Blog #212: My Response to the Chris Rock/Will Smith Incident at the Oscars from a Neurodiverse Persp
- Jeffrey Snyder
- Mar 29, 2022
- 3 min read
By now, I am sure that a lot of you out there have heard about the “slap heard round the world” involving Chris Rock and Will Smith at the 2022 Oscars this past weekend.
Some of you out there are condemning Chris Rock for bringing up Jada Pinkett Smith’s condition and making a joke out of it while some of you are condemning Will Smith for even laying a finger on Chris Rock in front of millions of television viewers. But before you go and ask me which side I take in this situation, I want to be very clear that I clearly think both sides are to blame.
…
The Infamous “Clenched Fist” from the controversial “Arthur” episode, “Arthur’s Big Hit.”
As a neurodiverse individual, I still struggle with wanting to slug someone because they were giving me a hard time or doing something that was upsetting me.
Of course, you all know that there are certain boundaries that I have that I don’t want crossed and when those boundaries are crossed, I get the emotions that can either generate in me physically harming someone or even myself. Believe me, there are moments where I have wanted to do that both in my family and in my job.
Scolding parents, overbearing supervisors, nosy family members, how I have wanted to physically teach them a lesson when they get under my skin.
Like Chris Rock, I have said or done things that seemed to have warranted a slap or a punch from others. But I don’t get it, why? Because respect is a two-way street and if I don’t strike them, then they shouldn’t strike me.
But that’s what can make it so difficult sometimes because when we want to strike back at something that was either said or done to us, we end up getting in trouble for it.
…
As a neurodiverse individual, this is often the case I see a lot of particularly in schools and in the workplaces with the sidings in certain situations moving more towards the aggressor than the victim. People who hurt other people think that they are entitled or above anything or any authority to do whatever they please, either because they use the fake injury card, or they know that they are going to be favored in the situation.
At the end of the day, schools and businesses should be judgmental in their decisions and assume that the party who administered the physical harm be held accountable and not the victim. The problem is we live in a society where everything is probed and opinionated by the general public.
As the maternal uncle of two girls, I believe that the outside media or the opinion of others should not be taught to teach us what is right or wrong. I worry a lot about my nieces growing up in a society where it is okay to hit someone and get away with it because our emotions get the better of us.
I get the fact that this can be a difficult subject to bring up, especially now in days where viral videos and social media are the new normal, but if we are to teach our next generation of the importance of keeping our hands to ourselves, we have to teach the next generation life lessons like social media and mainstream media does not exist.
This is especially true with today’s generation that have a neurodiverse or disabled diagnosis, because we can get easily corrupted with garbage that we should not be seeing or dealing with in the first place to begin with.
I only hope that both Will Smith and Chris Rock realize their errors and learn from them in time.
…
Catch you all later!
Comments