During the 2022 Oscars, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, a presenter, in front of a live audience and swore at him because Chris Rock made a dig at Jada Pinkett Smith. This was the second time that Chris Rock used the Oscar platform to throw digs at Jada Pinkett Smith.
People have been outraged at Will Smith’s actions, and one of the recurring condemnations against Will Smith is that violence is not the answer.
In Part 1 of Why I support Will Smith, I showed how Chris Rock has been targeting Jada Pinkett Smith in his comedy since 1997, and how I believe Will Smith had warned Chris Rock to stop targeting his wife. I also pointed out that Will Smith is not a violent man, and had probably tried to deal with this situation non-violently for a long time.
In part 2 of this 3 part series, I want to elaborate more on why I feel like the violence (the slap) in this situation was ok.
Why was the slap ok?
As I have thought on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock during the Oscars, I have questioned myself about whether my opinion is the correct one. Something in me has to ask: was there a better way he could have handled it without the violence?
But first, I recognize that by slapping Chris Rock and not punching him, Will Smith was not trying to beat up/beat down Chris Rock. It was done to humiliate, not to injure. And I respect that.
However, sometimes my mind thinks that that slap was unnecessary, he could have done things differently and in a more ‘mature way’. In fact, if Chris Rock had been harassing Will Smith publicly under the guise of comedy for years, I would never approve of Will Smith slapping him and making a scene. I would expect Will Smith to find another way to deal with that harassment without using violence.
However, the moment I bring Will Smith’s wife, a woman, into the equation, everything rearranges itself, and I have to condone that slap.
The reality of being a woman in this world
Now I want you to listen carefully, especially if you are a young woman.
Do you know why women have been subjugated throughout history for thousands of years up to the present day? Why is it in every culture woman have been and are still oppressed? Women have been married off for centuries without their consent, denied the right to make their own decisions for their lives, forced to cover themselves and their hair as if they don’t have the right to their own bodies (if you cover your body/hair by choice please keep in mind that for many women, it is not their choice to cover up/cover their hair. In fact, in some countries how women should dress is enshrined in the law, choice or no choice), kicked off their husbands’ properties penniless and kids in tow by their in-laws if the husband dies, etc. I won’t name every single oppression women have faced and continue to face or you will be here all day.
But let me ask you this? Why aren’t men oppressed in the same way? Why aren’t 9 year old boys married off to women who are old enough to be their grandmothers? Why?
Women have been subjugated throughout history because men know that they are physically stronger than women.
Women have not been subjugated throughout history because men are stronger than women. No. It is because men know that they are physically stronger than women, that is why women have been oppressed.
Knowledge is power.
Do you know why 9 year old boys are not married off to women who are old enough to be their grandmothers? It’s because society knows that when that 9 year old boy hits puberty, his body will get bigger and stronger. He will be much stronger than that ‘grandmother’ he is married to. And that grandmother will not be able to physically stop him if he decides to do whatever the heck he wants. If he attacks her, what can she do? She cannot physically stop him. If he decides to leave, what can she do? She cannot physically stop him from doing anything he wants. This is why some single mothers have problems with their teenage sons.
Whereas, when a 9 year old girl who is married off to a ‘grandfather’ hits puberty, her body will get bigger, but it will not become stronger than a man’s. That grandfather will still be physically stronger than her. He can still physically restrain her. She cannot physically attack him because both he and she know that he can cause more injury to her than she could cause to him.
You cannot dictate to a man how he should dress or that he should cover his hair and try to enforce it. If you try, he can attack you, and you could get seriously hurt. It is not worth the hassle.
On the other hand, countries and families that dictate to women that they must cover up and they must do this and that, do so because they know that a woman cannot physically attack them and win when they enforce their laws on her.
And women know that they are not stronger than men. They know violence is not a card they can pull out of their arsenal, so they don’t even consider getting violent when they are oppressed.
Men, on the other hand, know that violence is a card they and other men have within their arsenal, and that they can pull out any time they want. Therefore, men don’t try to control other men. In fact, men are afraid of men.
Haven’t you heard true stories of men who abuse their wives only to stop when their sons hit puberty because their sons physically threaten or even attack them?
This knowledge dictates all of our behaviours as men and women. From a young age, your brain has already logged in to every action you make where men and women are concerned the knowledge that men are stronger than women and that men can respond with violence. Whether men actually respond with violence is irrelevant, it is the potential of violence that deters.
Therefore, there are non-violent things (like targeted digs over the space of 20 plus years) that men will not do or say to other men, but they are emboldened to do to women because they know that women will 99.9% of the time not respond with violence. And in the extremely rare occasion that she does use violence, she cannot overpower the man.
The reason I told young women to listen carefully to this part of my article is because I was in my late 20s/early 30s when I understood this, and I know some of you may not know this. This understanding came after I got physically attacked in public by a man.
This man was stocky, shorter than me (I’m not even 5’9), and he walked with a very pronounced limp in one leg. It looked like a disability from birth. He tripped and blamed me because I was next to him and he couldn’t take it out on the taxi driver that caused him to trip. So he hit me on the head with his fist, picked up my glasses that fell to the ground as a result of his assault and threw it into the middle of the road where there was incoming traffic. His anger assuaged, he calmly walked to the side and waited for another taxi. Some people then came to ask me if I was ok, a nearby man included. This man spoke harshly to the man who attacked me, but no one did anything to him. I think they were afraid. I too was afraid, I couldn’t attack him back. So I walked away.
I was very upset. I cried throughout the day. And I experienced post-traumatic stress for some days afterwards (I got angry at things that normally wouldn’t faze me). My mind wouldn’t let go of the fact that this man calmly walked to the side after assaulting me. He wasn’t afraid of retribution. He remained at the crime scene. And even though there were a few men around, not one of them stepped up to him to rough him up for assaulting a woman.
Then the revelation came to me: men know that they are physically stronger than women.
And because men know this, it will dictate how they treat women.
Women are in a very vulnerable position in this world. That is just the nature of things. Women are harassed in many ways that we have just grown to accept as women. And some forms of harassment are not illegal, so they can continue unabated because men know that women can’t fight back with violence.
So what is the solution? How are women going to be protected from not just physical assault, but also other forms of harassment from men?
Since men are afraid of other men, since the violence that men have in their arsenal is what deters men from harassing other men, one solution is that men will have to stand up for women. Men will have to use that violence that they have to intimidate or attack other men in the defence of women.
Some of you will say that: ‘You feminists say that you’re equal to men and here you are saying that men should protect women. You should protect yourselves.’
It is because I believe men and women are equal that I believe men should protect women from other men. With power comes responsibility, not license to oppress. Men have their strength, and women have the ability to bring a male/female child into this world, something that men will never be able to do. Men and women need each other. Without physical women, the world would die out. We can preserve the man’s sperm so that a woman doesn’t need a man actually present to get pregnant, but without a physical woman to carry a baby in her womb, men can never bring a child into this world. This too is the nature of things. There are sperm banks, but there are no womb banks.
Some men will not stop harassing women unless violence is used because for some people, violence or the threat of violence is the only language they understand in this area.
And this slap incident at the Oscars proves this point. I have heard many men, who have commented about Will Smith’s slap, praise Chris Rock for his restraint. I even listened to a male body language expert who showed that Chris Rock almost instinctively fought back but in a split second restrained himself. This expert also praised Chris Rock’s restraint.
So let’s break this down: Chris Rock restrained himself when confronted with unexpected violence from a man.
On the other hand, despite all the preparations and rehearsals, Chris Rock looked into that Oscar crowd, saw Jada Pinkett Smith, a woman, and couldn’t restrain himself, broke protocol and threw an unscripted dig at her.
Who is holding Chris Rock accountable for lacking control where Jada Pinkett Smith was concerned?
‘Oh, get over it, it was just a joke’.
So harassment of women is something we should get over? It’s no big deal? But a man restraining himself towards another man is such a big deal?
As a woman, don’t let anyone, especially men, deceive you that women don’t need the protection of men from other men. Who do you think benefits if you as a woman believe that women shouldn’t be protected by men?
It’s men, it’s not women.
Even though Will Smith is the one that slapped Chris Rock, who has taken equal share and in some cases the majority of the blame? It’s Jada Pinkett Smith. Go and read what people are saying about her. They blame her. Yet what exactly did she do? Please tell me what she did on that Oscar night?
‘Jada has emasculated Will publicly.’
‘Jada has humiliated Will publicly.’
‘Jada has embarrassed Will publicly.’
‘Jada controls Will.’
‘Jada cheated on Will.’
Did she do any of that on that night that you have proof of?
What all of these statements/sentiments are basically saying is that Jada Pinkett Smith owes her husband certain behaviours.
And what does Will Smith owe his wife? Protection from a man harassing her?
‘No, no, no, no. Jada doesn’t need protection. She is a strong, independent woman who can handle herself.’
Isn’t Will Smith also a strong, independent man who can handle himself?
Have your eyes opened now? Do you see the hypocrisy here? Do you see how society allows men to skirt their responsibility, but throws the encyclopaedia at the woman? She must do this for him! She must do that for him! And what must he do for her? Nothing. And are we going to equate Will Smith’s physical strength to her physical strength?
Dear women and men, don’t be deceived. Don’t think that this is just about Jada Pinkett Smith and that what Will Smith did there was about protecting her ‘honour’. Don’t support the harassment of women just because you don’t like one woman. Go talk to women who have had stalkers or been harassed and they couldn’t do anything about it. The day may come (God forbid!) when people also criticize the choices you make in your personal life and so feel that you being harassed by men is justified.
My sister was verbally harassed by men almost every day for over 10 years (My sister is petite and dark skinned, and we lived in an openly anti-black city). 45%-50% of the time, those verbal attacks turned violent. She told me that one time when she was with a male friend, a man wanted to start his verbal/physical harassment of her, not knowing that the man next to her was with her. When this would-be attacker realized this fact, he course corrected and did not approach my sister. I wonder why.
Please understand how thoughtlessly cruel and insidious (that means: “proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with very harmful effects”) it is for any man to say that Jada Pinkett Smith shouldn’t have been protected with violence (a slap mind you) when men have violence at their disposal. And the violence at their disposal is what protects them from experiencing what Jada Pinkett Smith and other women have experienced.
This is like someone who has a stash of guns preaching that people shouldn’t own guns to protect themselves.
Men are not subjected to the same harassments that women face from other men just because of the possibility, I cannot stress this enough, the possibility of them using the violence at their disposal.
How many men carry pepper spray? How many men get attacked verbally by women for rejecting their catcalls? How many men will refuse to enter a bus if it is filled with only women? How many men are afraid of women walking behind them? How many men learn self-defence to protect themselves from women attacking them? I could go on and on about the ways in which women have had to deal with the harassment and violence meted out to them by men just because men know that women cannot respond with violence. And I ask: why do we accept this as normal and what Will Smith did as abnormal ?
Who benefits from this idea that violence is never the answer? Who benefits from the idea a husband shouldn’t use violence to protect his wife from persistent non-violent harassment?
Men, of course. Because that would now mean that men who seek to bully women can now target married women as well as single women if we shame husbands for using violence to protect their wives. And make no mistake, some men do not want to lose any power they have over women, single or married.
Some men sit by and watch women get harassed by other men, and they say or do nothing, it’s normal. But when a man finally stands up for his wife using violence, they open their mouths to condemn.
Who is disadvantaged by the idea that violence is never the answer? Women of course, because women need violence to be protected and to protect themselves.
Jada Pinkett Smith is a woman whether you like her or not; she is vulnerable; Chris Rock targeting her in his comedy has been going on since 1997. Is she the only actress available to mock?
Some random man doesn’t owe me anything, but a husband does owe his wife his protection. It is the husband’s God given mandate/responsibility to physically protect his wife, to let other men know that he is willing to use violence to protect her (Yay Will Smith!), because some men will try to test the boundaries.
And I think because Will Smith is not a violent guy, and because he had probably tried to solve this issue non-violently for years, Chris Rock thought that Jada Pinkett Smith was free game.
When I first heard about this whole slap situation, my first thought was why did Chris Rock take a dig at Jada Pinkett Smith in front of her husband, Will Smith? Doesn’t he know as a man that you don’t come for another man’s wife, especially not in front of the husband?
But he does know this. Every man knows this. So why did he do it?
The answer to this question will be in the final article in this series: Why I support Will Smith Part 3: The politics of making a scene. In it, I will discuss people’s aversion to scenes and why making a scene is sometimes necessary.
Let me close by encouraging you to read the Bible book of Proverbs, chapter 26. There are many sayings in that chapter that apply to this whole Will Smith / Chris Rock Oscar situation, but I will just list a few here:
Verse 18-19: Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbour and says, “I was only joking!”
Verse 24-26: A malicious man disguises himself with his lips, but in his heart he harbours deceit. Though his speech is charming, do not believe him, for seven abominations fill his heart. His malice may be concealed by deception, but his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.
Also read the story in the Bible book of John, Chapter 8, verses 1-11. There is something about the way Jada Pinkett Smith has been treated that is similar to that story.
If you’re interested, I have written 2 books you can buy here:
Dealing with Your Implicit Racism (For black people and anti-racism activists) – I teach black people and others how to fight and win against their own anti-blackness.
Apostle Paul was a Feminist Vol 1– Using the ‘misogynistic verses’ written by Apostle Paul in the Bible, I prove that Paul was a Feminist.
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