2 Members of Congress Tweet, Then Delete, Support for Will Smith Slapping Chris Rock at Oscars
slap heard ’round the world, Bowman tweeted: “Teachable moment: Don’t joke about a Black woman’s hair.” Sent before the telecast was over, the Democrat from New York soon deleted the tweet – which of course lives on eternally in .jpeg form.Former Guardian and Daily Beast journalist Ben Jacobs captured the tweet before Bowman zapped it, later adding that he was “told” (source not disclosed) that Bowman’s “staff” thought at the time that the slap was merely a joke. (How a theoretically scripted fake feud could be leveraged as a culturally sensitive teachable moment was evidently not clarified by said staff.)Have been told that this was tweeted by staff on the congressman's account under the assumption that the assault was fake/scripted https://t.co/Ol3cmBTIRYBowman was joined in the chorus of two by Ayanna Pressley, who has good authority to speak on the appropriateness of Rock’s joke – the Democrat from Massachusetts herself has alopecia and, like Jada Pinkett Smith, proudly rocks a bald pate as a result.“#Alopecia nation stand up! Thank you #WillSmith,” she wrote.