Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the famous basketball player, recently wrote a blog post about the Oscars ceremony incident where Will Smith assaulted Chris Rock live on stage.
At first glance the post seems quite agreeable: He strongly condemns the assault and finds it completely unacceptable. Any rational civilized person can get behind that sentiment.
However, when you start reading the post in more detail, you start finding some less-than-agreeable details about what Kareem's opinions actually are.
It becomes relatively clear that when he saw the assault, he didn't see one person assaulting another because of a lame joke. He didn't see this as an immoral and unethical action, which is also very illegal (and rightly so). At no point in his long post does he mention anything about morality and ethics, and how people should behave in a modern civilization. Moreover, at no point does he show any concern about the possibility of Chris Rock having been actually physically harmed, which is the main reason why physical assault is so condemnable (except in some very exceptional circumstances).
His main concern is not the morality and ethics of the action. His main concern seems to be what kind of negative light this puts black people into, what kind of rhetorical weapons this will give "the enemy" (his words, not mine), ie. the conservatives. Somehow he manages to shove in "abortion", "LGBT" and "voter suppression campaign" into it.
He doesn't see one person assaulting another. He's not concerned about the safety and well-being of the person that was assaulted. He's not concerned about the morality and ethical acceptability of this action, or even its legality.
He sees a black man attacking another black man. He doesn't see two people, he sees race. And the only thing he's concerned about is the image that this gives "the enemy". He's more concerned about politics and the conservatives than he's about Chris Rock and his health.
He's an idiot.
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