Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Will Smith Did a Bad, Bad Thing

[Jm7603]

6. Amazing to me....

A significant portion of this country, including some people I have agreed with on other issues in the past, are apparently good with violence in response to a joke. Possibly a bad and insensitive joke, but a joke. I've seen several posts giving the impression or directly stating "I would have done the same thing"! If feeling disrespected or getting a "sad" from a joke is thought to be sufficient to provoke a violent attack how can we ever condemn Nazis in Charlottesville or J6 insurrectionists for violence when they (wrongly) thought their country was being stolen from them? If a feeling of disrespect or a sad are the criteria to approve of violence we are in real trouble. I understand the levels of violence are different, but the violence was just as wrong here. Will Smith was wrong. We can't split hairs and say it was just a slap or just a punch. There was no excuse for this reaction to a joke.