It should not be too much to ask that adults not react violently when someone says something they don’t like. But two high-profile incidents in the past few weeks suggest it just might be.
Comedian Chris Rock told a joke about the wife of actor Will Smith that Smith didn’t like (or did like, before he realized his wife didn’t like it) at the Oscars on Sunday. Smith responded by sauntering onstage and taking a swing at Rock. Smith later accepted an award and apologized to everyone except Rock, crying while claiming that “love will make you do crazy things.”
“Love will make you do crazy things.”
Will Smith offers a tearful apology after hitting Chris Rock on stage for making a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/ylDSgOAbFW
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) March 28, 2022
About five weeks earlier, we had another prominent figure turn an event into an embarrassing spectacle. That was Juwan Howard, the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, who took a swing at a Wisconsin assistant coach. Howard was upset Wisconsin called a timeout when the game was out of reach (ignoring the fact he was running a full-court press while the game was out of reach). When Wisconsin Head Coach Greg Gard tried to explain this to him, Howard turned the handshake line into a scuffle.
Juwan Howard strikes Wisconsin assistant Joe Krabbenhoft after Michigan-Wisconsin game pic.twitter.com/fbv0WKzbT6
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 20, 2022
In both cases, these men took a swing at men who were physically smaller than them. Both men initiated a physical confrontation where none was called for under some notion of defending their “honor.” In truth, neither a conversation nor a mean joke justifies physical violence.
Kindergarteners have to be taught not to fight each other on the playground because someone was mean to them. Juwan Howard is 49. Will Smith is 53.
No amount of semantic quibbles about punches and open-hand slaps or “defending your wife’s honor” from a mean joke can ever justify what Howard and Smith did. Assaulting coaches for coaching or comedians for telling jokes is completely unacceptable, no matter what kind of sympathetic spin you put on it.
Smith has already earned (quickly deleted) defenses from two members of Congress. Sports media turned Howard’s incident into a conversation about eliminating post-game handshakes. This is not behavior that should be defended or shrugged off. Violent outbursts in response to things you don’t want to hear should not be allowed to become socially acceptable because there is no guarantee the next incident will be as “tame” as the previous two.
