Dual Standards

[davidgillon]

Seeing a lot of disabled people commenting on twitter about how everyone seems to be condemning Will Smith, but no one seems to be discussing Chris Rock using a world-wide bully-pulpit to punch down at a woman with an auto-immune disease. (And everyone else with a visible difference).

As a friend noted, that just an hour on from an actually disabled actor getting an Oscar for a film about disabled people.

Comments

[lilysea]

My thoughts were:

1. That was a horrible ableist joke Chris Rock made and he should be deeply ashamed

2. It's never okay to hit someone except in self defense - there was a small but non-zero chance of life-changing injury

3. If Will Smith had been white, he would be getting a lot less criticism

[davidgillon]

It's never okay to hit someone except in self defense

I sort of agree, but ...

Given there's apparently a long history of Chris Rock going after Jada Pinkett-Smith, and that he clearly hit home, I'm not sure there isn't an arguable element of self-defence, or at least defending your family members. Chris Rock will likely think twice before going after her again, at least in front of her husband, so this may lead to a overall reduction in violence (where violence covers both mental and physical). Or he may just double down, but that will make the bullying more apparent to the rest of his audience.

And there's the wider impact to consider. Chris Rock was saying it's okay to mock alopecia in front of a world-wide audience. That message would have been unchallenged but for what happened, and undoubtedly encouraged a lot of bullies. Cumulatively that's a lot of violence. Oh, some of it would still have happened without him, but they wouldn't have had that moral backing of 'Chris Rock did it at the Oscars, so it must be okay'.

ETA: and I agree on "If Will Smith had been white".

[lilysea]

I meant *physical* self defense eg if the other person is a genuine immediate physical threat.