Boston Globe: Will Smith Assault At Oscars Is White America’s Fault

Black folk, and folk of color, are so often made to feel as though their pain does not count. Grin and bear it. Suck it up. Shake it off. It’s only a joke. I know how often I’ve had to do it. You swallow the pain again and again until it feels as though you might choke.

Few of us can fathom what it is like to be as wealthy as Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. Yet few of us know what it is to be on the receiving end of massive jokes for years, to have your children and your marriage made a mockery of and meme’d. And few of us know what it’s like to be the butt of jokes from someone who knows what fighting words are when he utters them and be expected to laugh it off.

For Will Smith, on the biggest night of his career, coming out of a contentious chapter in his marriage, to watch his wife be disgraced over the hair her disease attacks? Smiles pinch your spirit when your mouth is twisting up to hide the pain. It doesn’t make the slap justified nor does it make Rock right.

It’s all toxic. The humor. The slap. Hollywood.

Since Oscar night, there’s been so much yelling over who was right and wrong. There is no winning side. What I know: Jada Pinkett Smith was wronged.

Now people are calling for Smith’s arrest, for his award to be taken away, comparing him to killers and war criminals. They claim he made all Black people look bad. Racism always finds a way.

“He could have killed him,” Judd Apatow tweeted and deleted overzealously. Murder? An open palm slap? Folk cheer for worse on basketball courts and football fields. Had it been on the big screen, it would have been called riveting.

Apatow, who backed Lena Dunham when she defended Murray Miller against rape allegations by a Black woman, stays criticizing Black folk who defend these kinds of allegations. Again, what constitutes violence in America is who the victims are.

Similarly, grace and second chances depend on the who. Every single time. And if Black people are involved, politics will enter the chat.

Why hasn't Will Smith been arrested yet?

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) March 28, 2022

Much like white folk acted like Janet Jackson’s nipple was going to eat their children, there are now some claiming Smith’s smack was bad for their kids. There is more violence on cartoons and in superhero movies. There is more violence in the economic disparity of whose schools get funded, which students are over-punished, and the perfection we demand of certain folks.

A more gratuitous violence is teaching a whitewashed history of America so that white kids’ feelings aren’t hurt while everyone else’s reality is erased. These arguments often come down to protecting someone’s comfort, don’t they?

Comedians want to be rooted in freedom of speech and a good time. I get it. But at what cost and who is paying for it?

As we talk about Rock, Smith, harmless jokes, and what protecting Black women does and does not look like — don’t forget about Dave Chappelle. Stop closing your eyes to the trans folk his stand-up targets.

Even geniuses like Rock, Chappelle, and Smith, whom we admire, get it wrong sometimes.

Trans women of color, mostly Black, are being murdered for being who they are. For all the talk we do about stopping hate — we continue to deny this truth: the epidemic of violence against Black transgender women and trans women of color is real. Chappelle, in his effort to talk about white privilege in queer communities, erases that violence. Laughter cannot silence that pain.

Comedy is comedy. And free speech is a real thing. But like Wendy Rene sang, “After laughter comes tears.”

There is a way in which jokes can be wielded as weaponry, a slap across the face, and we all seem to wrestle with when we’ll acknowledge the sting.

The author’s bio:

Jeneé Osterheldt: Hi, my name is Jeneé. I’m your friendly newsroom angry black woman. The one that gives you hugs and sends you affirmations, but also speaks uncomfortable truths in an effort to create change.

I do things like call a liar a liar, a sexist a sexist and a supremacist a supremacist—even when it’s your president. For that, they call me angry. Like injustice, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and — you know— all the inhumanity shouldn’t make us angry.

“Why you got to be so brash,” readers ask. “Say it differently,” they demand. “That’s not the right way to protest.” “Journalists are supposed to be fair.” Since when did fair mean nice? The truth is the truth.

I used to run from anger, actively expressed opposition, madness. I was barely out of kindergarten the first time I tried to escape it. Momma said I rolled my eyes before I could even talk. Fact. Then she attributed this trait to my blackness. “There you go with that black girl attitude,” said the white woman who birthed me, the lady I loved with a face like mine and a war inside her.

It was there, that the shrinking began. Be small, don’t stand up for yourself, I thought. If you just make yourself less than, maybe you can get by. That shit ain’t work. Holding it in hurt.

You made up this headline.

R4 = Mensa member.

Did you even read the article, R4?

Oh ffs! People had better wake the fuck up and realize the only people holding you down are the rich fuckers and their bought politicians.

Of course there's a paragraph dedicated to the Stunning and Brave TWOCs......

Of course it’s White America’s fault.

What happened on that stage is why 80% of the country flees cities and want absolutely nothing to do with you.

"So it comes as no shock that we have trouble understanding the harm done to Jada Pinkett Smith by Chris Rock on Sunday night. Will Smith was wrong, and he apologized"

Who did he apologize to? Not to Chris rock, the person he assaulted.

Exactly.

What a weird culture we live in where any kind of violent outburst is justified and offending people is the greatest sin.

I love all the talk about white fragility. Having a violent meltdown because someone made an innocuous comment about your wife’s hair is pretty fucking fragile.

And I’m so sick of this talk about her medical issue. She has thick fucking stubble on her skull. You don’t get that with alopecia. The only medical issue is with her brain. She’s bitter that being rich hasn’t allowed her to grow white girl hair so she shaves it off and exploits a condition for added sympathy.

I remember when important events like this were exclusive. People said it was cruel but then again, we didn’t have any “incidents” like this.

R6 I did and she has a point.

She’s calling out selective outrage from white people.

I mean just look at DL - people have literally defended child rapist Roman Polanski. “Well! He didn’t rape her on stage!”

The criticisms of taste and class are absurd! Attacking black women’s fashion choices and Will’s slap are so SURFACE.

The Oscars went downhill in class and taste for 20 years as Harvey Weinstein was dominating the show as a powerful player while he had sexually assaulted half the women in the fucking theater.

But oh this year was so vulgar! Lol!

You can wave it away all you want, R14. People who aren’t ghetto trash and don’t live in households where violent eruptions happen like that at the drop of a hat were understandably disgusted and your excuses aren’t going to have much weight

Sorry you have to live like that, but people who weren’t raised in the slums of Compton find that behavior absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable.

And someone started a thread asking if we at Datalounge could discuss the Rock/Smith incident without mentioning white supremacy. Well, here's the answer. It was inevitable that a self-important black writer who is only capable of seeing the world through a singular lense seized the opportunity to blame the incident in some twisted manor on white America--and it took less than a day. If people are too quick to mention white supremacy in matters that involve any modicum of race it's only because people are too quick blame matters that involve a modicum of race on white supremacy. But let me guess, that's a white problem, too?

Black people find racism in everything. It's easier to blame all their woes on white America than to actually accept that everything that's gone wrong in their lives has to do with their own vulgar attitudes and laziness.

I see your point R17, but that's not all blacks think like that. The problem with editorials like the Globe's is that it reinforces those who do & reinforces the notion that all white people think all black people have that frame of mind. While this writer thinks she keeping it real for everyone she's actually doing more harm than help. She's enabling blacks who can't (or don't want to) get out of their own way & whites who are convinced they never will. This is the corner we've backed ourselves into, but this is also something this writer & her supporters will never understand.

This victim ploy of blacks is getting ridiculous.

Blaming non-blacks for Will Smith’s outburst from a fellow black comedian is absolutely insane.

The Oscars Smith-assault-event was a huge wake up call.

This reminds me of the black Twitter users who are claiming that this altercation between Will and Chris is a black person issue and white people have no rights to talk about it in-person or online. Never mind that this occurred at the Oscars, a historically white awards ceremony that is inclusive of international films, and was broadcast to millions throughout the whole world.

R20 is right. This thread should be shut down.

R14 You are absolutely right about the selective outrage of whites. Mia Farrow wrote a tweet yesterday, talking about how this was the ugliest moment in Oscars history. LOL, when twitter got done pointing out to her all of the hypocrisy surrounding the Oscars and white double standards throughout the history of the Oscars.

She had to delete that tweet and Twitter did not let up on her ass. Bet she regretted saying anything at all.

Don't ever forget. America was built on white criminality & stolen land.

The biggest thugs have always been white people.

My heart goes out to Mia Farrow. Although she's not technically Old Hollywood, her time overlapped with that era to an extent so it must have been shocking for her to see more than 90 years of integrity of the Oscars thrown out the window by Ghetto Smith.

Being ghetto does not take away from the white thuggery and ruthlessness of the Academys historical double standards.

And let's not forget how Hattie McDaniels was mistreated by the Academy back in 1940. Which was on of the incidents twitter pointed out to Mia Farrow, when she decided that what Will Smith did was the Oscars lowest moment.

Mia Farrow was taken to school yesterday. And let's not for get about Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polanski who couldn't even attend the ceremony for risk of being arrested for rape. Let alone being nominated in the first fucking place.

The Academy has displayed ugliness from the very beginning. It didn't start with Will Smith and it won't end with him either.

[quote]The biggest thugs have always been white people.

Go live in a black neighborhood and get back to us lol!

r3 Its almost comical that I didnt even need to read that to now exactly who this chick is. Of course she is a middle class, biracial (with a with mother whom she has issues with), bisexual/ 'queer' (who of course has a male partner).

These people are just walking stereotypes.

R27 Lol she clearly has major mommy issues. Kept making bitchy comments about her white mother. It's also hilarious that she said she looked identical to her white mother when there is clearly no resemblance so she's living in her own loony world as well.

"Don't ever forget. America was built on white criminality & stolen land. The biggest thugs have always been white people."

Bullshit. The entire history of the human race is rife with murder, war and theft, in every culture, continent and race. Brown and black people are every bit as guilty of it, and that includes native Americans, as well.

[quote] And let's not forget how Hattie McDaniels was mistreated by the Academy back in 1940.

Huh? They gave her an Oscar.