Elder: Hollywood Is Obsessing Over Will Smith's Slap, But Silent on What It Does to Conservatives

By Larry Elder March 30, 2022 at 2:59pm

Goodness! What a night.

During the live broadcast of the Academy Awards on Sunday, actor Will Smith walked up to the stage and slapped comedian Chris Rock. When Smith returned to his seat, he unleashed a profanity-laced tirade — muted by the show’s producer — at Rock.

What did Rock do to warrant the attack? He told a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. “Jada, I love you,” Rock said. “‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it.” The original film stars Demi Moore, with a shaved head, playing a Navy special operations trainee. Rock’s joke referred to Jada Smith’s shaved head due to hair loss caused by alopecia, a condition she publicly revealed years ago. Rock claimed he knew nothing about her condition.

Whether Rock knew or not, the quip did not justify a slap to the face. Rock is, after all, a comedian. He tells jokes. He was doing his job. In fact, immediately after the joke, a camera shot showed Will Smith laughing. But he quickly found that his wife was not amused.

Just before the slap, Rock joked about husband-and-wife actors Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, both of whom were nominated for awards. Rock joked that there might be marital discord if Bardem won and Cruz did not. Bardem did not storm the stage.

Hosts and presenters also took shots at Florida for its supposed “Don’t Say Gay” bill, actually a commonsense law that prevents schools from teaching LGBT ideology to kindergarteners and first-, second- and third-graders. Even liberal Bill Maher recently said, “Maybe kids that young shouldn’t be thinking about sex at all.” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell got slammed for something, most likely for being the Senate Republican leader.

This Oscar night, the Hollywood elite prided themselves on their customary diversity, inclusion and equity, while demonstrating special sensitivity for gay people and for the deaf. This sensitivity, however, only applies to liberal gay people, liberal members of the deaf community and liberal racial and ethnic minorities.

How does it feel to be a young, religious, pro-life actor or behind-the-camera worker in Hollywood, no matter his race, gender or sexual orientation, who must remain in the ideological closet for fear that his views mean career suicide?

Hollywood prides itself on embracing the underdog, the scorned, the downtrodden. But that empathy does not extend to political conservatives who must hide their beliefs or risk cancellation.

Rapper Snoop Dogg, with 20 million Twitter followers, has referred to black conservatives, including commentator and author Candace Owens, as a “coon bunch.” The aforementioned Smith denounced me as an “Uncle Tom” in a 2005 rap song called “Mr. Niceguy.”

Sorry, I don’t consider myself a victim of a systemically racist country. I don’t believe cops engage in institutional racial profiling. I reject critical race theory and climate change alarmism. I believe taxes are too high, regulations too severe and government too big. I support secure borders, am pro-life, God-fearing and advocate for school choice.

For this, conservatives are considered by Hollywood types like Smith a human disease not worthy of debate.

I can take it. I’ve put up with intolerant nitwits all my life. My Jim Crow-surviving Republican Marine father and my strong native Alabaman mother instilled in me an unshakable confidence to be who and what I am.

But how many black kids right now endure schoolyard taunts, even bullying — encouraged by influencers like Snoop Dogg and Will Smith — for the sins of “acting white” by studying hard, speaking standard English or being ambitious and career-oriented?

Where, Hollywood, is the love for those outcasts?

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