With 1989 came P.E.'s highest visibility and an increase in notoriety. Influential filmmaker Spike Lee included the P.E. single "Fight the Power" on the soundtrack to his hit movie Do the Right Thing; the song became a huge hit and brought the group to the attention of a growing number of white listeners. At the same time, Professor Griff, P.E.'s "minister of information," went public with a variety of anti-Semitic remarks. Suddenly Chuck and his colleagues found themselves in a rhetorical firestorm.
Chuck D quickly fired then rehired Griff--though relegating him to a diminished role--then announced the impending breakup of Public Enemy. Shortly thereafter, when interviewed on cable's Music Television (MTV), he seemed to contradict the proclaimed demise. The Los Angeles Times noted, "Several people who have worked closely with Public Enemy ... express concern about Chuck D's leadership abilities. They don't think Chuck D is a racist or anti-Semitic, but they fear he's in 'over his head' as a social spokesman, a role that was never imagined when the principals in the Public Enemy story first gathered." In his own defense, Chuck D explained to Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times that "the important thing to me was to make it clear that I thought what Griff said was wrong but to also show that we can forgive."
For his part, Griff decided to leave the group of his own cognizance. The conflict didn't end there, however. The success of "Fight the Power," also contained on P.E.'s third album, Fear of a Black Planet, was bolstered by the follow-up single "Welcome to the Terrordome," which in turn ignited more fury over the issues of anti-Semitism and what Hilburn categorized as "self-martyrdom." The lyrics in question included the lines "Crucifixion ain't no fiction / So called chosen, frozen / Apology made to whoever pleases / Still they got me like Jesus."
Chuck D insisted that he'd written the lyrics as a response to how he was treated after the Griff incident and not as a jab at the Jewish population. He complained to Hilburn, "You can't let your artistry be intimidated by the fear that people are going to misinterpret you. To me there's a bit of paranoia going on here. I was talking about a media crucifixion." Yet many refused to accept his stance. Light commented in Rolling Stone, "Public Enemy may still be rap's greatest talent, but the band is becoming increasingly hard to defend."
