The Debate Over ‘Jungle Fever’ : PRO-LEE
T imes staff writer Itabari Njeri’s commentary on Spike Lee’s film “Jungle Fever” (“Doing the Wrong Thing,” June 23) has prompted an outpouring from readers, with responses supporting Lee outnumbering those supporting Njeri about 2 to 1. A sampling:
Anger and Civil Rights
Congratulations. The Times has hired a black-white girl to voice the fears of the right wing. In a well-written article in which she impresses us with her fancy words and misplaced quotes, Njeri shows once again that there is no fool like an educated fool.
However, she forgets that her education has come at the expense of people like James Meredith, Medgar Evers, Marcus Garvey, Stokely Carmichael and the many other black nationalists whom she so ungratefully bashes.
Njeri says anger seldom brings clarity, but the most effective civil disobedience movement started on that very emotion. It was freedom, not clarity, that Martin Luther King Jr. sought.
STOGIE L. HARRISON
Los Angeles
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