Oscars 2022: In Defense of Black Women

If you don’t recognize the disrespect here, there and everywhere, then you are part of the problem.

Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Chris Rock

Six decades ago, Malcolm X stood before a crowd in Los Angeles, California and gave one of his most provocative speeches — a defense of Black women. “The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman,” Malcolm X declared.

In her critically acclaimed artistic masterpiece, LEMONADE, Beyoncé conjured the spirit of his speech on her record “Don‘t Hurt Yourself” taunting the legions of haters that have tried desperately throughout history to destroy Black women’s spirit because we dare to be Black, bold and exist outside the mold in a society that doesn’t celebrate or revere us.

So, last night when Will Smith took to the Oscar’s stage to slap comedian Chris Rock, live on national television for making an incredibly disrespectful joke about his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith’s hair loss due to her Alopecia diagnosis, the weight of that slap traveled well beyond that moment to a much deeper history of abuse and neglect of Black women.

For far too long Black women have not only been the mules of the Earth as Zora Neale Hurston said through character Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God…