What Happened at the Oscars?

What happened at the Oscars on March 27? Well, depending on who you ask, there are many versions of what happened at the Oscars. Everyone has a different story to tell about that fateful night, but the most repetitive one might be about the Oscar award-winner, Will Smith.
After a joke was made by his wife on live television, he was seen laughing moments before slapping the heck out of Chris rock– who delivered the rude joke. Jada Pinkett didn’t seem very pleased about a “G.I. Jane” joke Chris Rock had made about her baldness, which was due to her own struggle with alopecia. How could she not be upset that her health was being made a spectacle of for the laughter of her celebrity counterparts?
Chris Rock is a comedian, and making jokes is a part of the job. What he and the rest of America must realize though is that it is not 2014 anymore. It’s not that we are starting to become more “sensitive”–we have only become less tolerant of nonsense. Black women have a long and detailed history of often being the butt of jokes for the amusement of others, and no one seems eager to protect or stand up for them.
Will Smith, on the other hand, stood up, walked up a flight of stairs, and smacked a comedian for his black woman. After living with his wife every day and watching her struggle with her hair loss and other major effects of it, how could he not be empathetic to his wife’s pain? He had been there with her, supported and loved her through the entire journey. Of course, her subtle disgust at a joke about her hair condition became his own disgust.
Anyone could call it an act of passion, a cry for help, or just plain aggression. I would like to call it what it is –a black man showing human emotion after the disrespect of his lover, bestfriend, and queen. The need for victimization will unfortunately cause many people to make the situation about them. An apology will go out towards everyone but the initial person targeted by the heinous joke, Jada Pinkett.
Society has a bad habit of reacting to the reaction of someone’s discomfort instead of the source of it. Any one can argue that Will should have “controlled” his emotions, but just as easily Chris Rock could have controlled his tongue. If someone is comfortable enough to embarrass someone on live television, that person should also not mind being embarrassed. I’m not here to justify violence. My only intentions are to humanize already human emotions that the public ignores every time African Americans act out in a way that doesn’t align with the world believes they should.