in my lifetime i have felt & acted as Will Smith did.
lost my shit.
smacked someone hard.
screamed at them.
acted out protection w/ force.
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i imagine more of us have than have not (whether or not we will admit it to each other or ourselves or justify our behavior because we deemed it warranted)
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this was human as hell & happened to be enacted on the public stage.
there is much beneath the surface that we cannot pretend to know, understand or potentially be culturally competent enough to unpack w/o running into our own biases & inculturated ideas about how things ought to be
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this is not tacit complicity or agreement with Will Smith’s behavior
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i am stating there is more we DON’T KNOW about the situation than we do
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AND
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i believe we are are better off as a whole to start with humility around that not knowing, partnered with a heaping dose of compassion.
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i worry that making moralistic judgements about the whole of someone’s character, stability or personhood in a moment of duress feeds a belief that there is a righteous expression of culture or that cultural contexts OUTSIDE of the dominant culture need not be considered, are amoral or are inferior/wrong
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it’s a way of distancing & dividing,
a way of saying “that person is OTHER than me & i am better than that”
(consciously or not)
informed by a culture of white supremacy
ESPECIALLY when the perceived other is a black man
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don’t come at me for naming this or loose sight of our shared humanity
rather than collapsing into binary thinking or reenacting punitive means to enforce control, consider a restorative frame for addressing harm anywhere:
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• What happened?
• What were you thinking at the time?
• What have you thought about since?
• Who has been affected by what you have done?
• In what way?
• What do you think you need to do to make things right?
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To help those harmed:
• What did you think when you realized what had happened?
• What impact has this incident had on you and others?
• What has been the hardest thing for you?
• What do you think needs to happen to make things right?
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i will not engage in hateful or divisive rhetoric around this.
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imperfect in every way,
making all the mistakes,
i love you.
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please hold care for each other