This is Not How You Protect Black Women

Seun Shokunbi - Editor

I am a Black woman. If someone (woman or man) directed an insult towards me that I didn’t like, I wouldn’t necessarily want my husband to slap his face. He could start with some verbal attacks on that person’s character and a clear warning that things will get physical if the insults continue. However, there are many reasons why I would not want my (presumably) Black husband to hit a man that hasn’t hit him first.

These are my thoughts on the issue. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith may have a different agreement as a married couple. My main point is: Will Smith’s slap has nothing to do with protecting all Black women.

What happened on the Oscars stage last night was a personal squabble between two famous, rich Black men. To conflate it with a warrior cry against the violence average Black women face is to minimize a far worse situation.

I doubt Will Smith is coming to my hood to slap a man on the corner calling me a bitch because I didn’t smile at his compliment. I doubt Will Smith is thinking about over 5.2 million Black women (myself included) who experienced domestic violence at the hands of a Black man as he assaulted Chris Rock on national television. If Will had any intention to teach every (Black) man in the world a lesson about abusing Black women at that moment, it was lost on me.

And this is dangerous because what are we, the Black women who don’t have the privilege of being partnered with a wealthy, powerful (Black) man, supposed to do now? Point to a GIF or meme of this to the abusive men in our lives and say SEE? Fuck around and you’ll get fucked up?

Black feminist author Brittney Cooper has a quote in her book Beyond Respectability that helps us unpack this further. She talks from the perspective of defending Black women scholars, but I believe it’s still applicable:

“[O]ne needs to first become acquainted with two of [Anna Julia Cooper’s] cardinal commitments. They include: 1) a commitment to seeing the Black female body as a form of possibility and not a burden, and 2) a commitment to centering the Black female body as a means to cathect Black social thought.”

In the context of everyone equating Will Smith’s act with the #ProtectBlackWomen movement, here’s what this quote asks you to consider:

1. The protection of Black women starts intellectually. Obviously, if a Black woman is met with a physical threat to her well-being, by all means, use equal if not more brute force against that threat. But if a (Black) man chooses to act in a way that doesn’t do much to change the perception another man has about Black women, did he actually protect us?

2. Chris Rock’s joke was probably intellectually (or emotionally) harmful to Jada. We may never know how much he knew about her mental state, and whether he should have known that joke would strike a nerve. But imagine how impactful it would be if Will hit Chris back harder with an intellectual slap instead? Will may have hands, but he built a whole career around his sharper tongue. A well-crafted pun at the mic could’ve set the blueprint for making it abundantly clear why Chris or any other (Black) man should never cross that line with ANY Black woman.

I also read this comment on an Instagram thread that takes my perspective to a whole ‘nother level:

To protect Black women is TO KEEP THAT SAME ENERGY WITH ANYBODY, not just the guy you think you can get away with punching. However, the last thing I want to promote is Black men sparring willy-nilly (no pun intended) without discernment. Even if it’s to protect me. 

Black men are 14 times more likely to die in a gunfight than their white peers. Since 2015, 1,539 Black men have been killed by police. (Note: this may not be a full, accurate count.)

If I end up partnered with a Black man, I want him to live 60+ years long while protecting me. This requires my Black man to exercise a level of caution in deciding how he’s going to tell other men (especially White men, frankly) when and how they’ve harmed me. I’m not sure what Will wanted to communicate to any of his White colleagues or friends in the audience about making any similar remarks against Jada.

The stakes were not that high in the Smith/Rock situation, and none of them have skin in the game of creating a safer life for Black women who don’t have $50 million net-worth status.

But if they were to be so kind as to use this viral moment to address this bigger, real issue of protecting Black women, then maybe they can start with this:

1. In a room full of your professional peers (e.g. an award ceremony) use your voice to directly challenge and express the consequences for any man who demeans a Black woman’s sense of worth, credentials, or physical appearance.

2. Look for ways to promote Black women to positions of authority in the spaces they’re in, and be an example of how other men can work under her leadership without being intimidated by her position in relation to them.

3. Hold conversations both publicly and privately on a continuous basis with other men about the different ways patriarchy or toxic masculinity shows up in your daily behaviors. Create a method for holding each other accountable when you see each other fall into those habits, and for helping each other break those habits sooner than later.

There is nothing on this list that I’ve seen Will or Chris do, so I beg the social media pundits to stop calling this a #protectBlackwomen moment. You are doing more harm than good because you are (a) sending a confusing message to other men watching this debacle, and (b) probably only saying this to boost your likes and retweets (another issue for another day).

The decision Will made, albeit in the heat of the moment and forgivable, did little to teach anyone a lesson on protecting anyone except his wife. PERIOD.