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As if Will Smith’s week got off to a rough start when he couldn’t contain his anger and took an open-handed swing at Chris Rock’s face for telling a joke about Smith’s wife, along came social commentator Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to smack around the Academy Award-winning actor.
“With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community,” Kareem wrote Monday on his Substack.
While Chris Rock comedy show tickets were flying off the virtual shelves of ticket brokers at a blistering pace, Smith was sitting in his Hollywood home taking body blows from Kareem.
“By hitting Rock, he announced that his wife was incapable of defending herself—against words. From everything I’d seen of Pinkett Smith over the years, she’s a very capable, tough, smart woman who can single-handedly take on a lame joke at the Academy Awards show,” Kareem continued.
Here’s the unedited Will Smith slap of Chris Rock. This looks real. They bleeped it all out on the American version. pic.twitter.com/2fIoL05gO8
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) March 28, 2022
Kareem, whose son was sentenced to six months in jail in 2021 for stabbing a neighbor with a hunting knife over a trash can argument, is worried that the Will Smith slap will send the wrong signal to young black boys.
“Young boys—especially Black boys—watching their movie idol not just hit another man over a joke, but then justify it as him being a superhero-like protector, are now much more prone to follow in his childish footsteps. Perhaps the saddest confirmation of this is the tweet from Smith’s child Jaden: ‘And That’s How We Do It,'” the basketball legend wrote.
What’s Kareem’s main purpose for beating up on Will Smith over the slap?
“I just want this to be a cautionary tale for others not to romanticize or glorify bad behavior,” Kareem concluded.
Wait a minute, where has Kareem been on thousands of other cases of bad behavior? This was the final straw that turned into a column on this subject? Kareem must’ve been sleeping through Floyd Mayweather being jailed for beating up his girlfriend.
Kareem must’ve been reading a book as rap music has spent the last several decades featuring domestic violence as a way to sell music.
The cat’s been out of the bag, Kareem. There are already YouTube rap remixes for the slap.
Will Smith is just advancing what society has been seeing for years.
Is it a damn shame? Of course.

Would love to see Kareem debate the likes of Ben Shapiro or even Sam Harris when it comes to this kind of stuff. He would absolutely get destroyed (which is why you’ll never see it).
Stereotypes exist for a reason. They are usually rooted in facts, repeated over and over. There are stereotypes for every race, creed, gender, etc. Think about them. They all came from simple observation. Not rocket science.
Usually disagree with Kareem on everything but gotta give him props on this one. What I find amazing is that they did a survey of people to see who was wrong – Chris or Will – and a slight majority actually felt that Chris was in the wrong. So basically they support assaulting someone if you don’t like a joke!
He’s right 100%
don’t think will’s beef is with rock, it’s with the other guys fucking his wife and the whole world now knows about it. Get jiggy with that.
and when OJ sides with you, therapy not gonna help.
Jabbar views himself as a black intellectual. In reality, he’s a racist and anti semite. And not very bright.
What? So what happened in Charlottesville and January 6th Domestic Terrorist Attack on the Capitol was a “WHITE PEOPLE THING”?. What about the pediphille priest? Is that a whiteboy thing? Kareem has lost me on this one
“That Niggers Crazy” Richard Pryor white people things that’s a special kind of stupid BRO lol
That Honky Cracker Hougie can’t fight and got knocked the fuck out … I love Jeff Fox Worthy… if you can’t fight you might be a po trash honkey redneck who takes pictures of little naked boys ,.. Larry The Cable guy is hilarious…
“Super Nigger” Richard Pryor honkey cracker that’s some funny shiznit there steppin LOL