I have seen so many people react with disgust because Will Smith slapped the shit out of Chris Rock. Smith did so because the joke Rock told was mocking a disability of Smith’s wife, and this wasn’t the first time he had done so.
Earlier this month, there was a case where a Dunkin employee punched customer, which resulted in the death of that customer. The worker delivered the deadly blow because the customer called him a “nigger.” The worker received a very lenient sentence of two years’ house arrest. He KILLED a man, but many people understood and condoned the attack because the man called him a name which anyone knows is highly offensive.
I agree. There are things that one person can say to another that simply BEG for a physical response. Each of us has a hot button issue. The one thing that someone can say to us that is worthy of delivering a knuckle sandwich. A man defending the honor of his wife falls in that category. If my wife were disabled and a man made fun of that disability after being warned, I certainly would feel obligated to defend her.
32 Comments
Old Enough to Know Better · March 29, 2022 at 2:17 pm
Whatever happened to sticks and stones, etc. And controlling your personal feeling and response?
No excuse to get physical for verbal issues – ever.
And if you start the physical interaction, then you own the consequences, regardless of what was said.
Someone slaps / strikes me for _any_ reason, I fear for my life (as per your example) and I may respond accordingly.
Just saying. Grow up and control yourself.
Chris Mallory · March 31, 2022 at 8:34 am
A man who doesn’t defend his mama, wife, and daughter from insult is not much of a man.
Andrew Jackson killed a man for insulting his wife. It was a better more civilized time then.
Bazooka Kill · March 29, 2022 at 2:41 pm
The squirrel slap? What was the other hand doing in the Long March to burn it all down better?
Don’t bring a slap to a 75 round drum fight.
Big Ruckus D · March 29, 2022 at 2:43 pm
It was a baldly provocative dick move by Chris Rock if taken at face value (ha, see what I just did there?) However, I remain unconvinced that this wasn’t an arranged publicity stunt. Remember, actor is just a synonym for professional liar. For years, nobody has much talked about the oscars, it became so boring and forumlaic.
Yet suddenly, when ever greater distractions from the shitniness of daily reality are needed (and the entertainment business is solidly behind the pantshitter who most benefits by such distractions from what he’s doing) everyone is talking about the bitch slap heard aroud the world. Zelensky would cream his pants to get this kind of focused, wall to wall attention in the public consciousness.
Thusly, I’ll ignore this petty gossip column bullshit and keep an eye on what the bad guys are doing, which is where my attention actually belongs.
Porkypine · March 29, 2022 at 4:31 pm
Exactly. Just a scripted event to designed to get more eyeballs in from of the tube next year in a cynical attempt to reverse the continued cratering of all the pedowood award shows.
“It’s the 2023 Acedemy Awards, who knows what might happen, you don’t want to miss it!”
Now if they take away Smith’s Oscar and/or if they ban him from attending in the future I’ll happily admit I am wrong. But if there’s no repercussions on Smith for assaulting a presenter & fellow actor, well, that tells you all you need to know.
At this point I really wonder who watches this crap anymore. I don’t care to waste my time watching a bunch of overpaid dancing monkeys fellate themselves & each other for 4 hours & relentlessly monologue over how everyone to the political right of Mao is an eeeevil truck driving xenohomotranopedophobic super supremacist racist Jesus lovin’ gun nut who doesn’t deserve to live.
How about you just shut the fuck up & dance, monkey! Dance!
Matthew · March 29, 2022 at 4:39 pm
Answer a verbal provocation with physical violence if you feel you must, but then take responsibility for those actions. You can’t stand up for one principle and deny the validity of the other principle because of the provocation. Where would that process end?
What if Chris Rock’s mother was in the audience and stood up for her son by stabbing Will Smith, then Will’s kid shot Chris’ mom and so on?
Eh?
Beans · March 29, 2022 at 6:19 pm
It would be a normal day in Compton.
Brewer · March 29, 2022 at 9:01 pm
You win.
EN2 SS · March 29, 2022 at 10:29 pm
That would clean out the gene pool, a little bit. Win win.
Paulb · March 29, 2022 at 8:26 pm
There’s a line among merchant sailors, and you have to know who you are dealing with to cross it. A gentleman will invite you ‘out past the fence’ in port to punch it out, and last man standing wins. Out past the fence the office isn’t involved and the US Coast Guard, who prosecutes you for assault in a port facility or vessel, will also not be involved.
A more dangerous person will beat the hell out of you on the spot (or kill you).
I’m OK with the threat of violence being closer and more probable than not in the face of gross insults involving family. It keeps people polite.
Given the chimpout the other night, it might have never happened.
I hate everyone in Hollywood, so I’m happy to see them all turn on each other. Makes me feel emotionally… erect.
NIdahoCatholic · March 30, 2022 at 6:45 am
“Scripted event.” Yes, it was. Guess which sponsor of the so-called “Oscars” is getting ready to roll out a new drug for the ClotShot induced condition of baldness in women…
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2022/03/30/everything-is-fake-gay-pfizer-sponsors-academy-awards-stage-manage-fake-slap-over-alopecia-joke-pfizer-getting-ready-to-release-alopecia-drug-etrasimod-deathjabs-cause-alopecia/
Divemedic · March 30, 2022 at 7:07 am
Discussion over whether or not the slap was scripted shows that many are missing the point of this post.
Steve S · March 30, 2022 at 3:57 pm
Or that it was just a bad example to use for the point. Not that they made that point so may still be missing the point of the post.
Regards the scripting did anyone else notice that Rock’s hands stayed down? Even if late it’s rather instinctive to try to block something coming at your head.
Divemedic · March 30, 2022 at 4:58 pm
I gave another example. See the Dunkin example.
Steve S · March 30, 2022 at 8:57 pm
Yes, and that’s an interesting legal case I’m sure. Turned out he used deadly force in a case that didn’t justify that whether it was a blunt force impact or if he had used a knife or gun.
Toastrider · March 30, 2022 at 7:14 am
There’s been some interesting commentary on this. Namely, how Will Smith was very publicly cuckolded by his wife (and yes, I am deliberately using that word). She brought up having an affair with someone on her damned stupid web show Red Table Talk. While Smith was on the show with her!
Holy shit, lady, what happened to keeping that sort of thing behind closed doors and working it out?
Rock’s joke was crass, but I suspect ‘defending his wife’s honor’ wasn’t the motivating factor in Smith’s decision to slap the taste out of Rock’s mouth.
You can’t defend something that doesn’t exist, after all.
JaimeInTexas · March 30, 2022 at 9:28 am
The joke was not about her medical condition, Chris Rock did not know about or so Chris said. It was about GI Jane 2, a movie, a character. Remember GI Jane 1 and what’s her name getting her head shaved? Barely.
It was not a verbal “attack” on no one. WiIl Smith is a cuckhold, that is all.
Craig · March 30, 2022 at 11:42 am
The ” insult” was comparing wills wife to a hotter more successful Caucasian actress.
JaimeInTexas · March 30, 2022 at 11:48 am
Caucasoid?
Steve · March 30, 2022 at 12:00 pm
‘Can’t control himself” and “Words are violence” is straight from the BLM/Antifa pissants of Summer 2020. Any time I find myself in agreement with them, I go back and check my math.
EN2 SS · March 30, 2022 at 12:32 pm
If I ever agree any of their Evil, I go check my ammo stash.
Divemedic · March 30, 2022 at 2:10 pm
“Fighting words” has always been a thing. Say someone’s kid was killed by an IED in Iraq. The Westboro Baptist Church shows up, gets in their father’s face at the dead kid’s funeral and says “Thank God for IED’s. I hope that fucker burns in hell. He got what he deserves.” Dad of dead kid then feeds him his teeth.
If I were on that jury, I would not pull the lever for guilty. No way in hell. Anyone who does that does so looking for a fight. Ant reasonable person knows that. The person who got punched got exactly what they were looking for.
Similarly, someone walks up to a black guy and calls him a “nigger.” Black guy says, “Don’t say that again.” The guy responds, “Or what, nigger?” Black guy promptly punches the speaker. Again, you do that, it’s because you are looking for a fight. When you get what you were so clearly looking for, you can’t complain.
Sad Trombone · March 30, 2022 at 3:02 pm
Not to all the Prince Valiants standing up for JPS, she’s just not that into you.
Divemedic · March 30, 2022 at 3:13 pm
Yet none of my examples has been about her.
Steve S · March 30, 2022 at 4:00 pm
Fighting words is also contextual to the group dynamic.
https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/the-educational-beatdown
Divemedic · March 30, 2022 at 5:06 pm
They do. Calling a black man the n word will get you a beat down. Doing the same to an Asian, not so much.
In earlier times, saying certain things would get you challenged to a duel.
Even in the 1940s, SCOTUS recognized fighting words. (See Chaplinsky v State of New Hampshire):
Allowing the broadest scope to the language and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is well understood that the right of free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which has never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fighting’ words—those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
Of course today, we claim to be more civilized. Now if you say something that someone finds offensive, they contact your employer, your bank, and anyone else that you do business with and destroy your life by getting you fired, evicted, and having all of your bank accounts closed out and credit cards cancelled.
That is more civilized and humane than a slap to the face?
Steve S · March 30, 2022 at 9:04 pm
Civilized. Scratch the surface…
Chris Mallory · March 31, 2022 at 8:41 am
I wonder how many of the “men” having vapors and needing their fainting couch over this slap have at one time or another said “An armed society is a polite society (Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life).”? The last phrase is often left out of the quote.
I prefer Robert E Howard’s version: “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”
We were a better nation when Andrew Jackson killed a man for insulting his wife and when Preston Brooks thrashed a piece of Yankee trash for insulting his uncle than we are today. But then I am a Southerner and still hold to courtesy and honor.
Steve · March 31, 2022 at 9:29 am
As long as there’s a consistent standard, fine. Neighbor of mine got charged with felony assault when he put down a black man who took a swing at him. Cost him all his savings and about half his retirement. I took that as a sign and got the hell out of Minnesota.
But what happens when DaQuan shivs someone who disrespects him? Back on the street in a half hour on no-cash bail. Public defender, i.e., I’m paying the shyster.
Steve · March 31, 2022 at 9:32 am
By “put down”, I just mean one punch that knocked the guy into next week.
And I’m not just paying for the shyster — I’m paying everyone in that friggin’ courthouse. Including DaQuan and his half-dozen baby mamas.
ruralcounsel · April 1, 2022 at 2:33 pm
The “insult” was barely that. It may have been in poor taste, but all it did was draw attention to her lack of hair. BFD. She’s theoretically a grownup; she can deal with it.
Your attitude will drag us down to condoning violence from the most easily-triggered, over-sensitive neanderthals out there.
Aesop thinks these were “fighting words.” Nonsense. Fighting words are intended to create a breach of the peace, but just because there WAS a breach of the peace does not make those “fighting words.” Fighting words are things like “I’m going to do X to your children right after I get done doing Y to you.” Threats. Incitements. Not ridicule.
Yes, there may be words worthy of a physical attack/response, but these weren’t them. Not even close.
Divemedic · April 1, 2022 at 4:05 pm
One man’s joke is another’s insult. Imagine a comedian in yesteryear saying the same about Sinatra’s wife. Or John Wayne. What would have happened?
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