March 30, 2022
First came the joke. Then came Will Smith’s slap.
It was the slap though that got everyone’s attention and talking about the Oscars. This was no ordinary “caught on video and posted to TikTok” slap. Nope. It was a slap between two of America’s most well known Black men celebrities that the entire world watched in real time. It has been shared and viewed hundreds of millions of times and likely to be a meme that will last for generations.
Now the slap continues to be debated across all forms of media as people jump in to share their opinion of who was right. On one side you have Oscar winner Will Smith and those who strongly believe he was defending his wife Jada by his actions. Then there are those who are shocked and dismayed that an act of violence and assault was broadcast across the world and it features two well respected Black men in the entertainment business. There is also the growing racial undertones of this social media driven conversation and how that is shaping the discussion of who was right and who was wrong.