What if “the slap” was a reminder to us all that growth isn’t linear or pretty?
For a while, I have been going through some pretty intense change and growth. During this period, I took in a lot of content - I really didn't know what was going on initially, then I wanted to continue the growth, so I had to seek out new knowledge. I read Will Smith's book during that time and have since re-read parts of it, journaled based on it, and talked quite a bit about it. Will's storytelling chops come through so strongly (especially when listening to the book) that it was difficult not to get drawn in. The focus on his deep personal reflection and growth aligned with my own awakening & liberation.
So I'm having a Will moment. I didn't watch the Oscars but I was hopeful that Will would win for King Richard (and, y'all, it is an amazing movie on so many levels for so many reasons). You can only imagine my surprise when I woke up and saw a bunch of notifications from the night before. At first, I thought it was staged, but then I kept reading. And honestly, my first thought was "damn, why did this have to happen?" (because again, in a Will moment).
Since then I've done some reading, listening, thinking, and a little talking about the incident. I'm a writer - it is how I often process how I feel and helps me communicate with others; so I felt like I'd end up writing about this. Also, I know I will work with Will at some point, so something just felt in sync.
I've heard all the things folks are saying and writing including -
Violence is never the answer (which I agree with, but I will also say that there are some folx saying this that are completely okay with violence in many, many other situations including violence against predominately Black and brown folx who are involved in the criminal justice system, but that's a conversation for another time),
Chris Rock was wrong and should have known better (and yes, that feels true to me),
Will Smith was wrong (yep, still feels true),
Will Smith very well may have been triggered and that "the slap" was a trauma response (also could be true - I can't speak for him specifically, obviously, but I can speak to the brain).
I think there's one more piece that I haven't seen talked about as much (and one I haven't seen talked about as much). Based on his book, it is clear that Will has gone through some very substantial growth - growth that I wish all of us could go through. That kind of growth is messy, hard, ugly, and deeply painful. When I started watching his YouTube channel, I thought "hm, I think he has some more growing to do that may involve therapy".
Many of us know that sometimes there are lessons that we need to learn that we run from (or at a minimum don't run towards). Sometimes there is something really beautiful and awe-inspiring waiting for us, but we've got to do a little more work on ourselves to get there. Sometimes we need to build the muscle of self-love and living based on our values, so we gotta deal with something hard to build that muscle. There are a shit ton of reasons why we go through hard things, but we all do - it's a consequence of being human. Part of me wonders if there is a lesson for all of us in what happened to Will. In the past few months, I have sometimes wanted my spiritual awakening & self-growth process to go more quickly because I felt like I was letting everyone down - the Oscars reminded me that there aren't just rainbows and butterflies in this life, sometimes shit is hard and we can’t skip the hard.
I am also wondering if this could be a time for us to start asking different questions and having different conversations. We all joke about how hard things are in the world right now (and it feels like an understatement to say that times feel hard), well what if we just start changing things by changing our conversations? What if we used this as an opportunity to talk about things like -
Trauma
Alopecia
Black women's hair
The fact that so many Black women haven't and continue to not feel protected by men and the implications of this
Restorative Justice