About a week ago, I was scrolling through Twitter, in search of some mindless hilarity (as you do) and became aware very quickly that something was afoot. You know when the Tweetmosphere is abuzz with something but you're not sure what? Everyone is talking, jokes are being cracked, and you suddenly notice that there is a theme surrounding all the #hashtagged words? This was one of those times.
All I could see was #UpperCut this and #uppercut that and so on. So I delved into the story a bit more and found out that a girl in Cleveland, Ohio had been decked under the chin by a bus driver because she was rude to him and slapped him. Now reading those tweets, it actually sounded funny. I imagined a situation where she was perhaps being a pest and he brushed her off, kind of like when there are flies buzzing round your head and you are so tired of swatting that you wave them away without any particular conviction. That's what I pictured because all the tweets I saw, from both men and women, were finding this video hilarious.
At the time, I didn't feel the need to go check the video out for myself because it just seemed like a bother. But then this evening, I was thinking about opinions in general and how they are formed. How do you come to believe what you believe and how do you stand up for it? I realised that these days it is so easy to assimilate other people's views and begin to think they are your own, because those views are just out there, taken for granted, made into the mainstream. The only voice of reason I came across on the whole of Twitter, was @miafarradaily where she referred to the Upper Cut as 'battery'. At the time, I must admit, her comment seemed a bit odd and churlish, in the face of so much laughing and jesting. Can you imagine? Around when it happened, I remember laughing to another friend about the #UpperCut cartoons cropping up in Twitter. He got very stern and said could I please stop talking to him about it because anything that involved men hitting women, by default was unfunny to him, no matter how hilarious people claimed it was. Those still small voices of reason, isolated as they were then in the sea of tomfoolery, planted a seed and ultimately brought me to my senses. Tonight, I decided to find out what really happened by watching the video.
I was in two minds as to whether to post this video because I don't want to promote or give it any publicity whatsoever, but I think it is important for you to see it. To see how DISGUSTING it is.
Because I heard all over the internet it was funny, I just took that to be the case. The fact is this is not funny at all. This man could have killed her. Look at the sheer might he came down with, before dragging her bodily out of the bus and dumping her on the road, and then chucking her bags on top of her. I am the first to admit that she should never have hit him. She was wrong, very wrong; and is obviously a badly raised, ratchet, ghetto hoodrat. She obviously has no respect and no home training. I admit that. But he was more wrong. Did what she did warrant that level of abuse? I am not saying it would be OK if he shoved her. I do not agree with fighting and physical abuse going wither way, but my goodness, he gave her a pummeling. Her whole throat is going to be hurting for a long, long time.
Watching that video, I realised that this man has probably beaten many women before, and he probably enjoys it. Yes he was aggravated, but he was so swift to react and his beating was so accurately placed, that you can tell he knows exactly where it hurts. He knocked the wind out of her. She went limp. And then he threw her out from the height of the staircase onto the pavement. That man would have beaten her for less. He was a time bomb waiting to explode.
It is chilling to see the comments about the video on YouTube. Coupled with the comments I saw on Twitter, I realised that most people are OK with this. Most people find this funny. But actually, it is not funny. It is not funny at all. It is disgusting and distressing all at the same time. How are we here? Where men deck women across the face in public and everyone is OK with it. How does an older man whom you assume has seen her type before, and whom should really know by now to have ignored her, get so emotionally involved in the situation that he leaps out of his chair to box her? This is what they call #chopknuckle and not in the good way. This was not friendly, this was dastardly.
And this is not the only Big Slap we've had recently either. Who remembers this phrase, ('Slep me neuw. Slep me neuw beeetch')? That's from the most recent Big Brother Africa series, where a guy slapped a girl. Again, without wishing to promote violence on this blog, I had to post the video.
This is the second example we have in recent weeks where men have beaten women in front of the camera. Again, I admit she should not have gotten all up in his face, but boy, was his response crazy. I worry now that we have a generation of people, and especially MEN, the supposedly stronger, calmer, less reactive sex who have no self-control and no restraint. Men who are so volatile that all it takes is 1 bad woman out of 100 good ones they must meet in the course of daily life to send them over the edge of violence.
It is a problem, and I don't find it funny. Seeing this stuff desensitises you to it, and I worry about the already wayward generation coming up. By the time they've seen enough of this wanton violence on TV, will they begin to think it's acceptable behaviour. Will they think it is normal? Will they start to hit girls?
Your thoughts and 2 cents are very welcome. If you have read this post and are now struggling with your definition of what's funny and what isn't, I have posted a third video for you. This is definitely funny, because the person whose expense the jokes are at is the same person who posted it on YouTube. So we are laughing with her, not at her. Start at 1:35 and watch it to the end. Enjoy...
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