Hating Will Smith

It’s like he slapped their mommas

Encountering a surprising number of folks who it seems haven’t forgiven, let go of, or gotten over to any healthy degree, the actions taken on the evening of March 22, 2022 by one Willard Carroll Smith II. In fact, they still seem pretty heated about it, here these more than six months later. I’m telling you, if you didn’t know better, you’d think Chris Rock was somehow blood related to some of these folk. Let me share just a couple of the things said to me recently about “The Slap”:

“I can never trust him again.”

“A man in his position, with all that influence, should not be allowed to get away with something like this.”

“We saw the TRUE Will Smith that night -all the rest has been fake.”

“That was pure evil he released that night — it was like he was possessed.”

(About his comments on slavery and his latest movie, Emancipation) “Somebody like him shouldn’t even speak on the subject. Let somebody with some decency speak on it.”

See what I’m saying? The passion and depth behind the words just seems awry to me — out of place; out of perspective; sideways to what actually happened.

I started thinking about why -what was the reason for all the angst toward Smith? I understand the shocking aspect of it for a lot of people. Will had always occupied a sort of rare position in American society — a personality whose body of work “crossed over” to every culture. He was the…