During the overwhelming protests declaring, ‘Black Lives Matter’, Spike Lee decided to share his short film ‘3 Brothers – Radio Raheem, Eric Garner and George Floyd’ where he portrays racial police brutality.

The short film was released during Lee’s appearance on CNN’s ‘I Can’t Breathe: Black Men Living and Dying in America’ on 31st May 2020. His shirt read ‘1619’ which is the year considered as the beginning of slavery in USA, and he seemed confused as to why people are not understanding the ongoing movement for justice.

During the opening credits, a question comes up asking ‘Will history stop repeating itself?’ and we get to see a scene from ‘Do the Right Thing’, Lee’s 1989 film, where police officers are choking Radio Raheem to death. And, this scene is compared to the real footage of George Floyd and Eric Garner being abused in the similar manner.

Lee states that the ongoing protests are not a surprise and police brutality is not anything new, but what caught his eyes is the main difference in the 60’s riots against racial discrimination and today’s. It is that now there are thousands of people of other races supporting the cause which points to a direction of improvement. The diversity shows hope and compassion for change.

Spike Lee was born in 1957 and he saw the riots revolving around the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. He says that he had gotten inspiration for ‘Do the Right Thing’ from the reality around him, and it shows the death of Radio Raheem (played by Bill Nunn) sparking protests everywhere in the country.

‘Do the Right Thing’ ends with people burning down a restaurant, and Lee shared how critics were not amused with the destruction of a property or two, overlooking how a death of a young man lead everyone to do so. He also said that he is frequently asked if the ending of the movie is justified, but the people questioning it are never of colour.