I'm with Kareem
Slapping Chris Rock was also a blow to men, women, the entertainment industry, and the Black community.
kareem.substack.com
a loving husband defending his wife. Comedian Tiffany Haddish, who starred in the movie Girls Trip with Pinkett Smith, praisedSmith’s actions: “[F]or me, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.”
Actually, it was the opposite. Smith’s slap was also a slap to women. If Rock had physically attacked Pinkett Smith, Smith’s intervention would have been welcome. Or if he’d remained in his seat and yelled his post-slap threat, that would have been unnecessary, but understandable. But by hitting Rock, he announced that his wife was incapable of defending herself—against words. From everything I’d seen of Pinkett Smith over the years, she’s a very capable, tough, smart woman who can single-handedly take on a lame joke at the Academy Awards show. |
“it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives”
This doesn’t necessarily mean defending your wife. Men that love and care about their wives, doesn’t mean thinking they are defenseless. It means actually standing with their wives.
Will standing up to slap Chris doesn’t equate to the message that he needs to protect Jada cause she’s defenseless. It’s standing with her. Jada rolls her eyes showing disapproval of the joke, then Will slaps showing he stands with her.
Kareem is also framing this as a joke with no context. This is a joke with undertones of making fun of black women for their hair. Jada is able to stand her ground and show everyone she is not ok with the joke, she IMMEDIATELY defends herself by rolling her eyes, which presumably prompts Chris to justify “whatttt it’s just a joke.” Will also showed everyone he was not ok with the joke, in a wrong way by slapping Chris.
But what to get out of this is not an example of “the wife cannot defend herself.” It’s an example of a husband standing ground with his black wife, that this joke is not ok. She ALREADY defended herself a different way (which guess what, wasn’t noticed as defense by Kareem, HUH) the only reason Kareem sees this as a “damsel in distress” situation is because I guess her eye roll wasn’t a strong enough defense to able to be seen by Kareem, but Wills slapping and shouting defense was definitely enough to be seen as a defense by Kareem (huh interesting, also interesting the fact that he mentions in the article that he is against Will’s forms of defenses. Then what defenses are there left as an in the moment defense, since he obviously doesn’t recognize the eye roll as an actual defense. Maybe the line for impact is yelling
).
I’m not gunna pretend that I know for sure that Will or Jaden doesn’t have this ingrained moral that tells them they need to be protecting women. I will note that Will’s speech didn’t specifically say “protect women” he mentioned the movie character protecting his female family members. Outside the movie, He mentioned generally protecting his people. Perhaps they do have some sense of protecting women code. BUT I still do not see the altercation as a “damsel in distress” situation.
CaptainEO said it already, problematic for him to write that the Smiths gave white people an example of bad black stereotype. If a white person saw this and thought it meant that black people are violent, that’s THEIR OWN fault for being racist.
With the new news of Will refusing to leave, and all the context I will say: Will has work to do with probably his ego, and his impulses and emotions. But I find it funny that all these articles are critiquing Will but not Chris for anything.
So to tie it back to this particular piece by Kareem, I find it hypocritical that he is talking all this talk about being for the women and for the black people and he doesn’t even critique the jokes of Chris with all the racist and sexist undertones. He spends all this time criticizing Will then near the end just says
| The one bright note is that Chris Rock, clearly stunned, managed to handle the moment with grace and maturity. |
No mention of Penelope joke that women aren’t able to handle losing to their husbands, no mention of joke mocking Jada’s hair, a black women sensitive topic that Chris is fully aware of. Nope Chris is completely off the hook by Kareem even though he is supposedly supposed to be for all these good causes he mentions. He sees this whole thing the way most everyone else sees it.
Simply : Slap=violent, badddd. Joke=not violent, goodddd. Therefore Will Smith badd Chris Rock goood.
