July 4, Reflection: Yo! Mookie, where are you? What are you doing?

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.
. . .
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

From The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron

Today, President O asks us to reflect – to ensure that the energy of the men gathered in Philly 233 years ago doesn’t haunt us but remains with us as attractive, inspiring, and relevant.  My reflection on the vibe – not the ghosts – of The Declaration heard around the way and around the candid world pushes me to the timeless advice, “always do the right thing.”

Twenty years ago I chuckled, got angry, cried, and cheered in a Boston movie theater – it was the first time I saw Do the Right Thing.  This was a movie about the neighborhood and City where I was refined. Do the Right Thing is a troubling movie with plenty of ambiguous points. While it may be a Molotov cocktail on race relations, I still count it as one of my favorites – some feared Do the Right Thing would excite domestic insurrections amongst us; I saw it as a freedom-inducing conversation.  I recognized my life, my neighborhood, my community (albeit, stylized) – this was a part of the conversation I lived about race, ethnicity, class, and the range of daring, despair, and beauty within urban culture.  The community in Do the Right Thing is gone and at the same time still there (even in the fly new New York and Obama’s cool, enlightened America).

The movie was an appeal to our collective native justice and magnanimity – a reminder of the consequences of deafness to voices of justice and of consanguinity.  This is the same appeal boldly made in a July declaration in Philly 233 years ago. Have we made good on the appeal? Sure, there’s been progress, but what is left to be done to improve our schools and communities, and make us examine what it means to be decent, responsible, and moral people within the places where we live and work. Big questions that the old men challenged the world to consider.

Still a good movie to see? Still worthy questions for reflections on a July 4, anniversary?

Here’s to a meaningful Fourth and a year of good reflection. Still trying to do the right thing. Peace.

(BTW: hope you catch my attempts at allusion to the Declaration.)