Yeah, I know I come in here a lot and apologize for my lengthy absence, but I can't even begin to articulate what the last 4 or 5 months of my life have felt like. There were really no words and had I been able to find them, they would never have conveyed the true essence of it all. I'm grateful that I am beginning to feel more clear in my thinking and though I had seriously considered taking this blog down, I was reminded recently that my voice was still needed - as inconsistent as it may sometimes be. "They will wait," he said. I don't have hundreds of followers here but if just one person feels that way and theirs are the only eyes that read this shit, it's good enough for me.
So let's talk about the slap heard 'round the world.
I'll preface this by saying I am conflicted about last night's events. There are sooooo many layers to this, I'm not sure I could address them all in one coherent post, but let's just talk about a few of the complexities that lie within. For anyone who may have slept under a rock and doesn't know what I'm referring to, I'm talking about Will Smith taking to the Oscar stage to smack fire out of Chris Rock for a joke he made about Jada Pinkett-Smith's bald head. In honesty, the G.I. Jane joke seemed rather innocuous to me and QUITE light given his usual style, but I fully understand how a woman dealing with the effects of alopecia might feel when someone clowns about it. That being said, I also fully understand how a man who has remained quiet and graceful through storms of media attention and social media ridicule might have hit a breaking point that even he didn't see coming and acted out of character, which seems to be the consensus. Like nobody thinks Will went to the Oscars planning to smack another grown man in front of all his friends.
[Sidebar: Yo, Meryl was fully flabbergasted LOL]
The composed adult in me says that there was a much better way to deal with Chris's joke than strutting up on stage at a [inter]nationally televised industry event and showing the world what the hand said to the face, but the "fuck around and find out" in me feels like right where you show that disrespect is where you deal with the consequences. And let's be honest: Will Smith has been quiet and graceful under all this fire he's been taking over the last couple of years, mostly behind his wife's public revelations about their marriage and other generally private matters. Among this fire has been Chris Rock's relentless jokes. This is what we do know.
What we don't REALLY know is what predicated Will's reaction. Of course, many people are saying that Will thought the joke was funny initially and it was the look on Jada's face that changed how he felt in the moment. I have a question: has anyone other than me ever seen a person laugh just before trying to take a muthafucka's head off? Has anyone other than me BEEN the person to laugh just before trying to take a muthafucka's head off? Because that's what it looked like to me after watching the video a number of times. What we are missing in all the footage I've seen is that few seconds between Will's apparent laughter and his leaving his seat. People are assuming Will saw Jada's face and reacted, but we don't actually know what brought him to his feet. Isn't it just as possible that there had been a conversation at some point earlier where Will had approached Chris about his reckless joking about their marriage, or his wife? Isn't it just as possible that Chris had been warned that further ridicule would not be tolerated and there would be hell to pay if the behavior continued? Of course, I have zero information supporting this having occurred, but isn't it just as possible as the story people are concocting about what transpired in those few seconds of video nobody actually saw? I'm just saying. There seems to be a little bit more to this than meets the eye. It doesn't translate to me that someone would actually find a joke funny, see disapproval on his wife's face and then storm the stage. That's a WHOLE 180 in 3 seconds that IMO, doesn't naturally result in what Will did next. It's giving "Oh, you thought I was playing with you?" and Chris was made to eat that. But now that I've watched the video 50-11 more times, I almost feel like Will was still laughing at the previous joke when Chris slid that G.I. Jane one through. Maybe he didn't really hear it, saw Jada's face and asked what he said and upon hearing it, decided playtime was over. Chile, IDK.
But what is so annoying to me this morning are all the irrelevant questions people are asking. "Would he have slapped [someone like] D.L. Hughley?" "Would he have slapped a white host?" It wasn't D.L. Hughley and it wasn't a white host. It was Chris Rock - the same Chris Rock who has a penchant for going too far. The same Chris Rock who has had Jada's name in his mouth for the last two years. Longer actually.
"But Chris is a comedian, it was just a joke." Listen. I don't think a comedian should have to censor themselves to spare people's feelings, but I do believe comedians - just like anyone else - needs to accept any potential consequences of shit that they do say. This is the whole reason some comedians no longer tell certain jokes. It's real out here. Freedom of speech does not grant you freedom from consequences.
"Will did that because it was on live television and he knew Chris wouldn't retaliate." Really? You want me to believe Will "snapped" in the moment but also had the presence of mind to assess the situation as an ideal time and place? Do you honestly believe the fucken Oscars would be anyone's ideal and time and place? What I will say to this point is that even though someone inviting themselves on stage usually results in a funny outcome, we've seen enough instances where said intrusion results in really uncomfortable moments that there should have been security stopping anyone from climbing onto that stage who wasn't supposed to be up there. I have said this many times, even when Lil Mama jumped on stage during Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' "Empire State" performance way back when. There are hundreds of high net folks in the building but there are also a host of other characters at any given show. Do you know how many celebrities and even Youtube personalities have stalkers? Has nobody seen the bodyguard?!! There is no telling who some people are or why they are approaching the stage and nobody wants to see anyone gunned down or stabbed up on national television by some nut job, or even a Will Smith who has been pushed over the edge. No one should be allowed on stage who isn't supposed to be there. Period.
"Why didn't Will slap August Alsina?" PLEASE tell me WTF August Alsina has to do with this? It's been said a billion and five times that the Smith's have an open marriage and the issue arose because of who Jada chose to engage with amidst their family's history with this individual, NOT because it was observed as cheating. August was also somewhat integrated into their family at a point, so the relationship between those two and these two aren't even close to the same, but again, WTF does he have to do with Will setting Chris Rock's face on fire? I truly hope no one out there believes that just because someone appears to let one person slide that their outcome would be the same. This is also something I've seen a number of times. I don't care how a person chooses to deal with someone else, it has NO bearing on how they will deal with YOU, should you choose to test those waters. But also, Will couldn't win for losing. It seemed he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. How long has this man been clowned for not protecting or standing up for his wife even though it was a bed that SHE made and had to lie in? Now he does and he's still getting hammered. You can say you don't agree with how he went about it, but when you call on someone to stand up, you don't get to decide how they do that. Another reason people really need to be careful AND mind their fucken business.
Lesson of the day is this: LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE. Especially the quiet, graceful ones. Stop poking the bear. Everyone has their breaking point and you could very well be on the receiving end of a shit storm of emotions that have been welling up inside someone that may or may not even be about you. Some people are quiet and calm because they know what the other side looks like. People who have grown and learned and evolved are still people. Like I said, the composed, responsible adult in me would love to think I'd have let it ride for the moment and saw Chris backstage or at a later time, but it didn't happen to me. And it didn't happen to you. None of us really knows how we might have reacted in a similar situation given everything else that transpired up until then. None of us knows.
And also take into account the private conversations between a husband and a wife. I am pretty sure that man has been subject to how Jada's been feeling about her alopecia. I'm pretty sure he knows how much hurt losing her hair has caused her, how many times she may have cried at night. Some have said, "Well it ain't like it's a terminal illness." No, it's not. But that is either a very callous response or ignorant response considering the relationship women in general have with their hair. I know women who would rather lose an eyeball than lose their hair. But even if you're not one of those, you have to understand the toll it could take on a person. Even the most confident person will begin to lose self esteem when any part of their body begins to betray them. In my opinion, it doesn't matter a single bit whether Chris Rock knew Jada was struggling with this disease. Why? Because the man championed a whole documentary about the black hair experience and knows it's improper to speak on any black woman's hair. There are whole laws being passed now to keep folks from doing it. It isn't that he "should" know better, he KNOWS better.
I know this 100% sounds like I'm #TeamWill thus far, but I'm not. I'm not #TeamChris either, although I do commend him for his restraint, which I think was part professionalism but mostly shock. It was clear he had no idea WTF was going on and probably thought this was going to be one of those "funny outcomes" I mentioned earlier, but that slap woulda put better men than him ON THE GROUND so shout out to that iron jaw, dude, cause MAN! But I think this was a really sad set of circumstances and I wish it hadn't happened at all. There are no winners here. Will what, made a statement and at the same time lost the respect of colleagues and a multitude of fans? Chris got bitch slapped on national fucken TV and now he probably can't go back to Brooklyn LOL. Nobody wins here. Seriously, it tarnished the rest of the night, including Will Smith's own Oscar win, not to mention other major would-be highlights of the show including wins by folks like Questlove and Samuel L. Jackson. It was just very unfortunate.
It is not lost on me that in his acceptance speech for King Richard, Will apologized to everybody in the building except for Chris Rock. This says to me that Will meant all five fingers of that shit, but I sincerely hope that the heads of our black entertainment family can bring these two together to hash it out to make amends or at least move forward without any further incidents. I do believe that once all the back and forth about right or wrong dies down, the only thing people will remember is that there is more than one way to be a man. Both these men are straight up G's for their respective actions and blame aside, that was the most gangsta shit any of us have or ever will see in our entertainment lives.
One last thing: so much talk about what Will should or should not have done in defense of his woman. Where is the talk about how Jada shoulda grabbed Will's arm and protected him from himself in that moment? When has she EVER protected him, for that matter? Mm. Guess y'all ain't ready for that conversation, huh?
*That part*
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