In the last 12 hours, the internet has been agog with the headline Will Smith slaps Chris Rock with everyone taking to social media to share opinions and counter-opinions.
While the subject of discussion here isn’t what led to the slap or who was right and who was wrong, but to examine what is wrong with the black race.
What do I mean by that? Although everyday all over the world, someone somewhere is being slapped either justly or unjustly on the streets of London, in the suburbs of Beijing, in some offices in Mumbai and in some class-room in Dallas. However, you would hardly hear that a white man hits another white fellow on a stage as grand as the Oscars. Why? Maybe they’ve learnt to hide their dirty linens. But for a black man that seems normal, and you even hear some of their folks go ahead to justify the violence.
While I am not saying Will shouldn't defend his woman or even address the issue if he has any bone to pick with Chris, but choosing to do what he did, not only brought disgrace to himself and his family but to the entire black race. Permit me to stretch this conversation a little further, imagine if Chris had retaliated, then it would have been a case of two black men in their 50’s fighting in an academy award ceremony (what a headline)?🤷🏾♂️
What’s more? Considering that this year’s event was meant to consolidate the position and contribution of the black race to the academy awards, then a black man decides that’s the best time and place to show his displeasure at a sour joke, he walks unto the stage, hits another man and walks back. And what’s more disheartening is that these guys represent the best of us.
The world can never treat us better than we treat ourselves. If we behave like animals, we would be considered animals and if we behave like a people, then we will been seen as are a people. In a situation where black leader’s only understanding of leadership is to lord it over and oppress their subjects by amassing so much wealth while everywhere around them stinks of poverty, I wonder if there’s any humanity in us.
And this happens not just with the political class or with business moguls but even with the religious leaders and regular people. So the basis of morality in the society is corrupted by greed and oppression. And oppression not from one race to another, but from persons of the same tribe, same families, same beliefs, same ideologies and reinforced with the sentiment that “it is God that makes rich”.
Will our change ever come? Can the black race ever be liberated? When everyone is just awaiting their own turn to hoard the bounty and praying to their god to make it happen fast. I wonder if there’s a hope in sight!
