As all of us were watching the Oscars on March 28, and saw actor Will Smith take the stage and slap comedian Chris Rock for a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s campaign Twitter account posted, “Teachable Moment: Don’t joke about a Black Woman’s hair,” at 10:48 PM. Before 11pm that Tweet was deleted.
Another progressive democrat and member of “The Squad,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, posted, “#Alopecia nation stand up! Thank you #WillSmith,” tweeted Pressley. “Shout out to all the husbands who defend their wives living with alopecia in the face of daily ignorance & insults. Women with baldies are for real men only…boys need not apply.”
Rep. Pressley has discussed publickly that she also has alopecia, which results in the loss of hair. Pinkett-Smith has the same medical condition and is what Rock joked when he said that she would be a good actress for the movie GI Jane 2.
Rep. Bowman’s Tweet came from his communications director Sarah Iddrissu, who explained that she was watching the Oscars separately from the Congressman and staff, but were chatting in a group text. “We, like everyone else, thought it was a joke between two famous actors,” Iddrissu said, but when the group realized “it was serious,” Iddrissu said, she deleted the tweet.
Bowman said that the Will Smith incident was “a terrible situation that we all thought must’ve been a silly skit between two famous actors at the Oscars. Obviously actual violence is never O.K.”
“Obviously, one of his priorities is reducing violence. He’s invested a lot of time and federal resources into doing that,” Iddrissu said of Bowman.
Many of us had the same response as Iddrissu, and were confused by what had happened. No big deal, but the teachable moment could be… wait a bit before Tweeting?
