Who Played Radio Raheem in ‘Do the Right Thing,’ Dies at 63 [New York Times]
What inspired ‘Do the Right Thing’ character Radio Raheem, and why he’s still relevant today [Washington Post]

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Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. Y’all should also watch School Daze.