Will Smith Reminds Us Violence is an Option
In our enlightened world, we pretend not to condone violence. But the truth is a little more nuanced.
When I was a middle school student, I came to class sporting fresh stitches above my right eyebrow. A day earlier, I got sucker punched by a neighbor when I went over to his house to play basketball. He’d gotten involved in the wrong crowd and local gangs, and heard a rumor that I’d made fun of some girl I didn’t even know. He tossed me the basketball then haymakered my face.
Confused, I stumbled backward, touched my face, and laughed. “What was that for?” I asked.
A few years earlier, I’d gotten involved in martial arts because I’d been picked on relentlessly in my tweens, so I could take a punch. But when the crimson streak on my hand and warm gushing sensation on my face registered, I ran off crying. My parents would take me to get stitches, and the following day I wandered the halls, head down and ashamed as word spread throughout my school.
That event forced me to become much more serious in training, and by my senior year in high school, I was competing in bare-fisted, full contact tournaments. Once I turned 18, I joined the military. I learned how to use rifles, pistols, knives, and explosives to render a man nothing…
