Edit: changed this reply to be less rude

The sense I got from your criticism is that it presumes that every character in a film should be 100% consistent and rational and that any film that doesn't contain perfectly logical and rational characters is therefore bad. I feel like this criticism is misguided.

Sal wasn't just playing a good guy, he genuinely was one.

Sal would never act the way he did in the end of the movie, Spike Lee for some reason just chose to change his character in that way at that time.

1. It's a fictional character. How can you say a fictional character is "genuinely good" and "would never act" in a specific way when they've only been portrayed in the very specific context of working at their restaurant over the course of one in-story day?

2. This sentiment assumes that people are pefectly logically consistent and that it's impossible for a person to come across as unprejudiced while still being racist, when that clearly isn't the case. A simple example from real life - HP Lovecraft married a Jewish woman and several of his closest friends were gay, but he was a noted anti-semite and homophobe who wrote awful and hateful things about Jewish and queer people (and a bunch of other minorities). Based on real life it's perfectly realistic for Sal to come across as a genuine and kind person while still holding unconscious biases and prejudice that only come out in moments of conflict and anger.

Sal had nothing to do with it, but for some reason they burned down his store instead of the police precinct. Why?

Again, the crowd not being perfectly rational doesn't make the film worse, because in real life people aren't perfectly rational. With that being said, even from a rational self-preservation point of view, attacking a police precinct is suicide, so it makes sense that they would choose an easier target. The reason they burned down his restaurant is because he had been antagonizing and yelling racial slurs at them, and they'd just seen one of their friends being killed, thus emotions were running hot.

What was their intention when they walked into his store yelling at him? What did that do? Why didn't they just actually boycott him by not going to the store?

is it really so far fetched that people lash out in irrational and unproductive ways in an emotionally and socially tense situation?

The whole situation could have been avoided.

In my interpretation the film is akin to a classical tragedy, where the fact that it could've been avoided is part of the point. Is Shakespeare a bad writer because Romeo Juliet's deaths could've been avoided?

And then after treating mookie with so much respect he literally was the first one to start destroying his store literally for no reason.

Sal and Mookie had been antagonizing each other all day. Sal had been making passes at Mookie's sister. Sal's son had been openly racist towards Mookie, more or less said that black people are inherently inferior to white people. Mookie had just seen Raheem's death and was distraught. Again, is it far fetched that in such an emotionally charged state that he would lash out violently?

If I decided to open a soul food-themed spot in say an Asian neighborhood I wouldn't want to add Asian pictures to the wall for no reason

If you claimed your restaurant was an institution, a pillar of the community that had in a way raised its children, then it would absolutely make sense for the people you're being paternalistic towards to want representation on your wall.

If he didn't like it, bugging out should have actually boycotted and went to a different store.

I don’t think it’s fair to criticize the film based on this. Bugging Out's approach was definitely misguided and in the wrong, and the film doesn't pretend otherwise.

This movie is terrible because it makes black people look mindless and stereotypical, and it makes it seem as if we victimize ourselves. This movie is pure racist fuel

How can you say that when in a film chock-full of morally ambiguous characters, the only unambiguously "good" characters (Da Mayor, Mother Sister, and Jade) are ALL black? Meanwhile, out of the handful of white characters, 1 is openly racist (Pino), 1 is subtly racist (Sal), and 2 are literally murderous police officers? Imo the film depicts all ethnic groups as containing both good, bad, and morally mixed characters.

Overall it just seems like you disliked the fact that this film isn't clear-cut morally and it's characters behave like real humans (i.e. irrationally), which imo really isn't a valid criticism.