JL Valentine

March 28, 2022

Let’s talk about the Elephant in the Room. The News and Social Media are talking about last night’s Academy Awards. How Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in the face for making an offensive joke about his wife. But!!! It’s never okay to react with physical violence to another person. We talk about this in classrooms since Kindergarten. Both parents and teacher would say don’t hit Johnny, use your words. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith did use plenty of words after he slapped Mr. Rock but the language was also of a violent nature. So instead of me telling you what should have Mr. Smith done in this situation, I am asking what do you think would have been the correct way to handle a situation like this? Maybe if we all wrote letters using our words to Mr. Smith about how you would have handled the situation, maybe he would learn from your ideas and remember what he taught his kids when they were younger. Just because you are 10 or 12 even 15 you all have wonderful ideas. I trust you would act in a way that you and your parents, teachers, and friends would be proud of.

Here are some questions to consider:

1. Is it okay to hit someone because you are defending someone you love like a parent, a friend, your sibling or Mr. Smith’s reason his wife?
2. Is it okay to hit someone because you did not like what the other person said?
3. When someone says something that has hurt your feelings or someone you love do you react immediately or should you clam down and talk with the person and let him/her know what he/she said was not cool?
4. Do you give the person who said the hurtful joke or comment a chance to apologize?
5. Do you forgive that person who hurt your feelings?
6. Do you forgive the person who acted badly and hit you?
7. If you acted badly and hit someone no matter what the reason do you apologize?

These questions are to make you think about what it really means to respect humanity. Just because we don’t always agree, see a situation in the same way, believe what you believe in or someone says something you don’t like we should always be respectful towards each other. Our country has become so divided because we all believe in different things and that can seem overwhelming. We ask ourselves how can we make a difference? First, I believe in tolerance and accountability. Tolerance towards understanding that we all make mistakes and we can forgive one another. Accountability to talk about the situation and remember our tools from first and second grade in conflict mediation. A bully is like a mouse, “When you give a mouse a cookie he is going to ask for a glass of milk.” (Laura Numeroff) Let’s learn from lessons that show us who we are as people and what kind of person we want to become. I know you can do it and maybe if we start with ourselves with one act of kindness at a time we may conquer the world.