I remember at my previous job when I had to occasionally take passport photos for people. There are very specific guidelines on what is acceptable and not acceptable, as the conditions for acceptance are very strict.
One day a lady comes in with a hat on. Very friendly, and I get everything set up to take the picture.
I tell her to take off her hat because it's not allowed, and she is very reluctant to do so, asking if its okay to just leave it on, its a "special" hat. I told her that I could take the picture with her hat on, but it most likely would get denied. She then started breaking down started sobbing uncontrollably. For about 10 seconds I was dumfounded about why she was so upset about just keeping a hat on. Then it hit me.
That was legit one of the worst feelings I ever had in my life, and I never even commented (much less joked) about her appearance. That was a white lady at that.
Take that example and amplify it 10x for black women. They get chastised constantly for their hair texture, i've seen it. Considerations of marrying outside of their ethnicity so that their kids can have "that good hair". Destroying their scalp perming their hair. Don't yall remember the "nappy headed hoes" comment? Why do you think people got so upset about that? If a random person on the street said that shit about my mother, knowing what I know about what she has gone through, I absolutely could justify physical retaliation. Would I personally do it? Probably not, I'm not that type of person to fly off like that, but I'm not going to pretend that I can't see where the anger comes from. And I also don't have an issue with Will apologizing for it. As has been said many, many, many, many times in all of the threads of this incident (which have constantly gone ignored in favor of setting up a strawman of "savages condoning violence") I don't necessarily condone it, but i absolutely understand.
It's not just "words".
