I didn’t watch the Oscars, but I’m told that one black entertainer slapped another black entertainer over a joke about the former’s wife. Not exactly Earth-shattering news, but if you suspected that the usual suspects would somehow connect this trivial incident to a “national conversation about racism,” you’d be right.
A Newsweek headline announces:
Will Smith Slap Spurs Racism Debate, Daughter of MLK Jr. Weighs In
Dr. Bernice King, the youngest child of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., addressed Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at Sunday’s Academy Awards on Twitter Monday, saying that anybody who thought the incident reflected poorly on members of the Black community “already thought Black people look bad.”
If Dr. Bernice King is smart enough to be a doctor, then surely she’s smart enough to understand that black people look bad for much more serious reasons than a staged slap. Dr. King should surely appreciate that this is a case where “content of character” comes into play.
I won’t rehash crime statistics here; you can read The Color of Crime for that. That report was published in 2016, but things have not gotten any better since then.
Dr. King continues, in the Newsweek article, cited above:
She added, “Be Love, but please don’t think that a person who uses one moment to malign a whole group of people did not do so before that moment.”
Before King’s tweets, other Black voices had already offered their take on the issue of race in regards to the incident, including activist/author Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu.
“The Academy Awards has condoned violence for years particularly violence against women rewarding White men who’ve raped/sexual assaulted/domestically abused women Now some of y’all demanding Will Smith, 5th Black man to win #Oscars, to be stripped? Where was this energy before?”
Apparently, Dr. Shola doesn’t agree with Dr. King – because, by singling out white men as rapists, she’s maligning a whole group of people. But hey, at least she capitalized “White.”
If you consult The Color of Crime, you’ll see that according to FBI (and other government) statistics, blacks are 7-10 times more likely to commit rape than whites. Therefore, it’s ridiculous for Dr. Shola to single out whites for this offense. Also, if she’s going to accuse the Academy Awards of “condoning violence… against women,” then she needs to present some evidence of this. For all its flaws, I don’t believe that the Academy Awards is guilty of this. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Regarding Dr. Shola, it seems that she’s a London-born (or American-born?) Nigerian activist who appears to be based in New York. She’s a firm believer in Woke theology, including white-privilege… which makes me wonder why she would choose to live in New York. Wouldn’t she be better off in Nigeria? Also, I’m sure the women of Nigeria need her services a lot more than do Western women. In any event, she’s a nutcase who does not deserve to be taken seriously.
Just reflect about if a white movie star slugged a back M.C. for any reason
whatsoever at a televised event on view with an audience of millions.
I suspect the FBI would pay him a visit and he’d be hauled away in cuffs.
There’d be wall to will hysteria and denouncement.
Most urban areas would be set a blaze. Not a single two-story structure would be
left standing.