I remember seeing the video of a little boy taking a fighting stance to protect his mum from a much older man who was being verbally abusive and threatening her.
The boy knew in his heart that the grown man could whoop his butt with one hand tied to his back, but his mother’s honor was at stake, and he stepped up, the only way he knew!
You see, sometimes you can never tell what dynamics exist in different families, and so we have to be careful about poking people, no matter how much we think we know them.
I’ve read different opinions about Will Smith and Chris Rock’s saga at the Oscar’s, and despite the “incorrectness” of the whole saga, I think a lot of people miss a very vital point in all of these.
Jada, Will Smith’s wife has Alopecia, a medical condition where your immune system attacks your hair follicles and causes baldness.
For an actress and celebrity of her calibre, that can be as devastating a blow to the ego as possible and and as depressing as it gets because a woman’s hair is often an essential part of her beauty makeup.
I can imagine the possible meltdowns, bouts of depression, self doubt, mood swings and therapy sessions it must have taken to get her to that point where she is comfortable enough to make public appearances again.
I’m sure it took a lot to get her to attend one of the biggest events in show business and I’m sure she thought that she would be in company of enlightened professionals who will be understanding and supportive.
So, for some loose lipped, foul-mouthed comedian to choose that same painful condition to use as a joke in such a derogatory manner?
Nah!
Please don’t poke a family oriented man with tasteless jokes about his kith and kin; you may not like the result at the end of the day.
Agreed, Will Smith overreacted, and he should have shown a lot more decorum than he did, especially on such a global stage, but decorum comes from a place of mental balance and sound reasoning.
There are millions of good people who have been tipped over by a mean word or statement that came at an extremely vulnerable moment and they have gone on to behave totally out of character, even though they have had to pay for it after.
If this helps to get comedians to filter their jokes and to be less verbally abusive especially when it relates to mental health issues, under the guise of telling jokes, then something good will have come out of this whole mess.
And please stop this nonsense about black people messing up when they finally have a seat at the table.
Were they supposed to be denied such opportunities, just because of their skin colour, in the first place?
What does that say about the character of those who denied them of such opportunities?
Chris Rock is not pressing charges?
Big deal!
He may be in the right legally, but morally, he was an eel, and that unfortunate joke was as low as you can go and even he knew it, that is why he was totally unsettled after that incident.
The slap was totally uncalled for and as a seasoned professional, Big Willie could have responded in a less threatening way and saved himself this global embarrassment, but I repeat, sometimes love makes you do stupid things!
At the end of the day, towards the end of your life, the awards, the money, the fame, all of that will not matter, all you will have surrounding you are your family, so treat them right and don’t take any disrespect towards them from anyone.
God bless.
Femi Aderibigbe,
CEO – Virtual Media Network,
Lagos, Nigeria
