I am not above using a viral moment to get more clicks. In the words of Marshall Mathers: Will Smith don’t have to cuss to sell records but I do, so fuck him and fuck you too.

I didn’t see it live. I still – on purpose – don’t have a television. I also don’t really do award shows, not even the Oscars. The fashion and the ceremony is just not my bag, and I rarely have seen the nominees for the categories. Even if a Black person is nominated I just wait for Twitter to tell me if the Blacks won and keep it moving. I would not have known that ‘the slap’ happened if it were not for a promise to my little one to give her a good night call even though I was tired. She opened up with the news and then the Internet search was on.

We watched the ‘slap’, we watched Will’s acceptance speech. We laughed and talked and unpacked a couple of things. We never did get to what we were supposed to talk about but we will. We then went to the Twitter and screened the reactions.

We saw the white women

*gasp* *clutch the pearls*

We saw the white men with the keyboard bravado.

We saw half of Black Twitter say I understand and the other cluck their tongues and ask why we gotta act a fool in public, in front of company.

There was a lot of: VIOLENCE DOES NOT BELONG ON TELEVISION

How sway? Law and Order:SVU is 44 minutes of torture porn that has been on your television for 20 years. Jack Bauer dismantled a hotel lamp and used it to electroshock a civilian. Shit everything that happened TO Jack Bauer in 7+ years of 24. Operation Desert Storm was broadcast in technicolor just as 24 hour cable news was becoming a thing. Dead Ukrainians are on your TV right now. January 6, 2021. There is not a problem with violence on TV. There is a problem with Black man exhibiting violence they did not have the opportunity to script themselves. It is about that ‘safe’ Black man Will, acting like the images they already have of Black men, but not him because he isn’t Black he’s Will Smith. The Black man they decided was ‘safe and acceptable’ hit the other Black man they know and kind of like because he will let them say nigga. That man did not act they way they’ve trained their mind to see us act.

For the coloreds…. all skin folk ain’t kin folk. Maybe one day you will stop seeking the approval of the white gaze, but Sunday wasn’t that. Pull your pants up while they lynch you mentality that exhausts me. Yes me the woman who once here celebrated the Pants on the Ground song.

Let’s talk.

Black people, and especially Black men are not not given permission to be full and complete human beings with the wonders and flaws that come with.. You are given a ‘role’ and required to play that role from birth until infinity. Society can change that role any fucking time they choose and you are required to keep up and keep the show going. Amen.

Regardless of where you land on the good/bad spectrum, it is irrelevant, it happened. You can argue all you like that there was a different way to handle it, but Will Smith chose violence. I mean….. Listen, even Chris Rock talked about those moments in his stand up – there is always a reason to punch a motherfucker in the mouth, we just choose not to. Smith did though. *cue Marshall Mathers*

How that man decided to defend his wife is none of my business. My opinion isn’t needed. I won’t say I agree or disagree. I will say rather, I understand.

My POV was a man who decided this was one joke too many about his wife, and calmly walked up to the source, notified the source that shit was not cool, then calmly walked back to his seat. Folx from Philly get it. Folx who think like people from Philly also get it. The Daddy person grew up in that neighborhood where Mr. Smith is from. Just before I arrived in CA, I lived in that same neighborhood. I get it. When you come from where we do, you understand that at times the only thing that can make sure you get home safely is the respect of your peers around you enough for them to say leave that one alone. There are slights that you cannot allow