Yep….I gotta do it. If you didn’t watch it, by now you’ve heard about the SLAP!!!! If not let me fill you in, last night during the Oscars, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. Chris made a bad joke about Jada Pinkett Smith and it resulted in Will losing his cool and walking up on stage and slapping him. He then returned to his seat and told him to keep his wife’s name out of his mouth.
I am floored. Anyone who knows me knows that Will Smith is my FAVORITE ACTOR. I have followed his career since 1985 and I have never seen him lose his cool this way. I have always admired him and his family for keeping a level of integrity throughout his career. He has tried to keep his life private and his family’s life private. For many years there wasn’t much gossip about him, except the occasionally Tupac/Jada jokes and the disdain actress Janet Hubert had for him.
But in the last four years, he and his family stay in and out of the gossip realm mostly due to Jada’s talk show Red Table Talk. They have aired dirty laundry and people have gone on tangents attacking them. From Jada’s “entanglement” with August Alsina to a petition signed by people who want them to stop doing interviews. I have said it before and I will say it again, the best thing about the internet is people having a platform available to express themselves and the worst thing about the internet is people having a platform to express themselves.
Well like everyone I have my opinion on the situation and of course, I’m all for Will. What I saw last night was a human losing his cool. Tired of putting on airs to save face, a person who was tired of caring what others thought, a person who was tired of the bad jokes. Now, do I condone what he did, OF COURSE NOT!!! BUT…I understand it. I understand that when you are a mild kind of go with the flow type person people see that as a weakness. I saw a man step outside of himself and let his emotions get the best of him. And guess what that’s ok. We have all done it!!!
But the backlash is the funniest part of it. People commenting on how horrible of a person he is, a clown, a loser, can’t take a joke, mad for no reason, ignorant, unfollowing him, begging for some sort of punishment.
He actually won his first and (quite possibly) his last LOL Oscar and there are actually people who think he doesn’t deserve it. What does the Bible say, he who is without sin cast the first stone. I need people to get a damn life. That man lost his cool for the first time in 40 years of his career and he needs to be canceled. REALLY??? Yet we will sit on Facebook, tik tok, and Instagram and make people famous by watching their fight videos or watching them troll others, etc. He made a mistake…DAMN he’s human and so what he’s a black man, sometimes you get mad enough to slap someone and no violence is not the answer but it happens.
I did a blog last month about black men not having a healthy outlet because everything they do is frowned upon. If they cry, they are weak. If they fight, thug. And this story right here is exactly what I mean. I heard someone say he has some mental health issues, hell we all do, and guess what most of us handle it way worse than he did. He is a celebrity, not superhuman, and not above making mistakes.
Give the man a break and allow him to redeem himself.
Love Sunshyne