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I took some time out from the world, the wars, the confirmation hearings of a black woman to the supreme court. I took a rest from my financial troubles of trying find a permanent place to live, to reunite with my shabby old grey and white cat, to write fiction.
If I were Will Smith, I would have slapped Chris Rock as I was ’in the arena.’ I would have had onlookers ‘in the bleachers’ commenting on what they would have done. The onlookers would have said that they would have acted higher. Nothing in this universe would have caused them to not be Will Smith.
I took some time out to watch something that means relatively little to me, the Oscars, the pomp, the glitz, the pretties. And then, I realized that Will Smith popped Chris Rock.
I usually live on the outskirts of popular culture. And sometimes, every few years, I skirt the close edge for a while. On the day of the 2022 Oscars, I read some black Twitter and formed an opinion. If I were Will Smith,
I would have been human and slapped Chris Rock. I would not have been moving humanity to a higher vibration with that act. I would have been my mundane human self.
If I were Will Smith, I would have slapped Chris Rock as I was ’in the arena.’ I would have had onlookers ‘in the bleachers’ commenting on what they would have done. The onlookers would have said that they would have acted higher. Nothing in this universe would have caused them to not be Will Smith.
And I know that there are other things going on in our world beside me imagining what I would have done if I were Will Smith listening to Chris Rock make low comedy of my wife’s medical condition.
There would have been nothing about the bevy of critics, admirers and commentators, nothing more spectacular (or less) about their souls had they been incarnated as Will Smith that would have caused them to not slap Chris Rock. We all would have been Will Smith.
We would have had all of the things playing in us that was playing in him when he slapped Chris Rock. We would have had his gifts, his relationships, his father either loving or hating on his mother, we would have had his feelings of angst at not being able to help her. On the day of his birth, on our emergence out of his mother’s womb, our soul would have been at the soul level that his was on when he entered into the zygote that made his body to carry the soul through this incarnation.
I reject the premise that Will Smith should not have done that because we are vilified enough by white people. Yes, his actions gave racists reason to vilify him and in turn vilify us all, as racists rush to do. That they have further vilified us all by this incident is true. Racists will do that.
I reject the premise that Will Smith should not have done that because we are vilified enough by white people. Yes, his actions gave racists reason to vilify him and in turn vilify us all, as racists rush to do. That they have further vilified us all by this incident is true. Racists will do that. There is a lot of racism in the air and it sticks to us, our subconscious minds, our attitudes, and it lives in background noise of our minds. And I still I believe in honoring my and Will Smith’s humanity by not answering racism by attempting to be the hyper-vigilant magical Negro rising above it all. I have tried that act. It’s exhausting. It robs me of the full humanity that lies behind the act. As I try to stay as human as possible, I let the Universe deal with the people who need to vilify me for being human.
He is a role model. He won at least one NAACP image award. And, he’s human. If I were Will Smith at the Oscars last month, I would have slapped Chris Rock.