(Pensacola, Florida; April 1, 2022,) – Will Smith is a childish bully who ENDORSES violence against those who SAY something he doesn’t like.
Once again, I take up my pen on a cultural issue because the only thing evil needs to succeed is for good people to say and do nothing, and assaulting a man over a joke is a despicable bit of evil.
Make no mistake, Will Smith’s childish assault on Chris Rock is violence against speech. Smith is also a hypocrite. Watch the video of his actions at the Oscars. He actually laughed at Chris Rock’s joke before seeing his wife wasn’t pleased, and then the BIG MAN decides he needs to storm the stage and physically assault a comedian.
At this point, I don’t give a damn if Chris Rock’s joke about Mrs. Smith’s hair loss was in good taste of not. Until this happened, I didn’t know she had a medical condition; I just thought she preferred to shave her head. Some women do. Big deal; their choice. Turns out she has a medical condition. If Chris Rock knew, and thought she’d appreciate the joke, then he’s guilty of what all of us are guilty of at some point in all our lives: misjudging our audience and making a joke that falls flat. An ill-conceived joke might be uncomfortable, offensive even, but it’s a joke. It is no excuse for assault.
Hollywood and the political left have spent decades working to erase the idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ or ‘sin’ and ‘punishment.’ These past two years alone have seen the political left celebrating political violence as ‘peaceful protests’ while cities literally burned on the news and federal buildings and officers were continually assaulted. The political left is teaching college students that ‘speech’ equates to violence, and if you’re offended by something someone says, then you have a right to physically attack them.
The Washington Post even ran a story on this back in 2017. Their research found that, in 2017, one in three college students believed it was ok to assault someone for saying something they didn’t like (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-chilling-study-shows-how-hostile-college-students-are-toward-free-speech/2017/09/18/cbb1a234-9ca8-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html). Here we are now, four years later watching that trend literally play out on stage, and the childish bully who committed the assault not being removed from the awards show, much less arrested. Instead, he got a standing ovation after he won an award later that same night. Talk about rewarding criminal behavior!
This is NOT being a man, and don’t give me any shit about my ‘white lens’ or anything like that. I’m GAY. I like dudes. I have spent years putting up with faggot jokes, fairy jokes, girly-man jokes, etc. Even after I came out (at 44 years old!) in 2014 in a world that’s finally getting more tolerant of those of us who were born different, I’m still subjected to dumb gay jokes. Some are hysterical and knock me off my seat; some fall flat and piss me off. Either way, I have never raised my hand against another person over a joke, however offensive it might have been. To do so is assault.
Striking another human being for speech is the province of the childish schoolyard bully or the political despot who wishes to assert dominance by force and intimidation. A REAL man might have yelled at Rock to leave his wife alone…but even that kind of public spectacle pushes the boundary of actual manly decorum. Smith could easily have confronted Rock privately instead of embarrassing his family by yelling, but, at the least, yelling would be meeting speech with speech.
Tinseltown squeals at us all the time about how only the political right wing in this county abets violent insurrectionists. Now, yes, there are violent people on the right, and they should be marginalized. But…which side of the aisle has spent two years burning cities? Which side of the aisle preaches ‘love’ and tolerance’ while encouraging people to physically silence those who say something they don’t like?
Make no mistake, this will get worse. Now that Will Smith has successfully and publicly practiced political violence against speech he didn’t like (well, speech he liked until he saw his wife was pissed), who’ll be targeted next? What comedian will be bum-rushed on stage for a joke someone didn’t like? What speaker or lecturer will suffer a physical assault over speech since Will Smith and the Hollywood wankers endorsed such violence by practicing it?
Speech can be used to bully, yes. Speech can be used to hurt, yes. But speech and physical violence are two different things. You can meet speech with speech all the livelong day. But, as soon as you meet speech with physical violence, then you literally just authorized those who want to silence you to use violence against you.
Will Smith is not a man to look up to. If he’s wrestling with mental and emotional health issues, he has my complete sympathy (Hello! PTSD here!). However, using one’s mental/emotional health struggles as an excuse for engaging in political violence only plays into the stereotypes of mental health patients as violent deviants. Such action piles on more stigma for those of us dealing with such issues in a healthy way centered around us taking and owning responsibility for ourselves.
You do not meet some speech with violence and call it a day. As soon as you meet any speech with violence, you just opened the door to all political violence against any speech. This isn’t a black thing or a white thing. If you don’t stand up to protect all speech, no matter how offensive, from physical violence, then you will fall to violence yourself one day, and there will be no one to defend you. Will Smith is not a MAN; he’s a childish, violence-loving narcissist who’s being enabled by other childish, violence-loving narcissists that want to use force to silence people they don’t like.
…Just my thoughts.
-Check out my video on this topic at: https://youtu.be/EWhy-eYOG8g
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