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To White People Who Are Sick of Hearing About Will Smith and Chris Rock
We need to keep talking about what happened between two Black men at the 2022 Oscars.
The second half of March must have been a White supremacist’s nightmare: As of April 2, for two weeks and counting, the news cycle has been dominated by Black people. During week one, it was all about the US Senate confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the US Supreme Court.
Then at the beginning of last week, we got a twist nobody saw coming: Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage at the 2022 Oscars after the latter told a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will’s wife — or more specifically, a joke about her shaved head. Complicating matters, Will was a Best Actor nominee for his performance in King Richard (he later won the award), and Jada Pinkett Smith has alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss.