TRIGGER WARNING: Systemic Racism, Prejudice, Battery, Trauma, Spiritual Imbalance/Fragmentation
Disclaimer:
Hello there.
Now for those of you who have been here for a minute or otherwise know what I’m about on here, this may or may not seem like a surprise topic for me to include and cover in my blog that supposedly “specializes” in mental health tips and sharing information about the autistic experience. Also a little bit about Art, manifestation and self-improvement. But I will be the first to say that there’s actually an overwhelming amount of overlap here! What we saw on the Oscar stage on Sunday, March 27th was fraught with spiritual undertones that were pulling all the strings that eventually promulgated the physical and emotional blows struck at the pertinent actors and comedians that night. And one would be hard-pressed to think about the spirit or soul without the mind and mental state.
Now then,
As for anyone curious of my credentials that permit me to speak on the matter, I will tell you this:
I am a young, Black, autistic man living in the United States in 2022, and have been for the past 24 years. In those 24 years, I have seen and/or experienced systemic racism and many other serious forms of ruthless prejudice at the hands of those who run my country, and those simply inhabiting it. I also know from experience what that sort of oppression can do to a person. It can imprison them in their own mind, make them think there is no way out, and that no one cares enough to give them the basic human right of decency.
I am not a married man, but I have a mother, a sister and many friends who identify as black women, and who empathize with the outrage felt by Ms. Jada Pinkett Smith on the 94th Oscar night. My best friend, my sister, is a black woman. I am also an empath who feels their same pain, partly because I have also been ostracized for being who I am by many of the same people oppressing them.
Finally, I’ll say that I have been a black man who has been offended by something else another black person has said of me or someone I care about. I know what havoc that sort of offense can wreak on one’s spirit and mental health. I am also something of a comedian, and a sorta loose lover of satire. I grew up watching the two men in question play some of my favorite roles ever (Osmosis Jones, Dr. Robert Neville, the titular character of Everybody Hates Chris, Agent J, Marty, and Oscar wit tha PlayStation 2), and it broke my heart to see these two icons, these titans of my childhood have a public disagreement as the world watched on.
Just in case anyone was wondering what stake I have in being part of this conversation…
Okay, now let’s get into it!
First thing’s first:
I am mad and not mad at Chris.
Explicitly, I will say *it was wrong of Chris to make a joke about Jada’s hair condition, *known as alopecia areata. It’s a largely unknown and stigmatized condition that many women deal with, but due to that stigma, have to deal with it in secret, in silence. Another celebrity I absolutely adore, Alessia Cara, also deals with this very same condition, and she bravely spoke about it positively in an article about 6 years ago. Now unfortunately, secrecy is something seldom afforded to our celebrities when compared to that rate within the general population, so Jada here is kinda the odd one out, and let me also explicitly say, as much as I will talk about Big Willie and Chris, we have to remember that Jada is the one at the center of this. The joke was about her. I know we’ve got places to go and people to see, so I won’t harp on my anger at Chris any further. I think anger is a language that most people today understand all too well.
Stay with me, here…
Explicitly, I will also say that I am not mad at Chris for trying to make a joke in all good humor. He was actually doing his job, partaking in his very passion. The operative word here is trying to make a joke in all good humor. A fact of life (at least at this point in history) is that people are fallible; we make mistakes. If someone oversteps in some way, a forum should be open for them to be forgiven. It’s already open for them to be shamed and shunned, but that shouldn’t be the primary response to someone who wasn’t advertently trying to attack someone. My favorite superhero Batman said, “If you kill the killer, the number of killers in the world remains the same.”
Just because Chris is seen as a rich, untouchable celebrity, that doesn’t give anyone the right to strip him of his humanity and treat him like an animal, projecting all your anger out onto them like a punching bag. Despite what people think, Chris is human. He has feelings, and just like yours, they can get hurt. I commend Chris for keeping his composure as he was presenting the nominees and award he was doing. You know how many people in his position would’ve slapped back, often as a purely kneejerk response? At this stage in my life, I’m not sure I wouldn’t’ve, even I was in the wrong.
Will had publicly humiliated Chris on national television, and social media. It only adds insult to injury for anyone to demonize him for something that I can bet you money he was sorry for the moment that Will slapped him. Maybe even sooner. This is the problem I have with Cancel Culture:
I was watching Part 1 of the Special Episode of Euphoria where Rue’s NA Sponsor, Ali, was having a talk with her about the effect of Cancel Culture, particularly how it affects the “cancelled” person. I couldn’t find the individual clip, but watch here if you have HBO Max. Skip to 41:36, watch till approximately 43:00.
We have this toxic system going where imperfect people make mistakes, and suddenly, we all just start to express the thought to them that they are beyond forgiveness. You know what that does? It makes that person feel ashamed; so ashamed that they may very well stop believing in redemption, because it sure seems like the world isn’t giving them any chance of that. People do that because they themselves are traumatized, and whatever that trauma from their past is, it’s messing up their mind and consequently their judgement. It’s honestly just a toxic projection — most people doing that have something inside them that they believe puts they themselves beyond forgiveness. Therefore, it makes them feel better about their situation if they spread that pain; make someone else feel it. And celebrities are easy targets for that due to complex socioeconomic constructs and paradigms I will choose to not go into right now.
This isn’t an indictment on any subscribers of Cancel Culture, this is one explanation of how and why they do what they do and a call for any of them who are willing to, for them understand and to own their emotional state on the matter. It does no good to simply shame the shamers because then they feel even more ashamed. That’s not good. No bueno.
I said it before: I believe human decency is an unalienable human right, and we shouldn’t deny people of that, even if there’s something about them we don’t like, or something we don’t like in ourselves that they are holding up an honest mirror to. I don’t think we should stoop that low with each other.
And in case anyone wants to pull this out, I will say that no, I am not championing Chris because I am autistic, and he is Neurodivergent, particularly showing traits of Nonverbal Learning Disorder (NVLD). I feel the way I feel about him because I care about him. Nothing more to it. ❤️
And by the way, I’m not championing anyone, I’m continuing to champion everyone. 😊❤️
I am mad and not mad at Will.
Explicitly, I will say this: Will should not have slapped Chris on National Television. I am and was actually pretty mad at him and the way that he handled the situation in the moment it happened. And just a little background on Will and what he means to me: this man almost single-handedly reacquainted me with the part of me that believes in myself with many of his kind, empathetic and inspiring words, my favorite collection of which is found here when you got 10 minutes to watch. The same man who did that for me slapped arguably one of my all-time GOAT comedians on an international, honestly global forum. It was violent, I’ll just say that.
Now again, anger is a language that most people understand all too well. So despite its presence in me, I will not harp on my anger towards Will, either.
Try to entertain opposing ideas with me here…
Explicitly, I will say this: Will was totally in the right to defend his wife Jada. Chris inadvertently made a bad joke about her, Will was initially laughing, then after seeing Jada’s look of dismay, he went up and showed Chris what for: Textbook example of a man defending his wife’s honor. He’d even use that word “defend” later on in the night. That’s how I feel, and I don’t apologize for feeling that way, contradictions and all. 😊❤️
More on that later…
Even if I did feel crunchy about the entire situation in the interim period between Will and Chris’ disagreement, and Will’s history-making Oscar win, the feelings faded away during Will’s heartfelt acceptance speech. He said he wanted to represent Love in this world, in spite of all the fear and hate thrown his way. That showed me that the Will who helped me believe in me again hadn’t gone anywhere, and what we saw with Chris was an instance of the negative sides of his emotions getting the better of him, like any angry person. Again, afford yourself the right to be human. You’re worth that. ❤️
Furthermore, he made a public apology to The Academy, all those in attendance and his fellow nominees for his actions. I was wondering if he would publicly apologize to Chris, which he did within 24 hours of making his speech. And as a sidenote, LOVE, aka Diddy made sure that the two settled their differences and reconciled at the afterparty, which I would hope included an apology to Jada herself from Chris, maybe even Will, too.
I will say it again: Jada is at the center of this conflict. This is ultimately about a black woman feeling stigmatized in a sexist, prejudiced patriarchy of a world for a hair condition over which she has I imagine no control over.
I said it once, and I’ll say it again: People are fallible. ❤️ We don’t always get it right on the mark every time. Celebrities are people, and it therefore becomes dehumanizing to ruthlessly condemn Will for the wrong in his actions while completely discounting the good in his actions. For any of my people in relationships, wouldn’t you want to stand up to anyone who crossed your partner in some way, even if it didn’t involve you and the transgressor coming to blows? It’s that same energy that we saw in Will, it just went as far as it did because he was understandably emotional about it.
Sidenote: maybe if Alopecia wasn’t such a stigmatized hair condition, particularly for women, who are more subjected to ruthless patriarchal beauty standards (nearly all of which mandating that women have hair, often long hair, to be considered beautiful) than men, maybe Jada, and consequently Will, wouldn’t have been so emotionally struck by Chris’ comical mention of it. I’m looking forward to the day when we are ready to have that conversation. 😊❤️❤️❤️
There’s also a wealth of misinformation pedaled by prejudice about black-on-black crime used as salt in the wound dealt to Americans by systemic racism, in this case towards Black people. A lot of people were worried that the US public and government would just see this conflict as another instance of “disproportionate” black-on-black crime. That punishment is unfair, it is too easy, and here’s why…
The reality is that more people in all races and ethnicities are killed more often by people in their same major demographic than otherwise. The case with Black communities may be a little more extreme and moreso publicized by news outlets, but that tends to happen when one’s ancestors were literally enslaved by white American citizens for centuries before being suddenly freed without a socioeconomic leg to stand on. Then, if you did something perceived to be against the law for for someone like you, you fall into a ruthless, rigged criminal justice system, and suddenly you find out, “Hey, slavery never stopped existing! Now it’s the police that enslave you! That was veiled nicely!” (I told y’all I was something of a comedian. 😊😂❤️) Every Black person alive in the United States today is living in the shadow of that cruel mass trauma.
Chris didn’t press charges because he knew what kind of hell the police would unleash on a black man in power like Will, or himself! He didn’t want to put him in that cage. It’s like how people were already talking about what prison and what cell Michael Jackson would be in before the trial even happened. That’s kinda cruel, to say the least, and it gives you a taste of what Will might’ve been subjected to solely based on status and the color of his skin.
The racist powers-that-be try to make it seem like crime only happens with us so much as to further incriminate us in our own eyes and in the eyes of other demographics, but it really happens with everybody. That’s for the people who didn’t know about that part of the Struggle. ❤️ I live to inform those who are not.
Where are we going with this…
My point is that, both sides can easily be just as right as each other! 😊
I’m writing this the night of the 28th, and seeing the (and I feel this is a fitting word) carnage being enacted on social media in the hours since the incident with Jada, Will and Chris has made me realize many different things about us as people.
Perhaps the most profound (and certainly to me, the most pressing, what I intend to share with you today) thing that I deduced is that… people really do see both sides. They really do. The question is not of whether we see each other’s sides, I feel, but more of what side we individually choose to take.
But that’s just it: we feel pressured to take one side of, one stance on a situation, and that gets problematic because basic human decency allows most, if not all of us to see not only the good found in the side we choose, but also in the side we don’t choose. That’s what makes picking sides so hard oftentimes! 🙂 Even if you put 12 of your eggs in the basket of one side, there’s still that 13th egg that believes in the other side! Part of you sees the good in the other decision, just as you see the good in the one of the side you’ve chosen.
I have learned the hard way that it is a cruel and painful process to deny parts of you and your being and to try to keep on living as if those abandoned parts of you don’t exist. There’s a book I’ve been wanting to read called *The Body Keeps the Score* by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. that my friend recommended to me again while I was in a depression about a week ago. I was telling her that my body just kinda gave out on me back in January. To quote the immortal Mary J. Blige, I told my friend that I had been “Too strong, for too long,” 🎵And I can’t be without you, baby!🎵😂😂😂❤️ For those who need context, skip to about a minute in.
In Fall 2020, I had gotten back in school for the first time since starting my mental health recovery in 2017. I didn’t know this consciously for awhile, but every semester was taking more and more out of me faster than I knew how to refill my cup, all until the start of this year, when my brain and my body just straight up told me, “Evan, you gotta pump the brakes and refill your cup, brutha!” 😂
I was actually planning on releasing more posts sooner in the year, but my body staged a literal Rue Bennett-level intervention to get me back in tune with myself. I had no resources left, so I had to listen.
I’ve since made at least enough progress in healing to get back to where I can operate the blog again, more or less, and I’m coming back at ‘cha with some of my most helpful findings! Eeeeee!!!! 😊😄❤️❤️❤️
Now here’s the thing I ultimately want us all to entertain…
There is a state of psychological and emotional being known as cognitive dissonance. It’s basically that quite uncomfortable feeling when you attempt to entertain two or more contradictory ideas in your head, in equal measure, and all at once. This Oscars debacle has been a great opportunity for me to practice being in that mind state! 😄 And now I am sharing my discoveries with you all! 😁 I think the way to make sense of something like this (or at least start to make sense of this), as complex and multi-layered as it is, is for us to take some time to sit in that cognitive dissonance, and try to entertain both sides of this conflict.
I think it will do a world of good for us and our anger, but that’s if we stick with it, try to see it through until we individually reach some sort of breakthrough, like I found I did, and am honestly still doing. 😊
Due to a number of societal constructs enforcing binary ideas upon us for centuries, inherently, this will be a painful process to undergo. I thought about that, and the level of opposition that this idea would initially be met with. But then I thought to myself, “People are hurt, upset and angry now too, so it’s kinda gonna be painful in some sense either way. So the question becomes, out of the two painful experiences, which one is worse? Which one is worth it?” I honestly believe the Cognitive Dissonance route is ultimately the best.
It goes back to the question: Which one is worse? Sitting in the extreme discomfort of entertaining opposing ideas until you reach some sort of inevitable breakthrough, or ignoring the cognitive dissonance of the fact that there are parts of you that believe in either side of the argument, taking a side, and ultimately just swimming in a pool of strife, pain and confusion (often vividly expressed on social media) indefinitely until the next bullet train of spiritual reckoning arrives at the station?
I think a lot of people, when given that level and depth of perspective on a matter, would agree with me that the former option would be better in the long run. The pain would be immense in the short term, largely because we are just not used to consistently thinking this way, having two or more opposing ideas coexisting in our minds, but what I want us all to walk away with here, is that after we sit through that pain and get some breakthroughs in there, the pain will be gone. Or lessened. But either way, this way promises a chance to lessen the pain, and in much shorter order than being at the, for lack of better words, mercy of trends run by social media activity, inherently unpredictable world events, and all the interactions that ensue therein.
Whew!
You are infinitely appreciated by me for reading this far! Thank you! 😄😊❤️❤️❤️ I’m sharing these thoughts here so that I can help to make the world a better, nicer and braver place to be, and you reading up to this point means that you’re helping me do that, and I can’t thank you enough for doing so. It affirms my purpose in this life (well, one of them. The most pressing one. 😊 After I’m done saving the world, I’m gonna go back into my room and just create stuff. That’s what I’d be doing if the world wasn’t currently on fire. 😅).
Sit in the discomfort of Cognitive Dissonance. See what comes up. ❤️ If you give it a try and stick with it for a bit, I think you’ll be surprised at what you find, as I have been surprised at what I’ve found.
I have the utmost faith in ALL OF YOU! If things ever get difficult, or if you want pointers from what’s been helping me, I want you to know that this blog is ultimately a forum for dialogue between us all, so drop me a comment if you feel so inclined or have any ideas for future post topics or questions for me.
Thank you again infinitely for reading my thoughts. It literally means the world to me because I haven’t always been listened to in my life, but here you are! 😄❤️
Disclaimer: any comments written from a place of offense, prejudice or projecting one’s own fear maliciously will not be tolerated on this site. If you feel that your thoughts are of this nature, refrain from commenting until you feel more positive, or please don’t comment at all. Any comments of this nature are frequently monitored and will be promptly deleted from this site to ensure that this blog remains a safe space for positive, constructive, and forward-thinking ideas that will help to genuinely make the world a better place.
If you feel you got anything out of this, or that someone you know could benefit from hearing what’s been said here, please consider sharing with others, or even just saying “hi!” Those sorts of comments will brighten up ya boi’s day real quick. 😊😊❤️❤️❤️ I’m working on installing sharing buttons, but for now, a copying of the link can suffice, I imagine. This blog is on the come-up, and anyone who visits or whom you help bring to this site will be contributing to help build it into something even more amazing than what we have in these humble beginnings!
I’m working on a mailing list and a subscriber system so y’all can know when I post, and get any other cool things or thoughts from me, so stay tuned for that, I’ll be updating these posts as these new things are created!
Finally, thank you for your time, I hope you got something great out of this, and I am so glad that you exist!
Stay strong, stay loving. ❤️
Evan
Tell someone you love them after you read this. 😊❤️
P.S. Chris made a great show host at the 88th Oscars in 2016! Dude took no prisoners with commenting on the state of cinema, and the world, particularly American Politics. And I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated his candor. I see myself in that. 😊