there was this today
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I talk like someone who has been assaulted. You don’t put the person who has just been assaulted in the position of having to be the bad guy and deny Will Smith his oscar acceptance moment. The producers should have made the decision based on the behavior. I don’t need to know what went on backstage as i saw what happened on the stage. If someone commits a crime, and it was a crime, on stage they shouldn’t be welcomed onto that stage 40mins later.
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I’d like to think that the apology will end this carnival ride…
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I do find the double standards all around rather odd. One, that Smith will seemingly pay no consequences for his actions, even though what he did was apparently a crime in California. I guess that’s due to power and money - shocker. Also, that apparently violence is okay, even if it’s over a joke in very poor taste.
I doubt anyone would support the slapping of a woman who made a tasteless joke, but in a world where violence against men is sometimes even still (!) played for yucks - see the “hilarious” examples where women slap men on screen for supposed comedic effect, or the knee-slappers about prison rape (of men), I guess I should not be surprised there are apparently a lot of people who were glad that Will Smith “stood up” for his wife in this way - even though he initially laughed about it. 
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Yeah the problem here is that people aren’t tolerant enough about hitting women!
Those damned women hog all the victim cards!
I honestly can’t believe what shit takes people get from this.
Yeah, some people are more ok than they should be about getting into fights with others. That sucks.
Why does that have to be framed in a way that makes anyone opposing DV against women look like they are the hypocrites here? That is so harmful. Like that is literally the worst possible fucking take on this other than “hitting people is fine” and “told ya black dudes are outta control.”
I wish people would stop that. I wish you would stop that too. I don’t even know you but I wish people would just stop and think about the things they are saying and who they are taking their blame and anger out on.
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But Will Smith is the worst criminal in modern history!!! He SLAPPED a man!!! Who cares if some men smack their women around… it’s not WILL SMITH hitting CHRIS ROCK at the OSCARS!!! Forget the insurrection, the war in Ukraine, systemic racism, violence against the LGBQT+ community, violence against women, climate change, racism, the healthcare crisis, the homeless crisis, the housing crisis, the on-going pandemic, etc… this is the WORST THING that has EVER happened… because reasons… /s
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That was all on a different channel though.
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Bad joke. Bad reaction. Two wrongs don’t make a you know what. But out of it all, Slappy Smith has been born.
It’s a bit early to make that assumption. When’s the next Academy Board Meeting?
They certainly didn’t have one in the middle of the ceremony.
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Oh my, what a perfect analogy for so many workplaces I’ve been in. Not so much the sexual predation aspect of this, but the broader sense it was also meant to cover - underperforming, annoying co-workers that EVERYONE knows are people that have to be worked around/avoided/disinvited from meetings, because firing them and finding replacements is too much of a chore…the “missing stair”. I’m going to have to try to remember that one…
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Crosspost…
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Crosspost
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I’m not sure how anyone could have this take-away as to what I’ve actually written (about standards applied, equally). Violence is bad, period.
It’s all quite unfortunate because I have warm feelings about both Will Smith and Chris Rock and watching all of this unfold was very painful to watch, from start to finish - why did Rock “go there” on appearances and why did it have to end in violence?
The same people seem to have no issue with Blaxploitation films, or boxing, or the NFL.
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Right? Plus other forms of violence inflicted daily on Black people. As pointed out in the Grio piece linked above by @PsiPhiGrrrl,
We all agree that the “use of physical force” is not OK, conveniently leaving out the part that defines violence as “injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation.” We talk about the Black-on-Black violence in Chicago but not about the fact that nearly a third of the city’s Black residents live below the poverty line. When we discuss the increase in violence last year, we are talking about crimes defined largely by white legislators, not the people who died because of lack of healthcare, government incompetence and right-wing ignorance. In America, the 31 million people who didn’t have health insurance aren’t victims of violence. The kids in underfunded schools, the people who are killed by police and the ones subjected to a discriminatory criminal justice system are definitely being subjected to an “intense, turbulent or furious and often destructive action or force.” It might be in the dictionary but, in America, this is not considered “violence.”
Given common white disregard for those kinds of violence, the intense rush of so many of them to condemn Will Smith’s slap is . . . interesting.
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I mean, sure, people can have an opinion on it… that’s just fine, but the insane amount of pearl clutching is telling.
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Agreed. It’s privilege we are talking about here, and both Smith and Rock have loads and loads of privilege. I suspect that this is why many people are trying to signal if they are “Team Smith” or “Team Rock” - because an event like this is one of the centers of privilege and it had this weird twist that set two privileged people at odds with one another, AND a privileged organization that is expected to take a position on it…
That’s an interesting approach to minimizing people’s opinions. I don’t think anyone here here is identifying with either guy - they’re expressing opinions about the incident.
They’re Team Rationality.
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