The tenets of peace, nonviolence, and silent waiting are evergreen through the lines of the meetings I attend. I believe in those values. In Philadelphia, where slapboxing and all kinds of public rituals of physical combat are common, I am also from. I have differing opinions about what men should do for women in public. I've been in arguments with men who failed to speak up for me. Many people are uneasy at the prospect of escalating physical conflict. People shouldn't be violent with other people. I cringed, and then silently, and guiltily, assented to a friend's description of me as a "beta male" because he failed to stop a catcaller from approaching his girlfriend. I know that it is all fucked up and retrograde.
Because of my familiarity with retaliatory violence, I am not comfortable with the idea of women praising a man's physical retaliation to a joke. I wonder how we can expect that type of energy to not come back on us, for my own sake and for my affinity with other women. The responses to the joke that claim Smith was defending his wife's honor in a room full of white Hollywood establishment figures still center white people. Why should people care what white people think about a group of people? The celebrity Oscar attendees have more in common with each other than with us at home.
On Sunday night, CBS Los Angeles reporter Jasmine Viel interviewed celebrity attendees of the AIDS Foundation party about the slap. She ran into Metta World Peace, a retired NBA player, who didn't want to talk because he hadn't seen the whole thing. A fan threw a cup of water at World Peace as he lay back on the scorer's table after the game. That led to an all-out melee between the basketball players and the fans, player fines and suspensions, and a robust conversation about respectability in sports. The story ensured ratings as talking heads spent a lot of time analyzing what happened on television. The media debated security, fan behavior, and the tenuous relationship between players and spectators for weeks.
Serena Williams' angry response to four blown calls at the 2004 US Open caused a media frenzy. I cried and yelled in my bedroom when I saw that match live because the calls were unfair. Watching makes me angry like it did back then. The argument with Carlos Ramos at the US Open about the allegation that she was being coached echoed the first one.
Ye, the artist formerly known as West, has expressed his anger in the public. He said that George Bush doesn't care about black people. His angry social media dispatches continue to generate controversy. A clip from an early season of America's Next Top Model, in which Tyra Banks lost her temper and yelled at Tiffany Richardson, became a popular meme. Ray Rice was the subject of public scrutiny for weeks after he hit his fiancée in an elevator. The conversation about decorum and respectability dominated national discourse after Solange attacked Jay-Z in an elevator at the Met Gala. Black anger went viral in each of these situations. They became hot topics in the mainstream press. Public Black anger is justified and accurate, from Malcolm X's fiery speeches to Black Panther's political commentary.
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