The history of the world as well as the history of America is too often the story of neighbors acting unneighborly with one another.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the latest and most outrageous example of this. North and South Koreans are mostly related to each other, yet they are deadlocked in animosity. Afghanistan's 30 million inhabitants surely have much in common, yet they are fractured into an almost impossible to understand distrust of feuding religions and ethnic tribes.
Yet make no mistake, this is also an American challenge. We are an experiment in inventing and creating a constitutional Republic. But we are also an exceptional experiment in our striving to welcome and to integrate the most diverse populations of any major nation in history.
The Statue of Liberty in New York harbor has this poetic mantra: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Those words came well after our founding as a nation, but they are as central to the idea of America as our aspirations for constitutionalism and kindred American Dream ideals.
Working things out amicably with one's neighbors has never been easy. Look at Athens and Sparta, or Northern Ireland, or Palestine and the Israelis, or contemporary Libya, or the millions of mostly Muslim Uyghurs being "reeducated" by China.
Why did Alexander the Great act as he did? Why did Hitler act as he did? Why is Putin acting the way he is doing right now? Why did we have slavery, serfdom, feudalism, colonialism, gangs and imperialism?
There are a few simple answers. Power and glory are intoxicating. Bullying often works at least in the short-term. Religious differences and ethnic and identity politics contribute in unclear yet disruptive ways. Paranoia and fear, as amplified in the novel and movie "The Lord of the Flies," is sometimes a factor as well.
Fear, poverty, lack of security, inequality and excessive pride are probably just a few of the contributing factors as to why gangs form and neighborhoods go to war with one another.
American movies and novels remind us of our own struggles to transcend neighborhood feuds. Helen Hunt Jackson's writings, especially "Ramona" (1884) and its dozens of theatrical adaptations (plus a 1936 movie), vividly described how West Coast Anglos and Hispanics exploited and poorly treated Native Americans.
John Nichols’ "The Milagro Beanfield War" movie (1988) captures, sometimes humorously, how long-term Hispanics in a New Mexican township became manipulated by wealthy and political elites who were the opposite of good neighbors — especially when it came to water rights.
The cult film "The Salt of the Earth" (1954) tells how hardworking Mexican Americans were fought by mine owners and local political authorities when they tried to organize a labor union for better wages and working conditions. This film, union funded and made mostly using real workers as opposed to actors, was considered communist propaganda at the time of its release.
"Blood In Blood Out" (1993) takes us inside Los Angeles gangs and California prisons and tells us about Latino struggles. The Hollywood classic "West Side Story" (1961 and again in 2021) focuses on gangs versus gangs, one of which is Puerto Rican. The two West Side Story films do not describe neighbors working and playing together. They are great movies and musicals, yet they often promote stereotypes and are the antithesis of the "Will you be my neighbor?" themes offered in Fred Rogers’ aspirational television series for children.
Two World War II-era classics, "Snow Falling on Cedars" (1999) and "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955), depict European Americans at their most embarrassing behavior — persecuting patriotic Japanese Americans who had fought for and supported the United States during World War II.
Black-white relationships in America instruct us how powerfully slow it has been for our country to live up to its Jeffersonian ideals that all persons are created equal.
Two of the bestselling American movies a century ago were "Birth of a Nation" (1915) and "Gone with the Wind" (1939). These films were overtly racist, supported white supremacy, and encouraged Ku Klux Klan (KKK) activities— and they were the most watched movies in their generation.
Southern white novelist Harper Lee's novel and movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1961) tried to portray a South that was trying to change. The film at least had some white locals who would stand up and defend their fellow Black neighbors. But her bestselling novel and terrific movie were full of old stereotypes and devoid of African American heroes. And injustice, not justice, prevailed.
One of the most instructive correctives to the "Gone with the Wind" narrative was Solomon Northup’s "Twelve Years a Slave." Northrup describes being born into freedom but captured and forced into the harshest form of slavery on Deep South plantations. His memoir was written in the 1850s, around the time of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The film "12 Years a Slave" (2013) took a long time to become a movie, but it will endure as one of the best testimonials to America's original sin.
Toni Morrison's novel "Beloved" is far superior to the film (1998) with Oprah Winfrey, but both novel and film are important if we want to remember our past. They are justifiably part of the American canon.
"Glory" (1989) is a must-see movie documenting the North's first all-Black Army regiment. The 54th Massachusetts infantry was recruited in Boston in 1862 and moved South to eventual combat in Georgia and South Carolina.
Their officers were white, but the story here is that the soldiers proved to be every much as capable and patriotic as any other regiment. Even though they failed at the second battle of Fort Wagner on July 7, 1863, their value and bravery led President Lincoln to recruit many more such African American regiments, totaling nearly 200,000 men. Some scholars suggest the example of the 54th regiment and the engagement of these additional troops may have been a critical turning point in the success of the North.
"A Raisin in the Sun" (1961) should be watched and rewatched for several reasons. It was the breakout movie for Sidney Poitier, who gives a brilliant performance as an anguished working-class African American trying to make a living in racist Chicago in the 1950s. He and his family buy into the American dream — the goals of a home of their own, better jobs, and college educations. But the obstacles are great. This is a consciousness raising film and, in some ways, a parallel story to Steinbeck's classic film "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940).
"Raisin in the Sun" has more optimism in it than Richard Wright’s brutal classic novel "Native Son," which was also based in Chicago a generation or two earlier. Unfortunately, a good movie of Wright’s novel has yet to be made.
Sticking with Chicago for a moment, we recommend watching "Judas and the Black Messiah" (2021). Be warned, this is not an easy film to watch. It is the story of the Black Panther Party in Chicago in the 1960s. It profiles Panther leader Fred Hampton as a charismatic organizer who becomes a cult leader as he tries to deliver community services and form a Rainbow Coalition to combat Mayor Richard Daley’s political machine in Chicago.
The Judas in this story is an FBI informant who, in exchange for being let off from a long prison sentence, agrees to help infiltrate the Panthers’ organization and gather evidence to help convict Hampton.
The movie and a subsequent successful lawsuit suggest that the FBI essentially killed Fred Hampton. This of course was the same FBI that also infiltrated the Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. organizations in the same era.
Two good “coming of age” films are set in African American neighborhoods. "Boyz n the Hood" (1991) is a superb yet disturbing story of growing up as a young man in gang-ridden south central Los Angeles. There is also "Moonlight" (2016), which was the Academy Award winner for best picture in 2017. It shows the “coming of age” of a poor gay Black youth in Miami. He is the son of a drug addicted single mom, and he is bullied, betrayed and barely makes it. Ironically, he is mentored by the drug dealer who sells drugs to his mom.
And then there are a several Spike Lee classics.
Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" (1989) does a remarkable job of capturing a single Brooklyn city block on the hottest day of the summer. Spike Lee is a star in his own movie. He has a Puerto Rican girlfriend, and he works for Sal, the owner of Sal's famous Italian pizza shop across the street from where Spike Lee’s character lives. He shares stories of a Korean owned grocery store and the local police, who occasionally show up to quiet things down.
Spike Lee's neighborhood memoir is full of nostalgia, restlessness and an urban ethnic angst. Racial and ethnic groups struggle to coexist, and nobody is sure of what is the right thing to do. Lee hints that there is the Martin Luther King Jr. way to do things (moderation), and alternatively there is the Malcolm X approach (confrontation). Lee leaves his viewers to consider all the options even as makes his film in the aftermath of the assassinations of both X and King.
But both of those ideals are questioned by the turn of this movie. The movie will remain a landmark of capturing a neighborhood and its insecurities. This great film raises many more questions than it answers.
"Malcolm X" (1992) is another Spike Lee classic. It is based on autobiographical notes written by the famous Roots author Alex Haley. It stars Denzel Washington.
Malcolm X grew up in the Midwest but moved to Boston, where he became a criminal. He converted to Islam in prison and emerged as a disciple of Elijah Muhammad.
Malcolm X became a changed man, devout religiously and a major advocate of Black supremacy and even racial geographic separation. He became a strident advocate of Black rights and a skilled orator. He was a dogged organizer and shared stirring comments. He dismissed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 as an example of “the chickens coming home to roost” — a judgment that caused a significant backlash to X, including temporary exile from the Islam movement.
In 1964 Malcolm X traveled to Mecca, where he met Muslims of all races. He began to understand the need for tolerance instead of separation. He began to see the need for neighborhoods to collaborate rather than fight each other.
A year later Malcolm X was assassinated by some of his former associates in the Nation of Islam.
Spike Lee’s film is an empathetic yet realistic portrait of one of America's most famous radicals. Malcolm X seemed to be growing more moderate in his last years. Ironically, as Malcolm X became more moderate, Martin Luther King Jr. was becoming more radical. King did not attend Malcolm X's funeral (which had 30,000 mourners) yet telegraphed X's spouse that "I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had the great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem."
One lesson here is that, even as we Americans implore the rest of the world to honor human rights and human freedoms and national sovereignty, we too have struggled — and are still struggling — to live up to our humanitarian ideals.
We need unified communities and neighborhoods that are willing to put common goals ahead of ethnic and geographic sentiments. Identity politics is understandable, yet it can deter a nation and its communities from bringing about progress. We celebrate freedom but want every neighborhood “to breathe free” in its own way.
Dissent and political opposition can be appropriate. That's why the women's rights, civil rights, and gay rights movements were right in pressing for reforms. In each case, it was a hard-fought struggle. And yet, it was almost always a “neighborhood up” rather than a “leadership down” sustained organizational movement that ensured political success.
As James Madison noted, factions are inevitable in any society that allows for freedom. But we also need to learn that a hyper-factionalized nation, where neighbors do not act like neighbors and where gangs and bullies are tolerated, is a nation that probably will not long flourish.
Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy write about national and state politics.
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