{"id":1411203,"date":"2022-03-30T18:14:37","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T22:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1411203"},"modified":"2022-03-30T18:14:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T22:14:40","slug":"the-slap-heard-around-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-slap-heard-around-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Slap Heard Around The World"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-slap-heard-around-the-world%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1411203&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/03\/Slap.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>This week, Will Smith \u2014 perhaps the most bankable star of his generation \u2014 won an Oscar for Best Actor for \u201cKing Richard.\u201d But that wasn\u2019t why he made headlines. He made headlines because during the Academy Awards ceremony, comedian Chris Rock told a joke about Smith\u2019s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Jada, it seems, suffers from alopecia; Rock, presumably not knowing about her condition, made a joke about her starring in \u201cG.I. Jane 2,\u201d a nod to her closely shaven head. Initially, Will Smith laughed. Then he glanced around and saw Jada was upset.<\/p>\n<p>At which point he got up, strode to the stage, and proceeded to slap Rock directly across the face.<\/p>\n<p>Then he sat down again.<\/p>\n<p>Rock, for his part, tried to play off the situation as a joke. But Will Smith wasn\u2019t letting it go. Instead, he began screaming at Rock: \u201cKeep my wife\u2019s name out ya f\u2014-ing mouth!\u201d Rock replied, \u201cWow, dude, it was a \u2018G.I. Jane\u2019 joke.\u201d To which Smith repeated, screaming, \u201cKeep my wife\u2019s name out ya f\u2014-ing mouth!\u201d Which, presumably, would make Rock the first man to whom Smith had ever uttered such a sentiment, given the couple\u2019s stated dedication to their open marriage.<\/p>\n<p>Suffice it to say, it was perhaps the oddest incident in nationally televised history. The only rivals might have been Justin Timberlake ripping off Janet Jackson\u2019s top to reveal a pasty at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show, or the live OJ Simpson car chase during the NBA Finals. But this event was even odder, given the utterly sudden nature of the assault. Rock, after all, was hired to lightly roast actors. Will Smith was there to pick up his first Oscar. And the whole thing devolved into actual violence.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to brush off the event as yet another disposably silly celebrity moment. It would be easier if Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., hadn\u2019t immediately tweeted (and then deleted), \u201cThank you #WillSmith Shout out to all the husbands who defend their wives living with alopecia in the face of daily ignorance &#038; insults.\u201d Or if Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., hadn\u2019t tweeted, \u201cTeachable Moment: Don\u2019t joke about a Black Woman\u2019s hair.\u201d Or if the entire Academy Awards audience hadn\u2019t given Smith a standing ovation a few moments later. Or if there hadn\u2019t been widespread support for Smith\u2019s slap online, thanks to the now-common belief that verbal insults constitute a form of violence to which violence is an acceptable \u2014 indeed, commendable \u2014 response.<\/p>\n<p>The social compact by which verbiage and violence remain strictly separated is a delicate one. For most of human history, words were treated as punishable by physical response \u2014 dueling was commonplace in societies for centuries, familial retaliation for insult was regular, and wars were even fought over verbal slights. But over time, civilized people traded away the privilege of personal use of force in favor of rules; truly offensive words could sometimes meet with social disapproval or even ostracization, but certainly not violence.<\/p>\n<p>Now we seem to be reversing the trend. The entire theory of \u201cmicroaggressions\u201d suggests that if you are offended, it is because someone has \u201caggressed\u201d against you \u2014 and aggression requires response. To deny someone\u2019s preferred pronouns is now an act of \u201cerasure\u201d amounting to violence, since the person so slighted might feel damaged in their sense of worth or authenticity. Once we reconnect the severed link between words and violence, civilization will begin to break down.<\/p>\n<p>We can hope that Will Smith\u2019s slap remains an aberration; a country in which comedians are regularly assaulted for making jokes will soon be a rather humorless place. But unless Americans are willing to reestablish the hard barrier between words and violence, we will become a far more silent and far more violent nation.<\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, Will Smith \u2014 perhaps the most bankable star of his generation \u2014 won an Oscar for Best Actor for \u201cKing Richard.\u201d But that wasn\u2019t why he made headlines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1411203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1411203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1411203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1411203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1411203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}